Where to begin… Lets start with washy, wobble, and crinkle. So much tape goodness in one awesome pedal. Ive owned the El cap for about 7 months, and it still keeps me guessing what corner of the unknown universe i will be carried to next.
But I digress, lest my rambling be in vain. The El Capistan can really make a huge array of sounds. Ambient, ethereal, nostalgic are obvious and easily attainable, but I really just love it for simple sounds as well. The in-depth controls like, tape age, tape bias, tape crinkle, and optional spring reverb, add a whole new level to even subtle, low mix delays.
One of my favorite sounds is to dial in a quicker dotted 8th style echo, and set both tape bias(headroom) and crinkle to about half way. The result is this echo that has such character, and yet isn’t quite predictable. Where Strymon really nailed the tape sound, is the inconsistency in these crinkle, and warped repeats. Every echoed note doesn’t sound the same and the longer a note is repeated, the more tape character is added. But like I said early, rolling all these tape parameters back and keeping tape age at 0, will produce lovely clean tape echo sounds that can compliment any style of playing.
There are so many great things to love.
– very realistic footprint
– realistic power consumption
– on board tap tempo
– optional preset via a favorite switch
– and, of course, the secondary knob functions
I highly recommend this pedal!
Submitted by Charlie G, Instagram
