The Sky Opens Up: How the Strymon BigSky Became the Reverb Pedal Every Serious Player Wants

In October 2013, Strymon did to reverb what they had done to delay two years earlier: they redefined what a guitar pedal could be. The BigSky arrived with twelve algorithmically distinct reverb machines in a single box — not approximations, not quick presets, but twelve fully realized reverb architectures, each with independent parameter sets, all built on serious DSP horsepower. The guitar world had never seen a reverb pedal built to this specification. Within a year, it was on the boards of ambient players, arena rock headliners, post-rock obsessives, and anyone who took signal processing seriously. Over a decade later, 270 documented professional artists use one — more than any other guitar reverb pedal on Equipboard’s tracking database.

This is not a review. GuitarGangsters documents gear, puts it in context, and tells you who uses it and how. What follows is the complete BigSky guide: how it happened, what all twelve machines do, who plays it, and how to make it sound like something extraordinary rather than something expensive.

From Damage Control to Worldwide Boards: The Strymon Origin Story

Strymon is a division of Damage Control Engineering — the company Pete Celi, Gregg Stock, and Dave Fruehling founded in 2004 after careers at Line 6 and Alesis. They had the engineering background to build pedals with studio-grade component selection and the DSP chops to make those pedals do things that previous pedal builders hadn’t attempted. The Strymon name launched publicly in 2009 with the OB.1 compressor. The TimeLine delay followed at NAMM 2011 and immediately established the house standard: SHARC DSP processing, 24-bit/96kHz converters, an analog dry signal path, and a price that reflected all of it without apology.

The BigSky arrived on October 16, 2013 and applied the same philosophy to reverb. The engineering team spent years studying reverb algorithm design from the past five decades — feedback-delay networks, allpass-delay-filter loops, Schroeder reverb sections, multi-tapped delay lines. They captured the essence of classic reverb hardware, then pushed forward into machines that had no physical equivalent: spaces that couldn’t exist in a real room, sounds that required more processing power than any outboard unit from the analog era could provide.

Twelve machines. One box. Designed and built in Westlake Village, California, by the same team that had already changed the delay pedal market. The BigSky became the reverb pedal that every subsequent manufacturer had to respond to.

Specs

Parameter	Specification
Reverb machines	12 (Room, Hall, Plate, Spring, Swell, Bloom, Cloud, Chorale, Shimmer, Magneto, Nonlinear, Reflections)
Presets	300 user presets (3 footswitches × 100 banks)
Bypass	True bypass or buffered bypass (switchable via menu)
Inputs	Left + Right (stereo); Left alone = mono
Outputs	Left + Right (stereo); Left alone = mono
Dry signal path	Analog (never converted to digital)
Front panel controls	Decay, Pre-Delay, Mix, Type, Value, Tone, Mod, Param 1, Param 2
Footswitches	A, B, C — each configurable for bypass or Infinite Sustain / Freeze
Expression pedal input	TRS; controls any knob or knob combination; assignable per preset
MIDI	5-pin DIN In + Out
Pre-Delay range	0 to 1,500 ms
Spillover / Persist	Yes — reverb tail continues through preset changes and bypass
Infinite Freeze	Yes — hold footswitch to sustain current reverb tail indefinitely
Cab Filter	Speaker-response curve for direct recording and PA use
Power	9VDC center negative, 300mA minimum (adapter included)
Origin	Designed and built in USA
Current price (original)	$479 USD new
Used price (excellent)	$280–380 USD
BigSky MX (2024 successor)	$679 USD new (dual engine, 7 new algorithms, IR capability)

All 12 Reverb Machines Explained

The BigSky’s dozen reverb machines aren’t variations on the same algorithm — they’re twelve genuinely distinct approaches to reverb, each designed to serve a different musical purpose and each with its own set of assignable parameters.

Room and Hall: The Foundation Machines

Room delivers a versatile small-space algorithm covering well-tuned studio ambience through nightclub acoustics. The Diffusion and Low End parameters shape the scattering and damping characteristics that room materials, furniture, and people would create in a physical space. Room is the correct choice for any context where you want reverb that sounds like the guitar is in a real location rather than a processed one. Hall models diffused reflections with slower-building density — the wide, enveloping sound of a large concert venue. The Concert setting is spacious and warm; the Arena setting is enormous and booming. Hall is the BigSky’s workhorse for lead guitar playing that needs to breathe without fighting with the dry signal for frequency space.

Plate and Spring: The Studio Classics

Plate delivers the fast-building, non-spatial reverb character that recording studios have favored since the 1960s. A physical reverb plate is a large metal sheet suspended in a box with transducers at either end — the reverb comes from acoustic resonance rather than room simulation. Plate’s Tone knob and Low End parameter make it easy to dial from thick and warm to bright and present, covering most recording applications without menu diving. Spring captures the mechanical tension of a physical spring tank — the dripping, splashy reverb that defines surf music, spaghetti-western soundtracks, and every vintage Fender and Vox combo amplifier. The Dwell parameter and selectable spring count take it from warm and mellow to full tank-gone-insane chaos. If you need spring, the BigSky’s Spring machine is the best digital reproduction available in pedal format.

Swell and Bloom: The Atmospheric Machines

Swell treats the reverb wet signal as a gradual fade-in — the reverb builds slowly behind the dry signal, creating evolving textures without the harsh initial wash that standard reverb produces. For guitarists who want reverb to feel like a context rather than an effect layered on top, Swell is the machine. Alternatively, the dry signal can be swelled into the reverb for maximum atmosphere. Bloom references the ’90s generation of reverb processors that introduced dense multi-stage diffusion for smoother, slower-building ambient sounds. A slowly building envelope that blooms — hence the name — into a big ambient tail that sits alongside the dry signal even at high Mix levels. The Feedback parameter is Bloom’s secret: it loops the reverb output back through the diffusion stage, creating an exponentially expanding tail that goes from subtle ambience to infinite wash depending on the setting.

Cloud and Chorale: The Signature Machines

Cloud is the BigSky’s signature machine and the most-discussed algorithm in the pedal’s catalog. Drawing from late-1970s academic reverb research and pushing it with processing power that wasn’t available in that era, Cloud obscures the distinction between the source signal and the space surrounding it. It’s what ambient guitarists and post-rock players describe when they talk about what the BigSky can do that no other reverb pedal can. Decay into the 3–4 o’clock range, moderate Mix, and a medium-slow Size parameter produce textures that sit convincingly between reverb and synthesizer pad. Chorale adds a vocal choir to your signal — vowel shapes and intensity settings determine the character, and the Decay controls the venue size the choir inhabits. It’s the most unconventional machine on the pedal and the most divisive. Used with restraint it’s genuinely beautiful; used without restraint it announces itself immediately.

Shimmer and Magneto: The Signature Sounds

Shimmer adds pitch-shifted tones to the reverb signal — two tunable voices built from the reverberated signal itself, creating harmonically resonant, unearthly ambience. The voices are generated from the reverb tail rather than the dry signal, which means the pitch content accumulates with the reverb rather than cutting through it separately. Amount and Mode parameters adjust from barely-there harmonic reinforcement to full majestic wash. The Shimmer machine produced a generation of Instagram guitar videos between 2013 and 2019 and influenced every reverb pedal that came after it to include a pitch-shifted option. Magneto revisits the multi-head echo reverb concept from the late 1950s — the wash of sound created by a tape machine running multiple playback heads simultaneously — and adds Diffusion, blurring the distinction between discrete echoes and reverberant space. Magneto sits at the boundary between delay and reverb, which is precisely where some of the most useful guitar sounds live in a modern production context.

Nonlinear and Reflections: The Specialist Machines

Nonlinear provides physics-defying reverb shapes: Swoosh, Reverse, Ramp, Gate, and more. Gated reverbs create the punchy spatial texture associated with 1980s drum production applied to guitar. Backward reverb — where the tail builds and then cuts before the note sounds, rather than after — is assignable to a footswitch for real-time triggering. Feedback and Late Reverb parameters extend the range further into experimental territory. Reflections is the BigSky’s most technically sophisticated machine: a psycho-acoustically accurate small-space reverb that calculates 250 discrete reflections based on the source position within a chosen room shape. The algorithm models how human auditory perception processes early reflections and applies appropriate psycho-acoustic correction. For recording engineers who want to place a virtual amp in a specific room with scientifically accurate early reflection timing, this is the machine. For most guitarists, it’s the “realism” option when all the other machines feel too processed.

Famous Players

The BigSky has 270 documented professional users on Equipboard — more than any competing guitar reverb pedal. The following players have confirmed board presence via primary sources, rig documentation, or verified photo and video evidence.

Matt Bellamy (Muse)

Matt Bellamy’s signal chain is one of the most extensively documented in rock. His touring rig has included the Strymon BigSky on his pedal tray alongside a DigiTech Whammy, ZVex Fuzz Factory, and JHS Colour Box, confirmed via the Mixdown magazine gear rundown and MuseWiki documentation. Bellamy’s approach to reverb is characteristically maximalist — he wants space that feels physically large enough to match the scale of what Muse plays in. After the DL4 era that defined Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry, his rig evolved toward units capable of the immersive ambient textures that The Resistance, The 2nd Law, and later records demanded. The BigSky delivers that. Link: Matt Bellamy Gear Guide.

Mateus Asato

Mateus Asato’s pedalboard has featured the BigSky since before his Instagram profile made him one of the most-watched guitarists on the internet. The BigSky sits at the end of his signal chain — the last thing the signal touches before the amp — where it adds spatial depth to his melodic single-note playing. On a Pedaltrain board running through an Eventide TimeFactor and into the BigSky, his ambient textures are dense enough to stand alone without a backing track. Asato’s relationship with the BigSky represents the modern clean-guitar player’s case for the pedal: not a rock effect, but a compositional tool that transforms what a single guitar note can occupy in a recording or performance space. Link: Mateus Asato Gear Guide.

Jonny Buckland (Coldplay)

An Instagram post showing Jonny Buckland’s pedalboard placed a Strymon Möbius, a TimeLine, and a BigSky in the same chain — Strymon’s modulation, delay, and reverb flagships running together. It’s a significant setup: the Möbius covers chorus and tremolo, the TimeLine handles rhythmic delay in the Coldplay tradition, and the BigSky provides the shimmer and atmospheric reverb that colors Coldplay’s guitar textures on records like A Head Full of Dreams and Music of the Spheres. Buckland’s board represents the full Strymon ecosystem in action. Not currently in the guitarist link database but confirmed via pedalboard photography and documented on Equipboard.

Noel Gallagher

Noel Gallagher’s BigSky use is documented on Equipboard. His later touring rigs — particularly the High Flying Birds era — incorporated more sophisticated reverb processing than the Oasis years, where the amp’s onboard spring was sufficient. The BigSky gives him the range to go from a natural room character to something considerably more present when the song requires it. Link: Noel Gallagher Gear Guide.

A Note on Spreadsheet Claims

The gear documentation that seeded this article listed The Edge, John Mayer, and Mark Lettieri as BigSky users. All three deserve scrutiny. The Edge uses a Strymon BlueSky reverb — a different, smaller Strymon unit set to Plate mode with Mod engaged for shimmer character — not the BigSky. His fundamental reverb approach has always been integrated within his delay architecture (TC 2290 + Korg SDD-3000 + Fractal Axe-Fx) rather than a standalone reverb pedal at the end of a board. The BigSky produces sounds associated with his style; it is not hardware he has been documented using. John Mayer has not been confirmed as a BigSky user in any Premier Guitar Rig Rundown, manufacturer artist page, or primary interview found during research for this article. He is the most-searched connection for this pedal that doesn’t survive primary-source verification. Mark Lettieri‘s documented Fall 2023 Snarky Puppy touring rig — confirmed by on-site rig tour photography from their Breckenridge, Colorado show on September 29, 2023 — lists a TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb as his reverb unit, not a BigSky. He may have used a BigSky in earlier configurations, but the documented current rig does not include one.

Tone Recipes and Settings

Signal Chain Placement

Reverb goes last. This is the standard principle, and the BigSky honors it by design. Reverb after delay is the correct configuration: delay creates rhythmic patterns, reverb wraps those patterns in a space. Running reverb before delay produces a different result — smeared, washy — that can be intentional but is harder to control in a live context. On a typical board, the BigSky sits after the Strymon TimeLine or any other delay unit, just before the amp or amp’s effects return.

The analog dry signal path means the dry signal is never converted to digital. Regardless of what the wet processing is doing, the dry path is purely analog from input to output — the same design principle applied in the TimeLine. This matters for the character of the bypassed signal and for how the pedal interacts with the amplifier’s input impedance.

The expression pedal assignment is worth configuring per preset rather than leaving at the default. Assigning Mix to the expression pedal allows real-time reverb depth control during a performance — useful with the Swell machine for building gradually into a wash, or with Cloud for bringing the ambience in and out of a passage. Multiple knobs can be assigned to a single expression sweep, so one pedal movement can simultaneously increase Decay and Mix while decreasing Tone, creating a tonal shift as the reverb deepens.

Spillover and Persist keep the reverb tail running when you change presets or bypass the pedal. In a live context, bypassing mid-song doesn’t create an abrupt reverb cutoff — the current tail decays naturally through the transition. This is essential behavior for any player who switches between wet and dry patches during a performance. Without spillover, the reverb stops instantly at the moment of bypass, which sounds unnatural and can be jarring in a live mix.

The Cab Filter is for direct recording and PA use. It applies a speaker-response frequency curve to the output signal, approximating what a guitar speaker would do to the reverb signal. Without it, digital reverb going direct into a flat-response interface or PA can sound unnaturally harsh. Enable it for any direct recording application; disable it when running into an actual guitar amplifier.

Comparisons

The BigSky’s most natural internal companion is the Strymon TimeLine — its delay counterpart in the same flagship family. The TimeLine covers 12 delay machines with identical DSP design philosophy. Many players run both on the same board: Jonny Buckland is documented running Möbius + TimeLine + BigSky as a complete Strymon modulation/delay/reverb chain. Purchased together, the TimeLine and BigSky cover every time-based effect need a working guitarist is likely to encounter. The combined cost is significant; so is the combined capability.

Versus the Strymon BlueSky: the BlueSky is the smaller, less expensive Strymon reverb (around $239 new). It offers four machine types — Room, Plate, Spring, and Shimmer — in a more compact enclosure with a simpler interface. The analog dry path is the same; the algorithm depth and preset capacity are considerably less. The BlueSky is the entry point into Strymon reverb. The BigSky is the commitment. Notably, The Edge has been documented using the BlueSky — set to Plate mode with Mod engaged — not the BigSky, a distinction worth making clearly.

Versus the Eventide Space: the Space was the BigSky’s most direct competitor at its 2013 launch. Both offered sophisticated algorithms, stereo processing, and serious DSP resources in pedal format. The Space has stronger pitch-shifting integration across its algorithm set and a different, arguably more clinical sonic character. The BigSky is generally regarded as having more musical reverb responses at moderate settings — easier to integrate into a mix without sounding processed. The Space remains in production and is a legitimate alternative.

Versus the BigSky MX: Strymon released the BigSky MX in April 2024 at $679 — an 11-year gap between the original and its successor. The MX runs dual reverb engines simultaneously (two algorithms in series, parallel, or split routing) on a tri-core 800MHz ARM processor. It adds seven new algorithms to the original twelve, a 10-second stereo impulse response machine (the Impulse algorithm), USB-C connectivity, an OLED display, and a configurable hardware insert. For maximum reverb capability, the MX is the current top-tier option. For the classic BigSky sound at the lower price, the original remains in production.

Versus the Boss RV-6: competent eight-mode digital reverb at around $130. No analog dry path, no MIDI, no expression integration at the BigSky level, simpler algorithms. Correct choice for players who need reverb without the BigSky’s depth. The difference in quality is audible at careful listening levels; in a dense live band mix, the gap narrows considerably. The BigSky’s value is in its control precision and algorithmic range, not in making basic reverb sound marginally better.

Buying Guide

New BigSky from Strymon directly or authorized dealers (Sweetwater, Guitar Center, B&H) runs $479. The power adapter is included, so no additional purchase is needed — though a Strymon Zuma or Ojai is the recommended pedalboard solution for players running it alongside other high-current Strymon units. The BigSky’s 300mA draw can stress cheaper power supplies and daisy chains, generating noise artifacts in the audio signal.

Used BigSky in excellent condition runs $280–380 on Reverb.com and eBay. The original BigSky is mechanically robust — heavy cast enclosure, quality footswitch hardware. Check used units by cycling through all twelve machine types via the Type knob and verifying the display, then confirming that all three footswitches respond cleanly. Cosmetic wear on the enclosure is normal and doesn’t affect function.

BigSky MX used market is thin given the April 2024 release date — units appear in the $450–530 range, which makes new at $679 with full warranty often the more sensible choice. The MX is recent enough that used prices haven’t dropped significantly.

Budget alternatives: Strymon BlueSky ($239 new) for four machines with the same analog dry path principle. TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2 ($150) and Boss RV-6 ($130) for solid reverb at below-$200 price points. None of these offer the BigSky’s twelve-machine depth or parameter density, but all do the basic job of adding space to a guitar signal.

Ownership Notes

The 300 presets are organized across three footswitches (A, B, C) and 100 banks. Footswitches A, B, and C each hold one preset per bank — so Bank 1 holds three presets, one per footswitch, and so on through Bank 100. Navigating banks live means pressing A+B (bank down) or B+C (bank up) while the pedal is active. For boards with many presets spread across the full 300 capacity, MIDI program change messages are the cleaner solution — they jump to any preset non-sequentially from a controller without bank-stepping.

Param 1 and Param 2 are the most underused controls on the pedal and the most worth configuring. Each reverb machine has a set of menu parameters — Spring’s Dwell, Cloud’s Size, Shimmer’s voice tuning — and Param 1 and Param 2 can be assigned to any two of them per preset. This means the knob configuration is different for every preset, surfacing the parameters that actually matter for that specific sound. A Cloud preset might assign Size to Param 1 and Mod Speed to Param 2; a Spring preset might assign Dwell and Springs count. Set up correctly, it transforms the BigSky from a menu-intensive pedal into one that’s adjustable live without looking at a display.

The 300mA power requirement is the most common source of BigSky user complaints. Budget power supplies and daisy chains frequently cannot deliver stable 300mA without introducing noise. Strymon’s Zuma and Ojai have dedicated high-current outputs rated for this; the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+ and MXR Iso-Brick both have appropriate outputs. If you experience hum or noise from the BigSky, the power supply is the first thing to check.

True bypass versus buffered bypass is a menu option. The BigSky’s buffer is a quality analog buffer that benefits long cable runs and boards where impedance management matters. Unlike earlier Strymon units that offered only relay buffered bypass, the BigSky gives the choice. Players running the BigSky at the end of a long signal chain before the amp will generally prefer buffered bypass; players running into an effects return or recording interface may prefer true bypass.

The Infinite Freeze technique is worth practicing as a compositional approach. Hold a chord, press and hold any freeze-configured footswitch, release the held chord, and play a new melody through the frozen reverb wash. The held space doesn’t change or degrade — it sustains at the moment of capture. This is a legitimate performance technique, not a studio trick: it creates a layered, orchestral texture from a single guitar in real time.

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