Delivering the complete experience of playing into an amp through a miked cab in a room is a research and development project that has been years in the making.

The amp development began in the tube emulation and cascading gain stage topography created for Riverside, and then majorly leveled up for the intense degree of real-time calculation Matrix Modeling™ required to create Iridium’s amps.

We’re not just talking about the perfectly recreated tone stacks, but also things like the treble bleed on the gain controls, multi-stage power supply sag, and preamp and power amp tube emulation.

Our talented and tireless engineering team covered quite a bit of new ground on the way to recreating these classic amp designs with exact mathematical fidelity, and then expanded the capabilities of each amp in musically useful ways, giving you the full range of original amp sounds, and then some.

We knew it was theoretically possible to deliver our goal of 24bit 96kHz 500ms impulse responses, but we had to figure out how to do it in practice.

This part of the Iridium project turned out to be a five-year journey through adversity.

We started with a smaller proof-of-concept FFT (fast Fourier transform) based IR convolution with shorter-duration mono cab IRs, kept working on it, and eventually tore it all down and rebuilt so we could deliver the 24bit 96kHz 500ms IR cabs that we’d dreamed of for Iridium.

With these amazing amps and cabs, we wanted to create amazing spaces for them to live and breathe in.

When you are playing in a physical room, the first 80 milliseconds or so of early reflections are what really tell your brain what type of space you’re in.

The complexity of those myriad early reflections are very difficult to simulate with an algorithm.

That’s where impulse response technology is the perfect tool for the task.

After a certain duration, however, impulse responses become computationally expensive, and that’s where the algorithm shines: on the long tail.

The algorithmic portions of our room ambience were dialed in for each room, with delay lines tailored to enhance and meld with each specific space and room size. Creating a seamless transition between IR and algorithm was an intensive and artistic process that ultimately resulted in completely natural sounding rooms that feel great to play in and never distract.

Iridium makes the most of the powerful combination of a high-performance 32-bit floating-point SHARC ADSP-21375 processor  working together with an ARM co-processor.

The SHARC is the perfect choice for handling the plethora of FFT instructions Iridium’s real-time sound processing requires, including adding and subtracting simultaneously.

We’ve created an optimized high-speed communications link between the two processors, and have maximized what the ARM co-processor can do.

Each turn of any of Iridium’s knobs sets off a chain of numerous coefficient calculations which we let the ARM co-processor handle, leaving the SHARC free to do its massive computational number crunching full-time at maximum capacity.

Besides stellar sound and responsiveness, this combination delivers super fast patch switching.

The ARM also provides USB connectivity and allows you to very quickly load and audition impulses with our Impulse Manager software.

Iridium is really a new class of device. You get IR resolution never before available in outboard gear, without paying a price in patch switching time, allowing you to select presets seamlessly with the speed you expect for live performance use.

Iridium, like all of our effects pedals, is built right here in Los Angeles, California.

There are many advantages to building our pedals within minutes of our design shop.

Most importantly, we control every aspect of manufacturing to ensure quality and consistency at every step of the process.

Every potentiometer, encoder, switch, LED, and audio component on every pedal is tested and re-tested.

Using the latest Audio Precision audio analyzing gear, each pedal must exceed our exacting audio quality standards.