Strymon announces La Brea analog tape drive pedal

September 29, 2026 · 6 sources

Strymon announced La Brea, a fully analog tape saturation drive pedal, on September 29, 2026. It is priced at $199.00 and is sold direct from the maker and through dealers¹²³.

The maker describes the pedal as "Fully analog multi-stage tape saturation"¹. Strymon says the circuit uses multi-stage tape saturation to cover "everything from mild breakup to borderline-fuzz," with the compression the maker associates with tape¹. The pedal has Tape Saturation, Level and Dry controls, a Gain switch with High and Norm settings, and a three-position Shift switch for treble shaping¹². Strymon says one Shift position focuses on high frequencies only and the other adds upper mids to those high frequencies¹. The dry path is fully variable and, according to the maker, stays in phase with the signal at all times¹. The pedal runs internally at 24 volts from a standard 9V supply drawing 500mA, which Strymon says provides headroom for a clean boost or an all-out fuzz¹⁴.

Strymon traces the design to analog engineer Josh Forbes, who the maker says read a white paper by co-founder Pete Celi on the development of the Deco and began experimenting with tape saturation in a fully analog drive circuit¹⁵. La Brea follows the Fairfax Class A Output Stage Drive and Canoga Vintage Silicon Fuzz in the Series A line¹²⁶.

Guitar Pedal X called it "a properly interesting take" and placed it above the Fairfax on its own priority list². Gearnews wrote that at $200 "it faces a lot of competition from other pedal builders"³.