Strymon BigSky Reverb Pedal Review (bought & tested)
Strymon BigSky Review Summary
The Strymon BigSky is an incredibly advanced and thorough delay box, able to articulate almost kind of ambient tone you can think of. As far as reverb pedals go, the BigSky is the complete package, in a class by itself.
The Strymon BigSky is one of the most popular reverb pedals on the market, in keeping with Strymon’s reputation for producing highly functional, great-sounding guitar pedals.
We bought the BigSky for the express purpose of writing this review, recording some sound samples, and taking a few of our own photos.
We’ve also included a weighted ratings system, a comparison table, and an objective look at the BigSky’s overall value.
You can shop the BigSky via the link below to support our site at no extra cost to you.
Read more: Best reverb pedals overall
The Strymon BigSky reverb pedal, ready for review.
Tone Quality
The BigSky’s ambient tone is extremely good, despite all the algorithms being digitally modeled. It’s one of the few digital reverb pedals we’ve tested that actually gives you an analog feel, like you’re getting it straight from your amplifier.
Its tone is also inextricably connected to its high degree of functionality.
There are 12 algorithms to try (types of reverb) which will take you awhile to get through, even if you don’t tweak the other settings that allow you to make a variety of adjustments to each sound. The tone of the reverb can essentially be anything you want, ranging from extremely subtle to fully engulfing your dry signal with a deep ethereal trail.
During our testing we ran through all the algorithms and tested as many different settings as we could, which I think are mostly covered in the above video.
Overall it’s a brighter reverb trail with some emphasis on your picking hand, but you can tweak the effect to sound however you could imagine a reverb sounding.
Tone Highlights and Descriptors
- Bright with a picking hand emphasis
- Long reverb trails with a wide range of saturation
- Crisp, clean-sounding ambience
- Has the vibrancy and feel of an analog reverb pedal
Control and Functionality
We’d recommend checking out Strymon’s BigSky page for a rundown of controls and what they do. You can also checkout the BigSky’s user manual.
For my this review, I’d like to focus on my experience using the controls and how they reacted.
My method was to run through each algorithm, then test the impact all five control knobs had on them. Keep in mind, not all controls apply to every algorithm. Note that PARAM1 and PARAM2 are programmable presets that can change depending on how you have them banked (set by the VALUE knob).
The other five knobs were my primary focus:
With the BigSky we had the following five controls to work with:
- Decay
- Pre-Delay
- Mix
- Tone
- Mod (modulation)
The banking features are a big part of the control scheme, which worked well, but weren’t a significant part of our testing process. Instead, we just focused on the sounds that you could quickly access out of the box.
We found that MIX and DECAY seemed to have the widest range of impact on most of the algorithms. In fact, I could have done a lot with the pedal just from those two knobs. Pushing the mix high gave you an almost entirely ambient tone, where you only heard reverb trails.
This “testing tactic” is a good way to bring out just the sound quality of the pedal (and not mix it with your dry signal), and we thought it still sounded exceptionally good.
Decay allowed you to lengthen the trail of your reverb, which also seemed to put some added emphasis on the trail of your reverb tone.
The modulation and pre-delay controls were far more subtle, but still a useful additive for a thicker, more layered tone.
Adjustments to the tone knobs let you EQ the effect, but in most cases I thought it sounded best left at 12 o’clock.
Control Highlights
- Tons of banking and preset options
- MIX and DECAY knobs do a lot of the heavy lifting
- Learning curve for the banking system is a little steep
- Modulation and Pre-Delay controls make subtle changes
Cost and Value of the Strymon BigSky
The BigSky is an expensive reverb pedal, retailing for around $480 in almost all places that sell it, including Strymon’s own website:
Third party retailers like Sweetwater sell the BigSky for around the same price, if not a bit higher. Sweetwater usually carries it for about $480 and they’re our preferred retailer.
Oddly, used prices don’t tend to drop much, and we usually don’t see it for less than $400.
Here’s a shot of where it stood on Reverb.com the day of writing this review:
By most standards this is an extremely expensive pedal, which is one of the few downsides.
When compared to cheaper options like the TC Electronic Hall of Fame and Boss RV-6, it’s hard to justify the expense of the BigSky outside of a situation where you use the reverb effect a lot, regularly play live, or work as a studio guitarist.
You’ll also find that a pedal like the BigSky has more value for those that play with a lot of clean tone, perhaps in a pop, soft rock, or Christian contemporary worship context.
Conclusion
For a lot of guitar players, the ambient pedals developed by Strymon are the standard bearers, and the BigSky is a big part of them achieving that type of success.
You’ll have to decide for yourself if the price tag is worth it, but we can say that in terms of pure tone quality and functionality, we’ve yet to find a better reverb pedal. There aren’t even many pedals that compete with the BigSky in that regard.
If you want more information on the BigSky or other reverb pedals, we’ve listed some resources below that might be helpful:
Your Questions and Comments
If you have questions about our review of the Strymon BigSky or something else mentioned in this piece, feel free to drop me a line in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to help out.
