Strymon Cloudburst Ambient Reverb Pedal

Strymon Cloudburst Ambient Reverb Pedal Overview

Instant Ambient Bliss

Sometimes a single pedal can be transformative. It can make your tone bloom in a way that draws the music out of you effortlessly and keeps you engaged for hours. Cloudburst simply produces some of the most gorgeous ambient reverb sounds you’ve ever heard. There is no other pedal like it.

Celestial String Ensemble

Cloudburst’s Ensemble switch reveals a new world of captivating sounds never heard before from a reverb pedal. Use Ensemble subtly to add harmonically rich otherworldly dimensions to your ambient reverb soundscape, or use it liberally to hear a lush synthesized string section swell under your guitar playing. Ensemble reacts to your entire guitar signal smoothly, organically, and musically for a richly responsive and inspiring playing experience.

From Amp-In-A-Closet to Infinite Space

Cloudburst is several distinct reverbs in one, with beautifully tuned, natural-sounding small spaces at one end of the Decay knob, and vast, expansive atmospheres at the other. As you turn the Decay control, numerous internal parameters are automatically adjusted, allowing this ambient reverb pedal to produce outstanding studio-quality rooms of any size at the turn of a single knob.

Compact With No Compromises

All the premium components, sound quality, and roadworthiness you expect from a Strymon reverb pedal are in Cloudburst’s new compact format. It’s got our discrete JFET analog front end, ultra-quiet 116dB signal-to-noise performance, a powerful ARM Superscalar processor, stereo input/output, and full MIDI control. Featuring unbeatable ease of use and producing some of the finest reverb sounds we’ve ever created, Cloudburst could easily be the only reverb pedal you need on your pedalboard.

Sound Design

With Cloudburst, we had some very high goals in mind. Foremost was creating the best-sounding single reverb algorithm we possibly could. We knew that at high decay settings, we wanted to provide the spacious experiences that are available from BigSky’s Cloud algorithm, and then we set about tailoring the short end of the decay range to generate a huge variety of natural-sounding, studio-quality smaller spaces.

Second, we wanted to provide a whole new variety of sounds never before heard from a reverb pedal with the addition of our new Ensemble effect. This effect’s design ensures a seamless, natural, and artifact-free interaction with the reverb and with your guitar signal. With the Ensemble switch in its mezzo piano (or “moderately soft”) position, it can subtly enhance the character of the reverberated signal, while in its forte setting, it can yield huge string ensemble effects reminiscent of vintage polyphonic string machine synthesizers.

Finally, we wanted to create a pedal that was the most simple and intuitive to use of any product we’d ever designed. So with Cloudburst, there are no secondary or “hidden” functions. The pedal is controlled by just a few knobs and a switch exactly as they are labelled, so you can instantly dial up the perfect sound with no learning curve required.

Decay

The Decay knob on Cloudburst does some serious heavy lifting. Not only does it control the duration of the reverb tail, but it also dramatically transforms the character of the reverb via numerous continuous under-the-hood adjustments, allowing you to discover countless new musical and inspiring sounds at different points all along the dial. Even tiny adjustments of this knob can yield noticeable changes to the character of the reverb.

Ensemble

Coudburst’s Ensemble effect works by continuously analyzing 48 different frequency bands from your input signal, and generating upper harmonic partials of what it finds in each frequency band as you play. Rather than generating a static, synthetic signal based on pitch detection, Ensemble is a dynamic, organic effect that generates harmonics based on your playing and that varies its sonic character depending on real-time factors like where you pick, which pickup you use, and the volume envelope of what you play. The result is a gorgeous string ensemble-like expansion of your reverberated signal that creates a unique and unforgettable playing and listening experience.

Mix

Controls the reverb mix from full dry at minimum to full wet at maximum. A 50/50 mix occurs at approximately 3 o’clock on the knob. Additional power-up options allow for kill-dry (for use in effects loops) as well as an analog dry path option. Use moderate mix settings and darker tone settings combined with short decay times to create a variety of realistic small spaces, or soar through huge ambient cloudscapes with liberal mix settings and high decay times.

Pre-delay

Pre-delay lets you add space between your dry signal and reverb — a handy tool for maintaining clarity when using higher Mix and Decay settings. Also useful for creating swells or blooms after notes or chords. With short decay times, Cloudburst’s pre-delay can be used to create reverberant slap-back echoes.

Tone

Controls the amount of high frequencies within the reverb, with a damped high end at minimum to no damping at maximum. Set the Decay knob to tailor the sound of your reverb, or control it with an expression pedal to create dramatic effects in combination with long Decay times and Ensemble.

Modulation

There is a certain magic to the lush effects that can be created by modulating the lengths of the individual delay lines responsible for the reflections in a reverb tank. Cloudburst’s MOD control can take this a few steps further, especially when used together with Ensemble, where high MOD settings can create a fast, synth-like vintage science fiction pitch modulation.