GEAR REVIEW
STRYMON CLOUDBURST AMBIENT REVERB | Mitch Bohannon
KEY FEATURES
• Ambient reverb pads that follow your playing
• USB-C connectivity
• Small footprint
• Ensemble switch = String section
• MIDI Capable
Guitar players know Strymon . Quality sound and quality build . On worship pedalboards , they have become gold standards whether it ’ s the Timeline or the Big Sky , the Blue Sky or El Capitan or Flint , they are all desirable and sought after . I expect to see “# NPD ” ( New Pedal Day ) posts on Instagram full of the Cloudburst soon .
A little backstory , a few weeks ago , I received a text from my son-in-law , Michael Bennett sending a Cloudburst video and asking , “ Have you seen this ?” Now , Michael doesn ’ t have a pedal board and never sends me pedal videos , but this is one he is wanting ! Turns out my son , Sam , was eyeing it at the same time ... Sam wants it for his electric setup , Michael wants it for his acoustic setup . So , we ’ re going to try it on both .
Starting with some specs , the Cloudburst has a stereo TRS input and stereo TRS output . On the back side , there ’ s also an expression pedal input … and you ’ ll need a 9v power supply . The main input will automatically detect whether you are using stereo or mono in or out … and a USB port for access to Strymon ’ s Nixie editor / librarian software that will be released soon . At the top you have a control for DECAY , PRE- DELAY , TONE , MOD , and MIX with a switch to add in the new Ensemble feature . The Expression Pedal input also accepts MIDI , so if you have a MIDI controller for your board , this will fit right in . There ’ s plenty to dive into and from what I ’ ve seen and heard to this point , this is no ordinary reverb pedal . In addition , if you add a mini-switch , you will have the ability to use Infinite or Freeze mode where you can hold a chord with the pedal and solo over it !
First , I took the pedal to Sam ’ s church so he could set it up on his pedal board for the coming Sunday . We noodled around with it just to get familiar . You can check out some of that at the end of the video . The Cloudburst really creates beautiful , ambient reverb and adding the new ensemble effect takes that ambience to a whole new “ orchestral ,” harmonic-level .
82 July 2023 Subscribe for Free ...