Harmonizing ambient reverbs are tricky stuff. Tilt too much to the heavy-handed side and you can easily have a box of schmaltz on your hands. And from an operational standpoint, a lot of harmonizing reverbs tend to be complex and thick with secondary, hidden controls. That’s great for sound designers. Maybe less so for performing guitarists that would rather play and write than tinker with a pedal’s deeper secrets.
Strymon’s Cloudburst does a classy, clever job of inhabiting the simplicity side of the spectrum. It’s still deep and rich with ambient sounds that can stretch to extra-expansive. But it also produces very rich sound pictures of small spaces. And while it won’t effectively replace a spring sound—there’s a little too much harmonizing at most voices for that—it can be modest, a little lo-fi, imperfect, and less than pristine in really cool ways. With a WYSIWYG control set, it’s also a lot of fun to use in fast-moving, intuitive fashion.
Shrunken, Streamlined, Simple
Strymon pedals have taken on a few forms over their history. The near-uniform, relatively economical layouts of pedals like the Flint, El Capistan, and Deco, or bigger pedals like the BigSky or TimeLine, have an almost Boss-like way of engendering familiarity and ease. The Cloudburst feels every bit as inviting, and perhaps more so for its small size and relatively spare control array.
“Short decay, bright tone, spanky pre-delay, and a strong dose of mod, to simulate tape drift, can evoke skanky Exile on Main Street ambience.”
The controls are de rigueur for an ambient reverb. Mix, decay, pre-delay, tone, and modulation make up the knobs. A single toggle called “ensemble” switches between the three levels of harmonics that are added to the input signal: off, mezzo piano, or forte, which effectively increase the intensity of the harmonic effect
Each of the controls, and the pedal in general, have a lot of range, so you have to pay close attention to how the knobs relate to each other at very specific settings, with just a single preset at your disposal (called a “favorite” setting here), which unfortunately requires an outboard switch that can also be configured to work as a freeze switch (not included). If you have a MIDI controller, the pedal can be set up for 300 presets. The lack of many easily accessible presets is bound to turn off some users, and that’s a shame given the pedal’s range. But that makes it no less fun to work with on the fly, and the expression-pedal jack means you can create dramatic variations in mix level while you play. Cloudburst also comes with a full stereo TRS in/out, TRS MIDI, USB C and a discrete JFET front end.
Summon the Cumulus
The Cloudburst really can move through a lot of spaces, and many voices and capabilities will surprise. In the no-ensemble setting, and at a low mix level (as heard in Clip 1 of the audio included with the online version of this review), you get a taste of how rangy the Cloudburst can be in even small amounts. For starters, the pedal can offer a dollop of brightness and punch to a clean signal. Short decay, bright tone, spanky predelay, and a strong dose of mod, to simulate tape drift, can evoke skanky Exile on Main Street ambience, or a more controlled ’70s room environment. Stack on the decay time, a washy pre-decay, plus doses of tone and modulation, and you’re in ringing harmony-heavy surfgaze spaces. Advancing the mix just to noon significantly changes the size of the no-ensemble setting. And here, as heard in Clip 2, you’ll find much dreamier colors as you advance the mix.
One thing that’s cool about themezzo piano and forte settings is that both modes can generate high-harmonic or orchestral textures that straddle the strange and organic. Depending on tone, modulation, and pre-delay settings, they can take on husky, almost dirty overtones or can be soft—almost like a synth with a slow attack setting. They can also easily be tuned to eliminate much of the cloying, hyper-angelic sound that colors other high harmonic reverbs, and can embellish simple melodies in very dramatic ways (Clip 3).
One thing that’s cool about themezzo piano and forte settings is that both modes can generate high-harmonic or orchestral textures that straddle the strange and organic. Depending on tone, modulation, and pre-delay settings, they can take on husky, almost dirty overtones or can be soft—almost like a synth with a slow attack setting. They can also easily be tuned to eliminate much of the cloying, hyper-angelic sound that colors other high harmonic reverbs, and can embellish simple melodies in very dramatic ways (Clip 3).
The Verdict
Strymon’s simple but expansive Cloudburst pays a cost for its streamlined functionality and compact enclosure. Primarily, there are not enough presets for how many cool sounds there are here, unless you introduce other hardware and use MIDI. But that problem aside, Cloudburst is fun and stimulates musical thought. It’s also intuitive to use—as long as you’re willing to take the time to study the expansive ranges in the controls and get a sense for how interactive they can be. Still, even minor mastery of Cloudburst’s capabilities can open up opportunities and musical directions. At $279, it’s a pricey little machine. But it’s not hard to see getting many tunes, hooks, licks, and sparks of inspiration from the Cloudburst. And you can rack up a few hundred bucks worth of that stuff pretty quickly.
Strymon Cloudburst Ambient Reverb Demo | First Look
Tom Bedell in the Relic Music acoustic room, holding a custom Seed to Song Parlor with a stunning ocean sinker redwood top and milagro Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
A born storyteller, Bedell doesn’t keep his passion to himself. On Friday, May 12, at New Jersey boutique guitar outpost Relic Music, Bedell shared some of the stories he’s collected during his life and travels as part of a three-city clinic trip. At Relic—and stops at Crossroads Guitar and Art in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, and Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center in Wheaton, Maryland—he discussed his guitars and what makes them so special, why sustainability is such an important cause, and how he’s putting it into practice.
Before his talk, we sat in Relic’s cozy, plush acoustic room, surrounded by a host of high-end instruments. We took a look at a few of the store’s house-spec’d Bedell parlors while we chatted.
“The story of this guitar is the story of the world,” Bedell explained to me, holding a Seed to Song Parlor. He painted a picture of a milagro tree growing on a hillside in northeastern Brazil some 500 years ago, deprived of water and growing in stressful conditions during its early life. That tree was eventually harvested, and in the 1950s, it was shipped to Spain by a company that specialized in church ornaments. They recognized this unique specimen and set it aside until it was imported to the U.S. and reached Oregon. Now, it makes the back and sides of this unique guitar.
A Bedell Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides.
As for the ocean sinker redwood top, “I’m gonna make up the story,” Bedell said, as he approximated the life cycle of the tree, which floated in the ocean, soaking up minerals for years and years, and washed ashore on northern Oregon’s Manzanita Beach. The two woods were paired and built into a small run of exquisitely outfitted guitars using the Bedell/Breedlove Sound Optimization process—in which the building team fine-tunes each instrument’s voice by hand-shaping individual braces to target resonant frequencies using acoustic analysis—and Bedell and his team fell in love.
Playing it while we spoke, I was smitten by this guitar’s warm, responsive tone and even articulation and attack across the fretboard; it strikes a perfect tonal balance between a tight low-end and bright top, with a wide dynamic range that made it sympathetic to anything I offered. And as I swapped guitars, whether picking up a Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides or one with an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, the character and the elements of each instrument changed, but that perfect balance remained. Each of these acoustics—and of any Bedell I’ve had the pleasure to play—delivers their own experiential thumbprint.
Rosette and inlay detail on an Adirondack spruce top.
Ultimately, that’s what brought Bedell out to the East Coast on this short tour. “We have a totally different philosophy about how we approach guitar-building,” Bedell effused. “There are a lot of individuals who build maybe 12 guitars a year, who do some of the things that we do, but there’s nobody on a production level.” And he wants to spread that gospel.
“We want to reach people who really want something special,” he continued, pointing out that for the Bedell line, the company specifically wants to work with shops like Relic and the other stores he’s visited, “who have a clientele that says I want the best guitar I can possibly have, and they carry enough variety that we can give them that.”
A Fireside Parlor with a Western red cedar top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
The Gibson EH-185, introduced in 1939, was one of the company’s first electric guitars.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of electric guitar in shaping American popular music over the last half-century. Its introduction was a revolution, changing the course of modern musical styles. Today, when we think of the guitars that started the revolution, we think of the Stratocaster and the Les Paul, guitars held against the body and fretted with the fingertips. But the real spark of this musical mutiny was the lap-steel guitar.
In the early 20th century, guitar music was moving out of the parlors of homes and into public spaces where folks could gather together and dance. Guitarists needed to project their sound far beyond where their wimpy little acoustic instruments could reach. Instrument manufacturers began experimenting with larger body sizes, metal construction, and resonators to increase volume.
Around this time, George Beauchamp began experimenting with electric guitar amplification. He settled on a design using two U-shaped magnets and a single coil of wire. Beauchamp was in business with Adolph Rickenbacker, and they decided to stick this new invention into a lap steel.
If we put on our 1930s glasses, this decision makes perfect sense. The most popular music at the time was a blend of Hawaiian and jazz styles made famous by virtuosos like Solomon “Sol” Hoʻopiʻi. Photos of Hoʻopiʻi with a metal-body resonator abound—one can imagine his relief at being handed an instrument that projected sound toward the audience via an amplifier, rather than back at his own head via resonator cones. Beauchamp and Rickenbacker were simply following the market.
As it turned out, the popularity of Hawaiian music gave way to swing, and electric lap steels didn’t exactly take the world by storm. But Beauchamp and Rickenbacker had proven the viability of this new technology, and other manufacturers followed suit. In 1937, Gibson created a pickup with magnets under the strings, rather than above like Beauchamp’s.
“When I plugged in the EH-185 I expected to hear something reminiscent of Charlie Christian’s smooth, clean tone. But what I got was meatier—closer to what I associate with P-90s: warm and midrange-y.”
The first page of Gibson’s “Electrical Instruments” section in the 1939 catalog features a glowing, full-page write-up of their top-of-the-line lap steel: the EH-185. “Everything about this new electric Hawaiian Guitar smacks of good showmanship,” effuses the copy. “It has smoothness, great sustaining power, and an easy flow of tone that builds up strongly and does not die out.”
Picking up the 1940 EH-185 at Fanny’s House of Music is about as close as one can get to traveling back in time to try a new one. It is just so clean, with barely any dings or even finish checking. Overall, this is a 9/10 piece, and it’s a joy to behold. Speaking of picking it up, the first thing you notice when you lift the EH-185 out of the case is its weight. This is a much heavier instrument than other similar-sized lap steels, owing to a length of thick metal between the body and the fretboard. The catalog calls it “Hyblum metal,” which may be a flowery trade name for an early aluminum alloy.
This 1940 EH-185 is heavier than other lap steels in its class, thanks to a length of metal between its fretboard and body.
Photo by Madison Thorn
There are numerous other fancy appointments on the EH-185 that Gibson didn’t offer on their lesser models. It’s made of highly figured maple, with diamond-shaped decorations on the back of the body and neck. The double binding is nearly a centimeter thick and gives the instrument a luxurious, expensive look.
Behind all these high-end attributes is a great-sounding guitar, thanks to that old pickup. It’s got three blades protruding through the bobbin for the unwound strings and one longer blade for the wound strings. When I plugged in the EH-185 I expected to hear something reminiscent of Charlie Christian’s smooth, clean tone. But what I got was meatier—closer to what I associate with P-90s: warm and midrange-y. It was just crying out for a little crunch and a bluesy touch. It’s kind of cool how such a pristine, high-end vintage instrument can be so well-suited for a sound that’s rough around the edges.
As far as electric guitars go, it doesn’t get much more vintage than this 1940 Gibson EH-185 Lap Steel. It reminds us of where the story of the electric guitar truly began. This EH-185 isn’t just a relic—it’s a testament to when the future of music was unfolding in real time. Plug it in, and you become part of the revolution.
Sources: Smithsonian, Vintage Guitar, Mozart Project, Gibson Pre-War, WIRED, Steel Guitar Forum, Vintaxe
