This Week’s Preset: BigSky – “Bloombient”

If someone were to check out all the presets I’ve posted thus far, they might notice a pattern emerging: I like big tails and I cannot lie!  I enjoy pushing things to the max, and fortunately for me, BigSky is designed for those extremes. This week’s preset lends itself to a variety of ambient textures, and has a few fun tricks up its sleeve. I used a guitar for the input source in the audio sample below.

Listen here:

For the sound sample, I started by slowly picking single notes and letting them ring, and then from 0:09 to 0:17 I used my expression pedal to sweep the Tone control, which in the Bloom reverb machine adjusts the cutoff frequency of a very synth-like resonant filter. At about 0:20 I started picking my open D string to add some fresh input signal and then began turning the PARAM 1 knob to adjust the Length parameter, resulting in a wash of noise like a wave in an electronic ocean. Starting at about 0:31, I used the expression pedal again to turn the Tone control all the way to minimum, and finally turned down the Decay knob to achieve the fade-out at the end.

Preset details:

The image below shows the knob settings and parameters that I used in the audio clip.

As I mentioned in the description under the audio sample, in the presence of input signal, adjusting the Length parameter has a very audible (and to my ears, pleasing) effect. This is adjusting the Bloom time. Another cool thing you can try that works best in the presence of input signal is to adjust the Feedback parameter, which is mapped to the PARAM 2 knob in this preset. Although I did not do it in the audio clip, this can produce some cool pitch shifting effects. Adjusting the Modulation knob during performance also produces interesting results. When using the Bloom reverb machine, the Mod knob simultaneously (and independently) modulates the bloom-generating delay lines, as well as the tank reverb delay lines. I encourage you to experiment with different static settings for the Modulation knob as well, including minimum and maximum. The character of the preset will change noticeably.

Download the preset:

Using the Strymon Librarian? Download the “Bloombient” preset and load it into your BigSky.

What do you think?

Made your own tweaks to this preset? Post them below or tag them #StrymonPreset online. Are there other preset types that you’d like to see in upcoming blog posts? Let us know what you think. Thanks!