Strymon Big Sky Multidimensional Reverb

Clear Skies Ahead.

Plug into BigSky and instantly lift your sound into the stratosphere. The world below you fades into the distance, and you’re elevated into a glow of lush, glorious, radiant reverbs.

To create a reverb experience as natural, beautiful, and immersive as BigSky required tremendous feats of sound engineering and artistic imagination. Using the fundamentals of acoustical science as our beacon, we carefully studied and scientifically analyzed reverb technology from the past fifty years. We faithfully captured the essence of these classic sounds, and forged ahead to dream up our vision of reverbs from the future.

Go where no reverb has gone before.

Feel the mechanical tension of the Spring reverbs. Hear the floating particles of the Cloud machine. Defy the laws of physics with the Nonlinear reverbs. Unleash the multi-head reverberations of the Magneto machine. BigSky gives you twelve studio-class reverb machines, each with simple yet powerful controls.

1. Room Reverb

A versatile room algorithm that creates environments ranging from well-tuned studio ambience to larger night club acoustics. The Tone knob, Diffusion and Low End parameters adjust the damping and scattering effects of room materials, furniture, and people.

2. Hall Reverb

Diffused reflections and slower-building density are the hallmarks of this beautiful and versatile reverb. The Concert size is well-balanced, spacious and warm, while the Arena size is huge, enveloping and booming.

3. Plate Reverb

The Plate machine is a rich, fast-building reverb that creates depth without early reflection cues to a specific environment. The Tone knob and Low End parameter are simple but powerful frequency shaping tools.

4. Spring Reverb

The standalone spring tank became a staple of surf and spaghetti-western music that developed in the ’60s. The Spring machine allows for complete customization from warm and mellow to splashy and dripping with its Tone and Mix Controls, Dwell parameter, and selectable number of springs.

5. Swell Reverb

The Swell machine brings in the reverb gradually behind the dry signal for subtle evolving textures, like having a volume pedal on the wet signal. Alternatively, you can choose to have the dry signal swelled into the reverb, for maximum ambience and atmosphere.

6. Bloom Reverb

In the ‘90s, more diffusion blocks were added to reverbs to ‘smooth out’ the sound. A side effect of this was the tendency of the reverbs to have a slowly building envelope that ‘bloomed’, resulting in big ambient reverbs that sit nicely with the dry signal even at high Mix levels. The Bloom reverb features a ‘bloom generating’ section that feeds into a traditional reverb ‘tank’, and adds a unique Feedback parameter that expands the possibilities exponentially.

7. Cloud Reverb

A gorgeously big, ambient reverb that draws from techniques developed in the late ’70s. Using processing power not dreamed of in those days, the Cloud reverb machine obscures the distinction between reality and fantasy.

8. Chorale Reverb

A vocal choir accompanies your music. Choose vowel ranges and intensities to customize your choir as it sings in venues that vary with the Decay knob. As the Modulation is increased, the choir becomes alive with a multitude of voices.

9. Shimmer Reverb

Two tunable voices add pitch-shifted tones to the reverberated signal, for resplendent, unearthly ambience. The voices are carefully created from the reverberated signal itself to generate maximum radiance and beauty. The Amount and Mode parameters allow for a range of shimmer effects from laid-back and subtle to full-blown majestic splendor.

10. Magneto Reverb

A new style of music emerged in the late ’50s, featuring the guitar as the ‘lead voice’ enhanced by the reverberated wash of a multi-head echo. The Magneto machine sets up a multi-head echo with all heads on, while the PreDelay knob adds feedback. The Diffusion parameter adds a new dimension of ambience, smearing the response of the heads and blurring the line between delay and reverb.

11. Nonlinear Reverb

A variety of physics-defying reverb shapes are available for special effects and unique textures. Choose from three ‘backwards’ shapes (Swoosh, Reverse, and Ramp), or a Gate and more. Feedback control, Late Reverb, and Diffusion parameters allow for a vast array of time-warped possibilities.

12. Reflections Reverb

The Reflections machine is a psycho-acoustically accurate small-space reverb that allows you to move your amp anywhere in the room. The Reflections algorithm precisely calculates 250 reflections based on the source position within the chosen room shape. The psycho-acoustic modifiers adjust for human auditory perception to create unparalleled ambient-space realism to dry instrument or vocal tracks

Features

Presets, Expression Pedal Control, Cab Filter, Assignable Knobs, and more.

Hand crafted, studio-class reverb algorithms deliver lush, gorgeous, and musically inspiring reverb experiences
Twelve reverb machines to choose from: Room, Hall, Plate, Spring, Swell, Bloom, Cloud, Chorale, Shimmer, Magneto, Nonlinear, Reflections
Seven front-panel tone shaping knobs: Decay, Pre-Delay, Mix, Tone, Mod, Param 1, Param 2 (Param knobs assignable per preset)
Additional menu parameters allow for easy customization of reverb sounds
300 easily accessible and namable presets
Press-and-hold Infinite Sustain and Freeze functions, saveable per preset
Spillover and Reverb Persist modes, saveable per preset
Selectable Speaker Cabinet emulation for direct-to-PA gigs or recording applications
Stereo input and output
Expression pedal input with selectable control over any knob or combination of knobs, saveable per preset (also configurable as external tap input)
MIDI input and output
Included 9V center-negative power supply (300mA minimum required)
Analog dry path for a zero latency dry signal that is never converted to digital
Premium analog front end and output section
Ultra low noise, high performance 24-bit 96kHz A/D and D/A converters
115dB typical signal to noise at 50% wet mix (120db at 100% dry mix, 109dB at 100% wet mix)
20Hz to 20kHz frequency response
+8dBu maximum input level easily handles instrument and line signals
Super high performance DSP in a compact form factor
32-bit floating point processing
366MHz SIMD SHARC processor core, capable of 2.4 Gigaflops peak performance
True Bypass (electromechanical relay switching)
High quality, tranparent Analog Buffered Bypass mode
+/- 3dB Boost/Cut, saveable per preset
Optional Kill Dry mode mutes dry signal, for use in parallel effects loops
Dimensions: 6.75″ (171mm) wide, 5.1″ (130mm) deep
Designed and Built in the USA