Strymon Iridium

[fuzzjunkie]

I have heard a few clips of these that weren’t marketing both clean and with fuzz, and they do sound impressive. It sounds like it responds like an Amp with articulation and harmonics depending on what you feed it.

One thing I hadn’t thought of, because I have always placed echo and reverb effects before the amp, was that on a pedalboard you can place those pedals after the Iridium.

I understand why someone would want an effect loop where time delay effects come after the preamp, but I have always preferred the sound of it all meshing together.

In a recording situation though, it’s almost always preferable to add them after the amp and commit to a certain sound later. Since the Iridium has stereo in and outs, you can. Although I would probably still place them before, because that’s just how I roll.

[Larry Mal]

I have one on the way. I'm really looking forward to it. I plan to use it for recording, and it'll be nice having a hardware unit with some limitations. I tend to use stuff like Amplitube and whatnot, and it's OK, but frankly it all tries to be just... too much. Menu after menu and there's maybe a couple usable sounds in the whole package.

I'll write up a little review in a couple of weeks.

[somanytoys]

I’m the same way, I don’t usually use effects in the effects loops of my amps. Some of my amps don’t have effects loops, and also it would require a second set of stereo routing cables to & from the pedalboard to the amp.
Newp, not having it - it all goes straight into the preamps.

I like the idea of that, it seems really cool, and they’re doing such great things digitally now with amp modeling and cab sims. I like my little Yamaha THR 10-C, which is somewhat similar, and I think can go direct thru usb to record, but I haven’t bothered with that. I also have an Iconoclast cab emulator, but haven’t used it a whole lot.

They’re about the same price, but I got the Yamaha to use as an outside and travel amp, which it works well for. So the Iridium would only be for playing thru a pa, or recording direct. That would be really convenient for doing those, but I could only use it that way unless I got a separate powered speaker or whatever.

I’m very curious to know what you think about it Larry, please do some posts about it.

Maybe one day I’ll decide to sell off a couple of amps or something, and move even closer to joining the Dark Side.

[Larry Mal]

Yeah, I'll be sure to post a review and maybe a recording with it assuming I can dial in anything good. I'm excited to get it. I haven't ever been really thrilled with virtual amps and have higher hopes for this.

Although, one of the first things I'll do when I buy a house is set up a proper guitar recording environment. I will probably get one of those sEelectronics guitar isolation things:

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... ion-filter

And then get a couple of mics on my amp, throw a blanket over the whole contraption and call it a day. If I get a wall set up with sound deadening stuff then maybe I won't need the blanket.

But I have hopes that the Iridium comes in useful regardless.

[cestlamort]

I recently got one specifically to do some home recording (upgrading from the Tech21 blonde, especially since I'm leaning in to running in stereo) as well as potentially something useful to have on hand if we do any quick fly-in shows again or European train tours. (I figure if I can save some hours of studio time, it'll pay for itself eventually, after selling some stuff from the not-getting-used pedal pile, which will soon include the Tech21).

I've only used it with headphones so far, but I'm really really impressed. The "Fender" sounds like a Fender (even though I wish it were modelling one with a bit more heft), the "Vox" sounds voxy, and the "Marshall" sounds like me playing cruddy punk rock, just like when I (briefly) had a JCM800. In all of them, it also just sounds "good". (Not sure about "great" yet, but maybe).

I'm considering trying it in conjunction with a real amp for stereo stuff live (Left = real amp, right = model, which is always on the other side of the stage anyway).

Still just a few hours into using it, but it sounds way, way better than I'd expected. (I'd probably best be served by an Iridium Jr of just a "Fender" for half the price, but I understand why they didn't do it. Nice also to not feel the need to buy a Marshall out of curiosity again unless I go all in there, which is more than a little unlikely).

[Unicorn Warrior]

I have one on the way. I'm really looking forward to it. I plan to use it for recording, and it'll be nice having a hardware unit with some limitations. I tend to use stuff like Amplitube and whatnot, and it's OK, but frankly it all tries to be just... too much. Menu after menu and there's maybe a couple usable sounds in the whole package.

I'll write up a little review in a couple of weeks.

Excited to hear your take on it. Still haven’t bit the bullet and got one.

[redchapterjubilee]

I've had one since November. I've used it for demos by itself and in dual mono with other amps for keeper recordings. I've also used it once onstage in a direct to PA situation playing against drum machines and synthesizers. It's a good tool for all those uses. I can dial up a reasonable facsimile of my live amp tone on the Round setting and wound up recording mostly on the Chime and Blue setting. I've not found much use for the Plexi settings yet, but that's not really my voice.

What I like most about the Iridium is that it is dead easy to use. I find the room setting really does sound like what it says it does. I had an Ampli-Firebox before this and I spent countless hours messing with it plugged into the computer, loading IR's and messing with EQ and such, and I never really got it dialed in. A few minutes with the Iridium and I'm tracking. Reminds me a lot of my old Pod that way. What I haven't done with it is mess with the IR's at all, or use it in stereo on its own. I haven't felt the need to yet. I don't like any of the three settings with the gain into the "hot rod" settings (past 2 o'clock). I find it starts to congest up there. So I prefer to keep the gain closer to noon and hit it with pedals. It responds very well to having the front end punched. When I use the Round setting I wind up the mids all the way and it does behave somewhat like my tweed Deluxe clone. I may toss in an alnico IR in there to get it a little closer.

Here's a shitty recording of me practicing for that synth and drum machine and direct Iridium show with it. That's Round setting on the first IR setting. No room, mids dimed, bass at noon, treble at 2pm, gain at 1 o'clock, punched at times with my Upstate Analog Rat (he made it weird so it's not exact Rat) and El Capistan. JM with Pickup Wizard P90 as well.
https://soundcloud.com/greatunwashedlum ... al-1-18-20

[Unicorn Warrior]

I think I’m going to have to go for it sooner rather than later. Yesterday I found myself playing in a huge room. Did not have a mic to go through the house. The JC-120 could have been turned up, but it would have killed everyone on stage. The room was too big (wide and high) to manage. The iridium through the system would have taken care of it

[marqueemoon]

This is tempting. I've had mild GAS for a UA OX for a while, but I am also cheap and lazy.

[somanytoys]

After I read some reviews here, by some hopefully happy owners, I may need to think about it.

I haven’t used the Iconoclast speaker sim very much, and so probably haven’t gotten very good at it. But it does seem to need a preamp to get a good sound (to me), as opposed to using just pedals or even an amp in a box.

I got a RAH specifically for that, and used a Galileo pedal (because it’s stereo), but I felt that it still needed something to make the overall sound going into it more full, so I used the preamp section of a Bugera T5. I could only use it on very low settings with that, because it wanted to clip the iconoclast out very quickly. Maybe I should try the Colourbox, the IVP preamp or thebDisry Box pedals with it, that may be a game changer.

I need to try it again and see what I can do with it, but the idea of the “Big 3” amps modeled AND cab sims is very appealing - if it does a good job.

[Larry Mal]

So I'm gonna go ahead and give this a quick thumbs up from me. I like it.

A couple of quibbles, you turn the gain up, you add a lot of noise. That kind of disappoints me but I could gain stage it later and add distortion down the road if I wanted to.

Also, it sounds great and it does a good job of being an amp. I still feel a need to add delay and such in the box, but I guess that's to be expected. I mean, you would need pedals for any of these amps, also.

But it is inspiring, fun to use, easy to use, a lot of sounds in there and it helps me write music. It does what I thought it would and it will probably get more use than my plug in amps, that's for sure.

I also put my Princeton Recording in the basement because I don't really use it anyway in the apartment, and this Iridium will make it moot for now.

I'd say it does what they say it does.

[dm_cambridge_ma]

Does anyone think the Marshall setting sounds like hot trash?
I have the Iridium. Love the Fender tone. Never knew I’d like a Vox, but it’s useful.
Marshall sounds brittle. Like, tinfoil speaker cones. In contrast, a Dirty Little Secret in front of the Iridium on Fender setting is a fantastic Marshall sound. Playing an 82 es-335 here.

[Larry Mal]

Thumbs down on the Iridium. I sold it, it's shipping out today. It was far less versatile for my needs than my software was.

I could see it being useful for a live setting, maybe in a worship setting.

It sounded weird to me. Uninspiring. Usually when you see a video about it, there's a bunch of other effects along with it. It sounds good like that. It sounds boring and lame to me otherwise.

[Unicorn Warrior]

Thumbs down on the Iridium. I sold it, it's shipping out today. It was far less versatile for my needs than my software was.

I could see it being useful for a live setting, maybe in a worship setting.

It sounded weird to me. Uninspiring. Usually when you see a video about it, there's a bunch of other effects along with it. It sounds good like that. It sounds boring and lame to me otherwise.

My main, draw to it was the amp sound. So, what is your software?

[Larry Mal]

I have a few, Waves GTR, Amplitube, and Guitar Rig. Maybe some other stuff around there.

Maybe I'm just used to that stuff now, but when I kept going to Iridium I would spend a lot of times getting not very close to sounds I already had.

Like, if you already had a bunch of effects that you liked, and were willing to treat Iridium only as an amp without a speaker, then it would be good. But that just wasn't quite what I was using it for.

It was too expensive to just keep around, so I let it go. I'm not saying it was a bad product for other people.