Strymon Gives Deco, BigSky, El Capistan a “Midnight” Makeover

November 24, 2021 · 9 sources

The El Capistan is Strymon's tape delay pedal, built on what the company calls its "hand crafted dTape™ technology"¹. Strymon describes it as a machine that "recreates the mechanics and subtleties of vintage tape echo machines," with "adjustable tape wear, natural wow & flutter and a beautifully voiced spring reverb"². It provides three different tape machine types in one, each with three unique modes¹.

Its features include:

• Sound-on-sound looping, run from the TAP footswitch: press to splice in, press again to splice out, and a third press erases the loop³
• Full MIDI control on V2 pedals, with the EXP/MIDI jack set to MIDI mode by turning the MIX knob fully clockwise²
• An expression input that can also take a favorite switch to save and recall a preset¹
• True Bypass from the factory, switchable to Buffered Bypass, which Strymon says "preserves the high frequency response of your guitar signal through your pedal chain and long cable runs"⁴

The pedal runs on a maximum of 9 volts DC center negative with a minimum of 250mA current, in a strong and lightweight gunmetal gray anodized aluminum chassis, crafted in the USA¹⁵. The V2 Tape Delay carried a list price of $379.00³. The name came from Strymon's resident sound designer Pete Celi, who combined the word capstan with El Capitan⁶.

Players hoping to upgrade an older unit should note that Strymon has said it is not possible to add the V2 features to older pedals, because the electronic and mechanical designs are different and the hardware is not interchangeable⁷.

MusicRadar's reviewer Trevor Curwen compared it favorably to the real thing: "Alongside vintage Space Echo and Copicat units, this compares well: it sounds excellent and gets pretty close to real tape echo tone"⁸. Strymon artist Alex Maiolo uses the pedal in his bands TRIPLE X SNAXXX and Lacy Jags⁹.