Strymon has just announced their new Orbit flanger in the news section of their site:

“We’ve already previewed the dBucket technology that is going to debut in our new delay pedal. Here’s another taste of things to come. Just as in the delay, an entire SHARC DSP is dedicated to doing only one thing … the ultimate flanger. We own and love our ADA flanger so naturally that was some of the first sonic territory we wanted to cover … “

Strymon has just announced a preview of a new delay pedal on their web site blog. It’s called the BBD and is a DSP based implementation of an analog delay with true bypass and tap tempo.

from the site: “BBD takes the compact aluminum chassis and form factor developed for the OB.1 and crams in a TON of DSP horsepower … more than has ever existed in such a compact pedal. We love analog delays but at the same time they pose some serious limitations. So, we decided to take a super powerful SHARC DSP and dedicate to doing one thing and one thing only … delivering the best analog bucket brigade delay sound ever.”

Click here for the strymon blog

Moog has combined the guitar and bass MuRF pedals and added a full midi implementation in the new MF-105M. At $479 it’s definitely not cheap but it is very cool sounding.

The new Strymon OB.1 compressor is quiter, more transparent and better sounding than my old compressor pedals, which have included an old MXR Dynacomp, a Boss compressor, and a couple of BYOC (Build Your Own Clone) compressors.

Here’s the signal path: Strymon OB.1 > Korg Pitchblack tuner > Fulltone Deja-Vibe > Xotic BB preamp > Xotic AC Booster > Loop-Master > Xotic X-Blender > Fender 65 RI Twin Reverb.

The Loop-Master has a master bypass that eliminates all of the other pedals and wiring attached to it.  Loop one has an Electro-Harmonix micro POG, and loop two has a Boss CE-5 chorus.

The Xotic X-Blender has the Boss DD-20 delay in the loop.  The DD-20 is set to 100% wet, and the echos are added back in to direct signal path with the mix knob.

The whole thing runs off of a single 1-Spot power supply.  The other power supplies are for other pedals (such as a Digitech Talker or a Boss GT-6) that I sometimes add and switch with the Loop-Master.

The OB.1 gets along great with the BB preamp and the AC Booster.  There is less hiss than I had with my old compressor pedals, and the the boost is great.  I can use the flat boost for more gain, or I can use the treble boost for a Brian May kind of tone.  I’m loving this new Strymon OB.1 compressor!

This new pedal features an opto compressor fashioned after vintage circuits. The OB.1 also has and integrated clean boost with selectable frequency shaping if you are wanting a mid or treble boost as well.

From the site: “Everything you love about studio optical compressors … right at your feet … From beautifully subtle and transparent compression to vintage squash … Integrated foot-switchable Clean, Treble and Mid boost … TRUE BYPASS … Crafted with love in the USA”

This is always great fun to look at: “pedal guts pics thread”

Beware, you can easily spend hours on this thread!
The pics with big ugly globs of goo are no fun

Not yet shipping but this looks interesting from the German company SM Pro Audio. This box acts as an embedded host for VST plug-ins that normally run in a DAW on a PC. A 1.5 GHz CPU and 2 gigs of flash memory are included to host your favorite VST plug-ins on the floor. No word on pricing as of yet.

Here is a link to their site.

The Line6 Tonecore SDK is paying dividends today. PsiKTrOn from Belgium did some really creative work to develop a custom tonecore module using the Tonecore software development kit. It’s quite impressive … check out the video below.

Damage Control has just posted a new 2009 promo video for their well regarded TimeLine delay. The video goes through some, but not all of the features … dotted 1/8th, modulation, multitap delay, pingpong and reverse.

Damage Control has posted a new demo video for 2009 of the Glass Nexus multi-effect pedal. The video doesn’t show everything the unit is capable of by any means but nonetheless a nice sampling of sounds.