Strymon StarLab, a super lush reverb taking you on a sky surfing journey SYNTH ANATOMY uses affiliation & partner programs (big red buttons) to finance a part of the activity. If you use these, you support the website. Thanks! Strymon Starlab, a new time-warped reverberator module for Eurorack that generates super lush ethereal reverbs using shimmer, karplus-strong synthesis, and more. The guitar pedal manufacturer Strymon entered the Eurorack world in 2018 with the Magneto delay. It is one of the best and deepest tweakable delay/echo processors in modular. After their first big coup, now comes the second. After the delay, a rich-sounding, lush reverb (reverberator) for Eurorack. Strymon Starlab Stymon Starlab According to Strymon, the idea was to come up with the highest possible quality reverb for Eurorack. With the same DNA as the Magneto only with the focus on cross-genre reverbs. Perfect for everyone who wants to drift smoothly through endless lush soundscapes. Strymon uses a very familiar front panel design for the Starlab. Yes, very Magneto-like. Very intuitive, hands-on, and understandable. This is split into different sections, giving you a direct overview of the engine. On the top, you have the main reverb controls including input gain, dry, size/pitch, wet, and decay. It starts very classically but is broken up in all directions in the next steps. Textures The user has three distinct reverb textures/flavors to choose from. Sparse is based on individual reflections that bounce around. With slow attack/legato sounds, you can get lush but pleasingly clean textures while staccato notes reveal individual echos great for special effects. Dense is reminiscent of a plate reverb with an immediate response for small space ambiance as well as large cavernous reverbs. Third and last is Diffuse which is probably the most atmospheric algorithm. It generates slowly building washes and atmospheric timbres that make every cosmic, ambient musician super happy. Strymon Starlab Karplus-Strong Synthesis In the middle, it gets atmospheric wild. Here you find a shimmer and glimmer and a dedicated delay/karplus-strong section. In this, you can achieve delay, chorus, or flanging effects by feeding the pre-delay to the output. It can also act as an instrument using karplus-strong synthesis with short delays, feedback, and filtering. Bye bye classic reverbs, it’s time for super expressive reverb timbres. At the bottom, there’s a 4-pole 24dB/octave filter section with low and high pass filter. Plus, you get a multi-wave LFO for internal modulation. Each function has its own ins/outs. Instead of attaching these under/over the parameters, they are on the sides. So the interface with all the controls remains accessible without cable salad. Many Eurorack users asked for a Blue Sky module after the release of the Magneto. Et voilà, now we have one, but one that is more than just a Eurorack adaptation of the Big Sky. It’s a reverb that takes you on a sky surfing journey. Where many reverb modules have their limit, StarLab gets interesting. Especially, the CV connectivity makes the module much more versatile and controllable than the BigSky or other pedals. And it sounds fantastic, but yeah, that’s not a news. It’s a Strymon development what else? Strymon Starlab is available soon for $649 USD worldwide. |
