Strymon wants you to Leave Your Amp At Home and get instead Iridium

With Iridium Strymon pushes pedal design to wrap world-class amps driving perfectly-matched speaker cabinets in great-sounding rooms.

Iridium is driving pedal design to wrap world-class amps driving perfectly matched speaker cabinets in great-sounding rooms. It wants to do the magic by providing easy access to three iconic amplifiers with loadable impulse response speaker cabinets that complement the tonality of the amp and lush room ambiance aimed at pedalboard-based performance directly into a recording interface or PA (public address) system.

Iridium Specs

• Three amplifier models crafted using Matrix Modeling™, capturing the subtleties and unique tonal qualities of each amp
  • Round Amp – based on* a Fender® Deluxe Reverb®
  • Chime Amp – based on* the Brilliant channel of a Vox® AC30
  • Punch Amp – based on* a Marshall® Plexi (Super Lead model number 1959)

• Nine Impulse Response speaker cabinets, 24bit / 96kHz 500ms
  Stereo (three per amp type), pre-loaded with a curated set of IRs:
  • Deluxe Reverb 1×12″ by OwnHammer
  • Blues Junior® 1×12″ by CabIR
  • Vibrolux® 2×10″ by CabIR
  • AC30 2×12″AlNiCo by OwnHammer
  • 1×12″ AlNiCo by Celestion®
  • Mesa® 4×12″ by Valhallir
  • GNR 4×12″ by OwnHammer
  • 2×12″ Vintage 30 by Celestion
  • Marshall® 8×12″AlNiCo by CabIR
  • Load your own impulse responses using Strymon Impulse Manager software
• Hybrid IR/algorithmic Room control with selectable small, medium, and
• large rooms
• Simple, responsive amp-style controls for Drive, Level, Bass, Middle,
• and Treble
• Premium stereo high impedance discrete JFET analog front end with
• up to 22dB of pure analog gain

Tube Amp

Nothing quite matches the true nature of a guitar and its playing like a world-class tube amp driving a perfectly-matched speaker cabinet in a great-sounding room. With Strymon’s timely addition of Iridium to its ever-expanding line of pedals pushing the limits of what is possible with music gear using exceptionally great components and ridiculously powerful processors to make gear that sounds better.

IRIDIUM – AMP & IR CAB

Discover inspiring tube amp responsiveness, unprecedented impulse response speaker cabinet realism, and controllable natural-sounding room ambiance — as implied by the AMP & IR cab wording subtly splashed across its foot-friendly top panel.

Nine Stereo IR Cabinets

Iridium’s speaker cabinets offer a level of realism and responsiveness unprecedented in outboard effects. Iridium delivers full stereo 24bit 96kHz resolution for the entire 500 milliseconds of its speaker cabinet impulse responses. Until now, IRs of this resolution has only been available for use within studio recording software. Iridium’s breakthrough technology means you can use the very best impulse responses available, bringing maximum realism to your pedalboard.

Nine Lifelike Cabs

• Deluxe Reverb® 1×12″ by OwnHammer
  The impulse of a vintage Fender® Deluxe Reverb 1×12″ open-back combo with a 1978 Fender CTS ceramic 12″ speaker.
• Blues Junior® 1×12″ by cabIR
  An impulse of a 1×12″ Blues Junior cabinet with a Jensen® C12N speaker.
• Vibrolux® 2×10″ by cabIR
  The impulse of a 1965 Fender Vibrolux 2×10″ with Jensen C10NS speakers.
• AC30 2×12″ AlNiCo by OwnHammer
  An impulse of a Vox® AC30/6 open-back 2×12″ combo with 2001 Celestion® T0530 Blue AlNiCo speakers.
• 1×12″ AlNiCo by Celestion
  The impulse of a Celestion Blue AlNiCo speaker in a closed-back 1×12″ cab.
• Mesa® 4×12″ by Valhallir
  An impulse of a 4×12″ Mesa Boogie halfback with two Celestion Black Shadow® MC-90 and two ElectroVoice® Black Shadow EVM12-L speakers.
• GNR 4×12″ by OwnHammer
  The impulse of a 1971 Marshall® 1960B “basketweave” 4×12″ cabinet with 1971 Celestion T1221 G12M-25 speakers.
• 2×12″ Vintage 30 by Celestion
  An impulse of a Celestion Vintage 30 in an open back 2×12″ cab.
• Marshall 8×12″ AlNiCo by cabIR
  The impulse of a 1965 Marshall 8×12″ re-issue full stack cabinet, with Celestion T652 AlNiCo speakers.

IR Technology

Impulse responses allow the sound and character of a mic’d speaker cabinet to be captured so that any audio signal can be processed by the resulting impulse response and sound as if it’s being played through that exact speaker cabinet. Iridium is able to deliver impulse response resolution far greater than any other piece of outboard gear.

With full 24bit 96kHz resolution for the entire 500 milliseconds of its speaker cabinet impulse responses, Iridium is able to use the absolute highest quality IRs available. This means countless details are accurately preserved and reproduced to give you a completely real speaker response. Every cabinet resonance, speaker vibration, as well as reflections between the cabinet, the mic, the floor, and the ceiling; all the minuscule cues that tell our brain we are listening to our favorite cabinet are preserved, providing completely lifelike realism.

Strymon’s Matrix Modeling

Behind the scenes, Strymon’s Matrix ModelingTM process captures all the subtleties and unique tonal qualities of each amplifier — from the unique composition of each tone stack to component values, bias levels, corner frequencies, and tube stage gain, all of which affect the way a note or chord reacts and evolves over time. Taking three iconic tube amps with distinct characters, the powerful processing effects developer has mathematically modeled every aspect of their circuitry with absolute precision to deliver the response, feel, and inspiring experience of playing through the original amps at their best. But taking that process a step further, each AMP — round, chime, and punch — has been hot-rodded to provide an extended range of tonal options above and beyond what was available from the original designs.

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Those tube amps everyone has always craved after are available in Iridium. First up, by being based on a Fender Deluxe Reverb® — one of the most recorded amps in history for good reason, the round is clean, bright, and mid-scooped, with plenty of headroom. At higher DRIVE settings it delivers an overdriven sound unique to its architecture. As such, Strymon chose the Deluxe’s Normal channel for its round tone that plays well with pedals. Put it this way: while preserving access to all the tones originally available with this channel, Strymon’s model provides something extra — namely, a MIDDLE (midrange) control. Positioned at noon, it delivers the original fixed-resistor value and standard tonal characteristics of the Deluxe; turn it down for a more scooped sound, or turn it up for tweed-era tones.

The chime AMP is based on the Brilliant channel of a Vox® AC30TB, the amp that defined the guitar sound of the British Invasion. Strymon’s model of the AC30TB Brilliant channel — Top Boost — is jangly, bright, and chime-y, providing air for subtle passages with a light touch, and bite when digging in is needed. This time, the MIDDLE knob acts as a tone cut control, providing high-end roll-off just before the power tubes, as per the original AC30TB design. In addition to the full available gain of the original amp, Strymon saw fit to add a frequency-shaped front end boost towards the top end of the DRIVE knob’s range of travel to tighten the low end while driving the amp further into saturation.

The powerful punch AMP is based on a Marshall® Plexi (Super Lead model number 1959). This is meatier, with higher gain than the other two amps, and has a powerful midrange response. It also features a buttery, smooth overdrive. At higher DRIVE settings it will deliver all the high gain distortion and growl that this amp is known for — and then some! Setting the DRIVE control at around 2 o’clock results in the maximum gain the original Plexi design allowed. But beyond that, Strymon’s model has some additional gain on tap, allowing access to custom hot-rodded Plexi high gain tones.

True to the tone stacks of the classic amps that Strymon meticulously modeled, Iridium’s tone controls have the same interdependences as those found in the original circuit designs. Indeed, Iridium provides amp EQ that is a joy to use, yielding a wide variety of great tones in any which way its users choose to go with it. It is, quite simply, a snap to dial in a direct tone that will truly inspire and sound great, whether monitoring through in-ears, floor wedges, reference monitors, or studio headphones.

Iridium’s speaker cabinets offer a level of realism and responsiveness unprecedented in outboard effects. Iridium delivers full-stereo 24-bit/96kHz resolution for the entire 500 milliseconds of its speaker cabinet impulse responses. IRs of this resolution have hitherto only been available for use within studio recording software. So Iridium’s breakthrough technology means that users can access the very best impulse responses available, bringing maximum realism to their pedalboard.

Availibility

Strymon is accepting orders for Iridium via the Strymon Store to North America for $399.00 USD (plus tax and shipping) or through its growing global network of authorized dealers.