Strymon’s Volante is a new, lush-sounding magnetic echo FX pedal

Strymon have already made a name for themselves in luxe effects hardware and pedals, including classic effects and reverbs like the BigSky. Volante moves into what’s likely to be hit territory – modeling magnetic tape loops and effects.
There are three tools in one here: magnetic delay, spring reverb, and a tape-style looper. It basically takes a bunch of things you’d do in a studio (back when studios did stuff with tape) — and crams that into a little box.
And it sounds great (Matt Piper here shares this music he made):

What’s inside:
Tape delay: four playback heads with feedback, panning, and level for each.
Make tape-style looping: reverse, pause, splice, infinite repeat
Selectable models: drum echo, tape echo, studio reel-to-reel, with different sound characteristics
And still more control: choose low cut, mechanics, and wear, plus an input you can adjust (so crank it for extra tape saturation)
Stereo in and out
Foot friendly: tap tempo and even choose favorite settings with your foot, plus add an expression pedal if you like
MIDI in/out with full MIDI mapping of parameters and program changes
USB MIDI

Strymon also promise premium audio fidelity, both on the analog front end and the digital conversion inside. And they build these in the USA.
It’s also a sign of the times: independent hardware is doing increasingly processor-heavy stuff. But just as the computer capacity has expanded, so has hardware – and more realistic emulations of nonlinear analog equipment is the result. This is still DSP-based, not ARM, for those interested – it’s a SHARC DSP – but those chips have grown in capability, too.
More:
https://www.strymon.net/products/volante/
US$399, preorder only for now (30-60 days out).
Detailed look:

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