Iridium Amp & IR Cab Pedal Review

Stop Lugging Gear Around

I used to be like you. Bringing my amp and cab to every live gig. Maybe also like you, I'm not good enough to sit in a studio and make money ripping licks. I play for weddings, shows, and events and have literally hurt myself carrying heavy gear week after week. With the Strymon Iridium, I no longer take my amp or cab to any live gig. Like ever. Between the 3 amp models, 9 cab options,… read more drive knob, realistic and easy to tweak EQ parameters, independent level knob that doesn't color the tone or drive, and a favorite switch… I have all I need for any venue. Not to mention that every live sound tech or engineer loves me for the quieter stage and less setup/tear down. It's been a win for me.

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The only way I play!

Listen, I get it. You love your tube amp. There's nothing like the way a tube amp hits you in the face. I've owned an electric guitar, amp, and pedalboard for 12 years now, but I always gravitated towards acoustic for the convenience. I bought the Iridium 2 years ago. These last 2 years I think I've played my electric guitar about 1000% more than the previous 10 years combined.… read more This is me. I don't have the opportunity to crank an amp. I just want to pick up and play without being a nuisance to everyone else. I play at pretty small churches where stage volume is an issue. I have 3 kids and a wife and I often don't get to play till everyone is asleep, and then with headphones. I also don't want to plug my rig into a computer and change 100 tiny parameters or use menus, but I still want the flexibility of using 3 iconic amp types. I want to plug into something and it just works and sounds great. I want to twiddle the knobs and know what I'm doing. I've also had back problems and wanted to reduce my rig size. The Iridium hits all these features for me. Also, never knew I would love stereo effects so much until I had a simple solution to hear them. Iridium does that too. There have been a few really cool competitors to the Iridium that have come out since I bought it. Honestly, I probably would have bought the Mako ACS1 if it was available when I got it. But I'm not trading in anytime soon for a few reasons. First off, the plexi sound over the bluesbreaker sound, especially since I pickup up a Les Paul recently. Secondly, even though this is digital, I really like that it has an analogue gain stage at the beginning of breakup. Long story short, I love this pedal. It sounds fantastic, especially if you're recording or getting your main playback from a stage monitor or in ears, you will never know the difference. I never would have fallen fully in love with Electric guitar without this pedal.

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Iridium and ES8

I'm still as impressed with this unit as I was when I rated it earlier this year, but wanted to add something I discovered yesterday that makes a huge difference in the sound of my dirt pedals. Something had been lacking in the tone I was getting out of either my Fulltone OCD or Strymon Sunset, no matter the amount of tweaking. Until last night when I was messing around and placed… read more the Iridium and either dirt pedal in parallel in the loop structure. My goodness! The righteous tone of the OCD came back from hiatus and I finally can realize the flexibility of the Sunset - which I've liked but now absolutely love. My dirt has never sounded better.

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Great Back UP amp!

For a straight up tube amp player this pedal has impressed me. I bought it because my job asked me to go work out of town for 30 days and now I'm going on 4 months . To be honest it's so hard not having my tube amp living in a hotel but having this pedal helped me get through the tough times! I loaded the David Hislop IR's which you can find here davidhislop and it sounds great!… read more The way I use it is the Iridium into an art little tube pre amp and Wow! Almost gets close to a tube amp ! I play a Morgan AC20 so I live in the chime setting ! This will live in my gig bag if I ever run into an amp issue ! Check out the links below to hear it on my YouTube channel !

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Exceptional

When I first got this pedal I simply plugged my guitar into the pedal, powered it on, and started playing. And instantly I was liking the pedal. Everything was sounding great. But I've got a lot of money and love invested in my pedals so of course I wanted to try them out. In this pedal chain I had an EQ pedal > Chase Bliss Audio Brothers dual boost/OD/fuzz > Ram's Head Big… read more Muff re-issue > Strymon Timeline > Strymon BigSky > Iridium.. I ran the Iridium at the very end of my signal chain just like the manual says to do. As I engaged the Iridium I just had the Timeline and BigSky turned on.. It sounded derp. The reverb was super washed out sounding, for instance. I'd previously either been playing with an actual tube amp or running it through an interface and using my Mac's Garage Band's amp/cab simulation and even the Garage Band stuff seemed to have taken my pedals way better because at this point I was thinking Garage Band amp/cab sims were better than Iridium. I tinkered with it for a bit longer, started getting more frustrated, and then eventually resolved to return the pedal. A few days later I decided to give it another try. Set it all up the same way and had the same results. It didn't sound very good when I was using reverb or delay. I could make the gain and fuzz pedals work but I was thinking to myself "What's the point of having this Iridium if I can't use it with my Timeline or BigSky?" THEN I decided just to try putting my Timeline and BigSky AFTER the Iridium. Bingo. That did it. Suddenly I was blown away at the sounds I was getting out of this thing. It sounds AMAZING! At this point I finally realized I basically had all of these amazing amps/cabs in a little box. I'm sure you have already read up on the amps this pedal is simulating but just to throw it out there, the round amp is fantastic if you want good clean tones, or a good blank slate to use for your pedals. The chime amp to my ears has a bit more character to it and allows for much more gain than the round amps. And then you have the punch amp which is great for those thicc Marshall sounds if you're really wanting to rock. You have a ton of potential here and no matter what genre or style of music you play, you could put this pedal to good use. Now the way I've got my current rig set up is Tuner > Wah > Brothers > Big Muff > EQ > Iridium > Timeline > BigSky > Audio Interface > Computer... And it's just wonderful. It's the best. It's so much better than what I was getting out of Garage Band's amp/cabs (which aren't even that bad but just not on the same level as Iridium). I'm super glad I didn't return the pedal before I tried putting my delay and reverb after the Iridium... Heck, and I may be doing it wrong because the manual pretty much always has you putting the Iridium at the end of your signal chains (before you go direct or go into a recording interface), but it doesn't sound like I'm doing it wrong. It sounds FANTASTIC. I can't overstate how happy I am with this thing and how good it sounds. The reviews are real. The hype is real. The videos online showing this thing off are real. If you record using an audio interface, it's a fantastic tool. If you gig, it can be a great thing to have handy. If you want to practice at home but don't want to wake people up with your real amp, the Iridium solves that problem. It's just a superb pedal and it's a lot of fun... Okay, I'll stop now lol

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