Strymon Ola Chorus & Vibrato

The Strymon Ola Chorus & Vibrato is a chorus and vibrato pedal from Strymon, announced at NAMM 2010 as part of the company's pedal lineup that year¹. It is a digital pedal, but one built around Strymon's dBucket DSP algorithm, which is designed to recreate the sound of analog bucket brigade electronics while adding modern levels of control².

For a player, that means the Ola aims for the character of the old bucket brigade chorus pedals, the chips that gave vintage chorus its warm, slightly degraded sound, but with the flexibility of a digital design. Premier Guitar describes it as a "feature-full pedal" that "includes chorus and vibrato tones based upon the company's dBucket DSP algorithm, with stereo ins and outs"³.

What It Does

In Strymon's own demo video, Ethan Tufts walks through "a wide range of chorus tones: dark, bright, shallow and deep choruses," showing how much tonal ground the pedal covers, from subtle thickening to pronounced, washy modulation⁴.

The pedal's controls include a "type" switch, which Guitar.com's Samuel Roberts notes "lets you go from vintage correct tones right through to modern digital variations," so a player can dial in either a faithful old-school bucket brigade character or a cleaner, more contemporary chorus sound².

Beyond basic chorus and vibrato, the Ola includes several deeper features:

• Multi and Vibrato modes, which Strymon covered in a follow-up demo video⁴
• Ramp and Envelope features, also demonstrated in a later video, which let the effect respond to or sweep toward different settings⁴

Guitar.com's take on the pedal sums up its appeal: it is "faithfully recreating the sound of analogue, bucket brigade electronics whilst adding in the unprecedented levels of control"².

Videos

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