Strymon has released the Echo Plugin Bundle, which gives you the popular El Capistan tape echo and DIG dual digital delay pedals for your DAW.
Strymon is a hardware-only pedal company. That’s what we had assumed until 2022. But when the BigSky plugin came along, a second door opened for the company. Another hardware-to-software port followed this, the Deco Tape Saturator & Doubletracker plugin, in August 2023.
Today, Strymon’s young software journey continues with a bundle of two new plugins.
Strymon Echo Plugin Bundle
The Echo Plugin Bundle features two new Strymon plugins—the El Capistan tape echo and DIG dual digital delay—and two more Strymon pedal ports. The developers say it contains two of their most iconic delay pedals, ready to use in your DAW.
El Capistan is a vintage-inspired tape echo plugin that captures the warm and saturated tones from old tape machines. Like the hardware, it comes with three distinct tape machine modes and three “heads” options, each with a different sonic character. In addition, it hosts a spring reverb that can be mixed with the echo sound.
You can tweak it with different parameters, including tape speed, repeats wow & flutter, tape age, tape crinkle, low-end contour, and more. Strymon promises the El Capistan delivers everything from crisp and clean delays to rich, gritty echoes with authentic tape character.
Good, the tempo of the echo can be synced to your DW, set with temp or used in free mode.
Strymon DIG
The DIG dual digital delay is the second plugin in the new Strymon Echo Plugin Bundle. It’s also a 1-to-1 hardware port.
It’s a versatile “digital” dual delay that captures the essence of ’80s digital delays. It uses two delays with distinct voicing types: ADM, 12-bit, and 24/96.
Then, it offers three configuration modes: series, ping-pong, and parallel. For each delay, you can set the tempo with sub-divisions, repeats, and levels individually. DIG can run free, with tap tempo, or in sync with your DAW.
Further, you can work with modulation and tone shaping on both delays together. There is also a dry/wet mix control.
First Impression
Two straightforward echo/delay plugins that add a lovely retro delay touch to sounds. It’s nice to see that Strymon is now making its high-quality algorithms available for DAW users step by step. I’m excited to see what the next step will be.
Strymon Echo Plugin Bundle is available now for $99, or individually for $79 each. It runs as a VST3, AU, and AAX plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows. Registration requires an ILok software account or hardware dongle.
More information here: Strymon
My immediate thought is: why would anyone need one of these? Everything these promise to do are already done so well by other plugins. The appeal of Strymon, I always thought l, was the hardware itself: the metal and plastic bits that sounded good.aybe im wrong
Strymon reverbs and delays are all digital. The algorithms are what people love. Not hard to port to a plugin I imagine.
Sadly no iOS support from strymon 😭