19 thoughts on “Is The Strymon Big Sky MX The Best Reverb Pedal Ever?”

1. For me it is.

2. For me it is not.

3. Not for that price.

4. Sure it is, if you have the money! If you’re into hardware, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better reverb. The deal is that you can buy software effects and multi-effect boxes that are whoppers as well. Strymon is simply one of the better boutique offerings, such as Eventide.

   If I wasn’t so ITB, I could easily see this as my master ‘verb, permanently routed to a mixer. Its got big muscles. A perfect shade of torquise-y blue, too.

   1. Well. I haven’t used it yet, but based on the original and having read about the new BS and listened on YT, I still much prefer the Meris MX (Mercury X, though it’s super nice of Strymon to use the same letters) – a better blue, too! Lower list price, as well. Got mine for around $500 from Perfect Circuit.

      The Meris MX can also be a delay, flanger, tremolo, chorus, compressor, limiter, fuzz pedal, and more in addition to the reverb that has 2 LFOs, a step sequencer, envelope follower, and more. Add it all together and it can go places with tones and character the Strymon MX can’t (and the reverse will be true to some extent). Plus it doesn’t sound like a Strymon reverb, thankfully! I much prefer the Meris reverb sound, including the LX224 recreations.

      Just watched a YT video yesterday about how someone remade their favorite Strymon BS presets on the Meris MX.

      1. The MX isn’t picking a fight with Mercury X. The Nightsky covers that field of experimental reverb for Strymon. y. No, the MX has it’s focus on the market the Ventris held rather tight, which was the go-for reverb for realistic representations of reverbs. Shoulld be obvious due to it having a dual reverb going for it this time.

         Got the Mercury X, Ventris, Nightsky and two analogs based on BBD chips. The MX is, luckily, something I don’t need, because damn, it looks capable. Those IR loaders though! But then again, if I ever had the dire need to run a certain IR reverb, I’d bend over and grab the laptop.

      2. The Meris pedals sound great but that UI is a headache

         Why reinvent the wheel with something like that?

5. There’s no doubt that this is one of the most capable reverb pedals ever made, and just a great hardware reverb in general.

   I’m personally torn on this, because a great reverb just immensely improves everything you use it with. But there are some really great reverbs in the box, like the Valhalla reverbs.

6. ive heard its very good

   problem is that built-in reverb fx have come a VERY LONG way in the past 10 years

   so its not nearly as necessary anymore, especially as a $700 boutique dedicated box

   1. There’s a couple of reverb users. Some are for sound designers who never get to actually making music and just twist their day away. And musicians, who turn some dials on a preset and call it a day and hit record. 🙂

      Build in reverb is good enough for most though! Usually they’re great in that they sound rather neutral, so the sound of the synth will keep it’s shine. Same with the basic delays and chorus.

7. BigSky MX or the Nightsky for synths?

   i would say the bigsky MX ! – because the options the Nightsky offers (filters, lfos etc.) are there on your synth already.

   (btw.: wish the nightsky had USB C)

   1. What a moronic statement. Having co-located modulation is faster to work with by several orders of magnitude.

8. Meris Mercury X, Eventide, Oto Bam, Chase Bliss Audio…etc..there are many options…

   But above Strymon Big Sky MX seems great, with both a good display and many control knobs… each of those I mentioned above lack either on controls or display.

9. I wonder if thy will update BigSky Native?

10. The “original” Big Sky is available as a plug-in which better fits my needs for $199

11. I have slaked my thirst for glorious reverb with the Tasty Chips Integral, which is dual, true-stereo convolution, with up to 23 second IR’s. It can read as many IRs as you can squeeze onto a USB thumb drive. I’m really happy with it.

    For people who like/need to be able to tweak a reverb in more detail and in realtime, then algorithmic reverb is a must. Fractal’s devices have nice reverbs. My general sense is that Fractal’s reverbs are like a modern, more-smooth version of lexicon reverbs– when lower diffusion values, the sound is very similar to lexicon. Source Audio’s Ventris is quite good, has a cool personality, and the reverbs are generally pleasant.

    In general, Strymon reverbs aren’t my cup of tea. But it’s cool to see that they are continuing to tweak their algorithms and have put convolution in the mix. I couldn’t tell from the description if user IRs could be loaded.

    1. Ah, thanks for mentioning the Integral! I didn’t know such a compact reverb IR loader existed! <3 I got the stereo cab loader by Mooer, and was waiting for them to release a reverb version as well.

12. Seems like a great pedal. Remarkable how Lexicon has lost its market leader position in a relatively short space of time.

    1. Lexicon still sells a couple very high-end units PCM96 & PCM92– both with 32-float processing and 96K sample rates. I wonder if the algorithms are basically the same, but with the higher fidelity specs.

       We used to see Lexicon’s algorithms featured in Digitech pedals & multi-FX. It seems like more recently, reverb pedals have gotten less $#!++`/. But non-lexicon reverbs in other products and standalone pedals have improved enough to be a reasonable substitute. So I can understand Lexicon not wanting to scrabble for crumbs in that market.