I admit that I came into this pedal unhopeful and expecting to return it given my previous take & experience with Strymon delays, but I’m very pleasantly surprised with the Volante. I’m very pleased with this pedal and it’s what I’ve really wanted a Strymon delay to be. Except it’s MORE than that, and better than that cuz it SOUNDS BETTER to me. I feel that the Volante is like the DIG and the El Capistan had a baby. I like having the ability to get dirty analog delay tones out of this with specific dialing in of the Rec Level, Wear and Repeats controls. With the Rec Level and repeats set higher, the repeats react similar to an analog delay where they are dirty, and get dirtier and louder the longer they repeat. The volume ramps out of control, which is less than ideal for a super dirty, smooth washout tones but again, it’s okay that it doesn’t. There is no option for volume resistance or bias to this feature, so when you crank up the Rec Level with high repeats it doesn’t go into smooth or volume regulated / controlled oscillation like the El Capistan. I really like this feature for the reason stated above, but I also like that you can introduce “grit” into the repeats akin to an analog delay sound. It seems to me it is what helps the dry signal stand out and be more separated from the repeats. I feel part of the real magic here is the Rec Level. That would be nice but I’m satisfied without it cuz of how good this pedals sounds. I do wish the Volante had separate control over the Crinkle vs Modulation. I love the manipulation & control you have over modulation, tone of the repeats, the multiple heads, etc. Dampening the high end (Wear Knob) really warms up the repeats with moderate settings but also darkens up the repeats so nicely with more extreme Wear knob settings. You have control over high end and low end. It’s also nice that you can tailor the EQ of the repeats to your liking. The repeats are full and clear which I love. The delay sounds are gorgeous and beautiful. So I never landed on or kept a Strymon delay very long, and I owned the best of them (El Capistan, Timeline, DIG). The moment I got the Mix level where I wanted it, my dry signal seemed subdued/weakened and I wasn’t running a high level on the mix knob. There was also something about how the Strymon delays processed my signal and the way the wet & sry signal were blended that I could never find the right balance. I preferred the DMMTT and the Diamond Memory Lane Jr. While they are top tier / high quality products that are sound good and tweakable, they didn’t have the tone I desire. I concluded years ago that that Strymon delays were not for me. I spent a lot of time and money comparing everything I was interested in from Deluxe Memory Man various versions, MXR Carbon Copy, Maxon AD999, Boss Digital Delays, Diamond, Strymon and more. Not too many years ago I was a hardcore tone hound. I’ve done a lot of delay searching and comparisons over the years.
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