Dig it! My Strymon Iridium Thread.

Mark Wein said:
Ok. This sounds awesome. The bassist is much happier with the guitar sound in his monitors. They tell me it sounds great in the house but I can’t hear it. My actual rig onstage sounds much better, too. I think my board will be getting a tear-down earlier than originally planned.
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So my impressions of the Iridium in the live setting are pretty positive. I don't think I'll ever get rid of an amp on stage but this is giving me the best "feel"of any direct or modeling amp. Since my Suhr Badger 30 is essentially a Marshal with EL34's. the "punch" amp can be dialed in pretty close to what I'm already using so the pedals and effects work pretty well in front of the Iridium. If I needed to play a show direct it would be fine although it wouldn't be my first choice. Because it isn't the HX Stomp with all of the options you are essentially getting just an "amp". I know that I can change sounds via Midi if I get their cable so there is a bit more flexibility if I want to go that route.

The cabinet I like the most is (no surprise) this one loaded with Greenbacks (which matches the Creambacks in my Suhr pretty well):

GNR 4×12″ by OwnHammer
Impulse of a 1971 Marshall® 1960B “basketweave” 4×12″ cabinet with 1971 Celestion T1221 G12M-25 speakers.

I'm going to mess around and see if I can drop that IR into the Deluxe (round) amp cabinet selections. That would get me closer to my own vintage deluxe reverbs that are loaded with greenbacks.

I was going to buy a Radial ProDI 1 but GC was out of them yesterday and I didn't want to spend the money on the 2 channel version so I bought a $30 Livewire Solutions passive box just to get through the gig. I figure it's always good to have an extra DI around even if it's not right for the rig but it seemed to work just fine so I'll stick with that for the time being. It's also small enough to fit on my big board a little easier when I get that figured out.

Anyhow, the next step is refiguring my board to fit this stuff in and fix the other issues. Yay.

Here is the "extension" board that allowed me to split the signal and not have everything laying loose on the stage. Powered by a CIOKS Adam power supply.

IMG_8866.jpg
 
Mark, did you run the Iridium into the amp and the PA or just to the PA. What did you need the DI box for, I thought the whole point of these things was for them to go direct into a recording interface or PA?
 
Chad said:
Mark, did you run the Iridium into the amp and the PA or just to the PA. What did you need the DI box for, I thought the whole point of these things was for them to go direct into a recording interface or PA?
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I ran it direct into the PA. I went guitar>pedalboard>El capistan and one side of the El Cap went to the Iridium and straight to the PA (through the direct box) and the other side went to the Suhr amp.

I could run a 1/4" cable into the PA, but that would add about 35-40 feet of cable run with all of the impedance and signal loss that comes with it. With the direct box I get a low impedance leg of cable and impedance matching so I don't lose any significant amount of signal. This video is painful to sit through but explains the reasons pretty well:



One complaint people have is that it does not have an XLR or low impedance output like the Kemper or the Atomic Fire Box that @Psychotronic uses. The output works great for directly into your interface for recording but the device is less friendly for stage use. I've heard people theorize that Strymon is really working on a large format box in the size of the Timeline or Mobius that will have more features like this. I decided that it was worth dealing with this because I feel that this is the best sounding box under $1500 out there and that was more important to me than the other stuff. The HX Stomp has more features that would make my life easier but I didn't feel as good about how it sounded vs. this thing. I've only heard the Firebox at NAMM and never heard anyone play clean through it. I could not find more than one video comparing the sounds (and it was the bigger pedal that Atomic makes) and it didn't fare as well as the Iridium in that one video.
 
Mark Wein said:
I ran it direct into the PA. I went guitar>pedalboard>El capistan and one side of the El Cap went to the Iridium and straight to the PA (through the direct box) and the other side went to the Suhr amp.

I could run a 1/4" cable into the PA, but that would add about 35-40 feet of cable run with all of the impedance and signal loss that comes with it. With the direct box I get a low impedance leg of cable and impedance matching so I don't lose any significant amount of signal. This video is painful to sit through but explains the reasons pretty well:



One complaint people have is that it does not have an XLR or low impedance output like the Kemper or the Atomic Fire Box that @Psychotronic uses. The output works great for directly into your interface for recording but the device is less friendly for stage use. I've heard people theorize that Strymon is really working on a large format box in the size of the Timeline or Mobius that will have more features like this. I decided that it was worth dealing with this because I feel that this is the best sounding box under $1500 out there and that was more important to me than the other stuff. The HX Stomp has more features that would make my life easier but I didn't feel as good about how it sounded vs. this thing. I've only heard the Firebox at NAMM and never heard anyone play clean through it. I could not find more than one video comparing the sounds (and it was the bigger pedal that Atomic makes) and it didn't fare as well as the Iridium in that one video.
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It’s really strange, it sound like it’s a good piece of gear, but the really missed a few key pieces that could have made it great. Like an effects loop and XLR out. Maybe they’ll end up with a Volante sized one that has it all.
 
Chad said:
It’s really strange, it sound like it’s a good piece of gear, but the really missed a few key pieces that could have made it great. Like an effects loop and XLR out. Maybe they’ll end up with a Volante sized one that has it all
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I wouldn’t be surprised if that is what is in store. And I’ll probably buy that too :embarrassed:
 
Mark Wein said:
I wouldn’t be surprised if that is what is in store. And I’ll probably buy that too :embarrassed:
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Have you tried it with delay after it? I’m interested to see what the IRs do to the input of the delay. That is the number 1 thing preventing me from considering one. I use way too much reverb and delay and I can’t imagine the IR out doesn’t effect them in some way. It may sound super cool, but I’m not willing to risk the purchase to see.
 
Chad said:
Have you tried it with delay after it? I’m interested to see what the IRs do to the input of the delay. That is the number 1 thing preventing me from considering one. I use way too much reverb and delay and I can’t imagine the IR out doesn’t effect them in some way. It may sound super cool, but I’m not willing to risk the purchase to see.
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I haven’t. if I have some time tomorrow ill give it a try.
 
Chad said:
Mark, did you run the Iridium into the amp and the PA or just to the PA. What did you need the DI box for, I thought the whole point of these things was for them to go direct into a recording interface or PA?
Click to expand...

Looks like it's outputS, "actually two outputs, you can either have stereo or sum them to one mono so, you would need two direct boxes if you want to send stereo to the PA" are TS. So it's not a balanced signal, "two signals that are 180 degrees opposite of each other" like in a TRS or XLR cable. TS is fine for short distances, like from your guitar to amp or the Iridium into your computer. Longer TS cables pickup noise. Unbalanced signal from you, to snake, to PA is bad.
 
Mark Wein said:
I ran it direct into the PA. I went guitar>pedalboard>El capistan and one side of the El Cap went to the Iridium and straight to the PA (through the direct box) and the other side went to the Suhr amp.

I could run a 1/4" cable into the PA, but that would add about 35-40 feet of cable run with all of the impedance and signal loss that comes with it. With the direct box I get a low impedance leg of cable and impedance matching so I don't lose any significant amount of signal. This video is painful to sit through but explains the reasons pretty well:



One complaint people have is that it does not have an XLR or low impedance output like the Kemper or the Atomic Fire Box that @Psychotronic uses. The output works great for directly into your interface for recording but the device is less friendly for stage use. I've heard people theorize that Strymon is really working on a large format box in the size of the Timeline or Mobius that will have more features like this. I decided that it was worth dealing with this because I feel that this is the best sounding box under $1500 out there and that was more important to me than the other stuff. The HX Stomp has more features that would make my life easier but I didn't feel as good about how it sounded vs. this thing. I've only heard the Firebox at NAMM and never heard anyone play clean through it. I could not find more than one video comparing the sounds (and it was the bigger pedal that Atomic makes) and it didn't fare as well as the Iridium in that one video.
Click to expand...


I've never played through the Atomic Firebox, but I played through the bigger one that has all of the effects. That one sounds amazing. I think the Firebox is the same as the big one just without the effects. I'd love to hear the Firebox and the Iridium side by side.
 
Chad said:
I've never played through the Atomic Firebox, but I played through the bigger one that has all of the effects. That one sounds amazing. I think the Firebox is the same as the big one just without the effects. I'd love to hear the Firebox and the Iridium side by side.
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The amps in the Atomic products are all the same, you just get less fx in the Firebox. BUT, the Firebox is far easier to program than its big brothers (as I've been fully mired in for the last several weeks). Incidentally, I rarely used the XLR out on mine, I just went into mod and delays after it and then into a separate DI. Yeah, it's a compromise if you want a tiny board.
 
Psychotronic said:
The amps in the Atomic products are all the same, you just get less fx in the Firebox. BUT, the Firebox is far easier to program than its big brothers (as I've been fully mired in for the last several weeks). Incidentally, I rarely used the XLR out on mine, I just went into mod and delays after it and then into a separate DI. Yeah, it's a compromise if you want a tiny board.
Click to expand...
Do you use it in front of an amp too? Or just use monitors?
 
Actually I should clarify - do you do what I do where there Is an amp running as well as the DI to the house?
 
First clip!

I'm still learning how to use Logic so this is pretty rudimentary. The rhythm part is the Deluxe with the stock speaker IR and the solo is the Marshall with the Ownhammer 4x12, amp gain only. The solo has a small amount of Strymon El Capistan for depth since I didn't want to mess with any plugins in Logic other than a flip-top Ampeg B15 for the bass.

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