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The Strymon La Brea is an all-analog tape saturation drive inspired by their Deco pedal. Featuring gain & shift toggle switches for tonal variation & variable dry path adds clarity & fatness
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Josh from Strymon has been thinking about how to accomplish tape-style saturation purely in the analog domain ever since reading Pete’s original whitepaper on their Deco pedal ten years ago, and Strymon’s new La Brea Tape Drive is the result of his long research into tape behavior.
An all-analog drive that uses multi-stage tape saturation techniques to create driven tones ranging from mild breakup all the way to full fuzz, La Brea also features high frequency filtering and a fully variable Dry path that always stays in phase with the pedal’s output. It’s a seriously flexible drive, equally as adept at adding subtle warmth and a bit of compression as it is at throwing flames without apology. If you’re a fan of Deco’s saturation you’ll feel right at home, and if you’re unfamiliar with what tape-based drives can do for guitar tone, you’re in for a treat.
Sometimes, Inspiration Comes From Within
It’s not often that your own gear inspires something completely different, but that’s just what happened with their new La Brea Analog Tape Drive.
An all-analog drive pedal that uses multi-stage tape saturation techniques to create driven tones ranging from mild breakup all the way to full fuzz, La Brea also features high frequency filtering and a fully variable dry output that always stays in phase with the original signal.
Your New Favorite Drive
Twelve years ago, Strymon’s analog engineer Josh read the original white paper that Pete Celi wrote on the development of their popular Deco pedal. The paper inspired him to begin experimenting with some of the tape-centric techniques used in Deco in a full analog drive pedal design, and over ten years of tinkering later La Brea is the result.
La Brea feels completely natural to play, as the tape techniques create some pleasing natural compression along with the saturation and gain. Whether you’re looking to punch up some crispy open-string arpeggios or throw up a full wall of unique fuzz, La Brea can achieve it.
The inclusion of the phase-accurate dry path yields benefits that may not be immediately obvious, as it can help create an even bigger soundstage than saturation alone. The dry path can keep things clear and articulate if desired, and it can really help other drive pedals that are further down in the chain too, as some pedals need a strong transient to get the right sound.
La Brea’s operating voltage is internally boosted to 24 volts using a custom internal power supply, providing ample clarity and headroom. As a result the pedal can operate as a vibey clean boost if you prefer, or an all-out fuzz depending on where your amp and the Tape Sat knob on La Brea are set to.
Like all the other members of Series A, La Brea also features an internal jumper that determines the power-up state (moving the jumper to the second position will cause the pedal to turn itself on automatically when it sees power). This can really help if La Brea is buried under the second deck of a complex pedalboard, or in a rack drawer in a rack system.
Strymon’s Series A Pedals
Killer code only sounds killer when it’s hosted inside of an ideal analog environment, and even though Strymon is primarily known for their DSP prowess, their stuff wouldn’t sound the way that it does without their strong analog team.
The analog guys are always coming up with interesting designs, so Strymon launched the ‘Series A’ line of pure analog pedals to give them an outlet, with Fairfax being the first in the line.
The designs you’ll be seeing in ‘Series A’ are intended to offer something different from traditional Strymon offerings, with no MIDI, USB, firmware or digital processing. These will be pedals that are unabashedly analog, which means it could get really interesting! Keep an eye out for more ‘Series A’ pedals as they go forward.
La Brea Tape Drive Features:
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