Strymon Iridium - Long Review - And Why It Simply Works...

Wazmeister

I’m getting older, I guess… 

52 years young, and maybe in some ways, finally working out what I want in life; and in my gear. Or sometimes perhaps, learning what I don’t, or no longer want. These days I rely more on my gutting feeling and instinct, and upon release, I had a feeling about the Strymon Iridium. I had, at the time, no real idea what it actually did, but I still had this feeling…

As a lot of you will know, I’m not afraid to try things out; to take risks, to swop and change, buy and sell, wheel and deal.

I’ve been down the all-Kemper-only route, and I really enjoyed it. Tried every Helix (often more than once), and I do love the HX Stomp. I was nearly advocate of the FX8, and tried the AX8 too.

But amp-modelling wise, only the Kemper has really held its own imho. For some years, Ive been fortunate to be surrounded by ‘real' amps, and the cream at that, imho. The Carrs, The Redplates etc, and now the gorgeous Matchless Nighthawk (live/band) and the perfect 3rd Power Wooly Coats MKII (home).

No surprise that digital modelling can’t match these, although they can come a lot closer than they used to.

And yet, I remain slightly burnt after having an amp go down on 2 consecutive gigs. This leads me to want some kind of digital back-up, just as security (ironically).

THE IRIDIUM - STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX

Enter the Iridium.

Straight out of the box, I understood it. I didn’t have to read 122 pages of forums, or watch hours and hours of Jason Sadites informative, yet tedious videos telling me which frequencies to tweak in order to get a pretty-generic-rock-sound-that-most-cheap-pedals could produce. 

There. I feel better after that.

Straight out of the box, headphones plugged in, it sounded great. I mean, it sounded ‘full’, ‘ringing’, ‘chiming’, ‘warm’ etc etc. All subjective descriptions I know, BUT the point is they did sound like the 3 amps that they model.

Fancy a tweak ? Bass, Middle,Treble all function well, and interact like Id expect an amp to.

THE IRs

The 3 stored available Its sounded great as well to my ears. Just enough - the 3. 

You see, I don’t know about you but I really don’t know what a Cel Blue sounds like in a padded room, with a Telefunken 26Y Bellshift Nipple Clamp position 2 inches from the centre nozzle flange...

The 3 options gives my ears chance to decide. 

Simple. Easy. Just the job for a 52 year old…

THE ROOM KNOB

Just enough again, perfect. Easy to use the hidden features, and set 3 levels of ‘room’. This reverb-like sound adds depth, space and ‘amp-like-in-the-roomness’.

CONCLUSION

Forgive the length of this review. Im genuinely excited by such a simple device.

I haven’t mentioned one thing; as you will know, you can run your pedal board through it. So, my recorded sounds are the sounds I know, and are used too. The board sounds like my board when I record with it.

Ive also bought an Izotope Spire (brilliant), and within a few minutes of setting up the Iridium, I was writing, recording, practicing. A few song ideas quickly followed.

The simplest, easiest and best recoding Ive done for years.

Yep, I quite like the Iridium.

Photo below - as good as it gets in terms of creativity at the moment...

monquixote

I think that's a really valuable point you make about the ease of getting a sound.

The one time I seriously tried to do something with an Axe FX I spent about 30 minutes of really arduous and unenjoyable menu editing to get a base clean tone which I considered good enough. I turned my Puretone on with all the knobs at 12 and instantly I had something better.

koss59

Thanks Warren, definitely thinking about getting one of these when gigs return.

soma1975

*checks classifieds*

guitargeek62

It’s a nice update of the Sansamp concept for sure and seems to have been executed very well. I’m keen to see what other iterations they bring out, as I expect they’ll do something akin to the Riverside and Sunset drive pedals, with the Iridium being the low-gain version.

Wazmeister

If they had added an FX loop, it would have been unbeatable 

JohnCordy

Aye @Wazmeister it's difficult to get a bad sound out of one.

keir

I’d be interested in trying this in the fx loop of an amp as a back up. 

Reviews I’ve read of iridium into fx loop / power amp into cab setups have been very positive and some have said basically better than their valve amps due to being more consistent. 

hessodreamy

I’ve been umming and ahhing on this and you would've pushed me to buy one today, if anyone had them in stock. 

Lebarque

Forget the Iridium, that Spire thing sounds very cool! Could be just the ticket for me

John_P

Apologies if it’s an obvious answer.    The switching is between a favourite setting and current knobs, is there any way of quickly switching between 3 tones?

digitalkettle

John_P said:

Apologies if it’s an obvious answer.    The switching is between a favourite setting and current knobs, is there any way of quickly switching between 3 tones?

Add the MultiSwitch or use M1D1.

sgosden

The simplicity of these does appeal ,but I need a higher gain modded Marshall tone. 
Would happily replace fender clean with that . 

I wonder if they'll bring out a alternative version ? 

MagicPigDetective

Excuse my ignorance, but can you plug it direct into an interface, eg focusrite, for playing through monitors? 

TTBZ

sgosden said:

The simplicity of these does appeal ,but I need a higher gain modded Marshall tone. 
Would happily replace fender clean with that . 

I wonder if they'll bring out a alternative version ? 

Same here, and the plexi model doesn't sound great to me either on any of the demos. I'd love a harder rock and metal one - AC30 clean/crunch, JCM800 (with a tubescreamer boost implemented like they do with the AC30 treble boost at higher gain) and then something like a Friedman or Diezel for higher gain and metal.  

Wazmeister

MagicPigDetective said:

Excuse my ignorance, but can you plug it direct into an interface, eg focusrite, for playing through monitors? 

No mate, unlike the HX Stomp.

Wazmeister

John_P

Wazmeister said:

MagicPigDetective said:

Excuse my ignorance, but can you plug it direct into an interface, eg focusrite, for playing through monitors? 

No mate, unlike the HX Stomp.

If you’re using an interface then it should be fine whereas the stomp can be the interface as well and go direct to the computer.   

sgosden

Wazmeister said:

HX stomp KILLER?! 

I used to like R's videos but his new style in titles and content piss me off.



Back on topic. 
I'm a big helix fan. Current have floor , stomp and rack/kontrol (for sale ).

How do you find the amp Sims in comparison ? 

Wazmeister

sgosden said

I'm a big helix fan. Current have floor , stomp and rack/kontrol (for sale ).

How do you find the amp Sims in comparison ? 

To be honest, Ive never really liked or rated the Helix amp sims.

Far superior in the Iridium, imho.

lukedlb

Could the Iridium benefit from having a Revival drive or similar before it?
Is this a better solution to the trouble and investment or micing up your own amp for recording? 
does it beat the woolly coats in terms of home practice? The question is not necessarily referring to sound or playability. Home practice is often about convenience. 
Does the headphone output feel like an ‘extra’ feature or done to the highest standard?
I assume you went with the Iridium as it ticks all boxes:
backup in case amp goes. 
Headphones practice.
easy home recording. 

Won’t your UA interface and plugins provide a better recording and practice situation?