Strymon BigSky

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.

12 Unique Reverb Machines

Hall
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.

Plate
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.

Spring
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.

Swell
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.

Bloom
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.

Cloud
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.

Chorale
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 multitude of voices.

Shimmer
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.

Magneto
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.

Nonlinear
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.

Reflections
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

Room
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.

Features:

Simple Yet Powerful Controls
We’ve gone to extraordinarily lengths to craft BigSky to empower your creativity without getting in the way of it. We’ve hand-picked the most essential reverb controls, and tailored their range and functionality so that sounds can be created effortlessly without extended tweaking.

300 Built-In Presets
BigSky gives you the option to instantly save and recall up to 300 of your own presets. Easily bank up or down through your presets using the front panel switches. Give each preset its own custom name to appear on the display. You can even select presets via an external MIDI controller.

Expression Pedal Control
Plug in an expression pedal and control any knob or combination of knobs, including parameters assigned to Param knobs, all saveable per preset. Or plug in an external momentary Tap switch for remote control of Pre-Delay (or Decay time with the Magneto and Nonlinear machines).

Cab Filter
There are occasionally times as guitarists where we don’t use guitar amplifiers. You might be using a full-range PA system, recording direct, or using headphones. Because reverb pedals are usually placed last in your effects chain, we felt that BigSky could provide more utility for these situations. Just turn on the selectable Cab Filter to engage our sophisticated speaker response curve. Your dirt pedals will sound amp-like, and your clean guitar will have a present yet rounded response.

Assignable Knobs
Do you like to tweak some knobs more than others? BigSky gives you the ability to assign custom parameters to the two Param knobs on the front panel, all saveable per preset. Bring your most used menu parameters to the front panel, allowing a very quick way to tweak your sound on the fly.

Infinite Sustain / Freeze
Press-and-hold your active preset footswitch to activate either Infinite Sustain or Freeze, configurable per preset. Infinite Sustain allows your reverbs to continue infinitely, with each new note you play adding to the reverb signal. Freeze also delivers infinite sustain, but allows you to play new notes on top of the sustain without adding to the reverb.

Spillover / Reverb Persist
Engage Spillover to allow reverb decays to “spill over” from one preset to the next. You can also turn on Reverb Persist to allow your reverb decay trails to continue even after you hit bypass.

Extensive MIDI Support
Have a more complex rig? BigSky offers a complete MIDI implementation to connect to your MIDI gear. Remote control any knob, parameter, or switch. Select your presets via MIDI. Organize and back up your presets to your Mac or PC using a MIDI to USB adapter and our Librarian software.

Specifications
Sound Desgin

• 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

Hardware

• Three rugged metal footswitches for preset selection and effect bypass
• LED display for preset info, reverb decay time, and extended parameter control
• Multi-color preset LEDs (green for active preset, amber for edited preset)
• Full MIDI implementation allows extended control for those with more complex rigs
• Sturdy and lightweight light blue anodized aluminum chassis, with laser-etched artwork
• Durable black anodized aluminum knobs
• Studio-grade audio input and output jacks

Ins & Outs

• 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)

Audio Quality

• 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

Processor

• 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

Others

• 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