Weirdo/Fun factor of the Strymon Timeline

[popvulture]

So...

Until recently, I hadn't spent too much time with the Timeline. Funnily enough, I have bought one before, but it was a thank you gift to my best friend for throwing me a lot of business.

I was recently visiting him in LA and got in a half hour of messing with his pedal, and some of the tones on it sort of surprised me. I particularly liked the lofi setting, turning the mix all the way wet, delay to shortest setting and playing with the grit/modulation/filter settings. I guess I'd always thought of the TL as being more of a soaring, glossy lead kind of thing ala Pete Thorn (he seems like a really cool guy and I'm not trying to knock him, more just an example of playing that's not really my personal style), and I hadn't considered it as being able to get weird.

Having really dug that lofi sound, at first I tried to hone in on less complicated (and not almost $500) pedals that offered something more straightforward in that realm. The Malekko Lofi delay was cool, but was artifact-y in a way that I wasn't looking for. The TC Flashback was ok, but not quite there either.

So I just got back from the shop after spending a little more time with the TL again. Once again that cool lofi sound was easy to dial in, plus I got a little bit to noodle with some other settings. It seemed pretty damn cool.

My big question—was I wrong to write it off? I never thought it was bad, and nor am I a Strymon hater in general, just didn't think it was my thing. What are your experiences with it? Also, could anyone recommend any in-depth YT reviews that go beyond the canned, preset-y realm? After discovering the lofi sound that I liked, I didn't want to consider buying such an expensive pedal for just one of its sounds, but if there's a lot more interesting shit to work with in there, I'll happily give it some more serious thought.

Thanks in advance for the praise and/or haterade. And FWIW, I don't mean praise in the P&W sense

[popvulture]

Should also add that the TL seems to enjoy about the same level of ubiquitous popularity as the H9. Yes, the latter seems pretty cool, I will agree, but the low amount of on-the-device tweaking has always been a major deterrent for me. If you think I should be persuaded to change my mind with that one too though, let's hear it.

[Tristan]

I had the Timeline but my main gripe with it was that it doesn't have that many special settings or tweakability for that matter, it always sounds and reacts the way it does regardless of settings, in the end I'm much happier with a great analog delay like the DMM550TT, possibly combined with a great digital like the DD-5 or a quirky PT2399 delay like the No Memory.
Even the Mooer ReEcho sounds and feels better, more versatile and more natural to me as it functions for both rhythmic and ambient delays on the same setting.

[Gone Fission]

I think the Zoom MS-70CDR has an emulation of the Strymon lofi delay included, as well as the Ice Delay. Ice Delay is a free download for the MS-100BT through their iOS app, and it's fucking nice. Might not be balls on accurate to the original, but sounding good at 20% of the price isn't bad.

[popvulture]

I had the Timeline but my main gripe with it was that it doesn't have that many special settings or tweakability for that matter, it always sounds and reacts the way it does regardless of settings, in the end I'm much happier with a great analog delay like the DMM550TT, possibly combined with a great digital like the DD-5 or a quirky PT2399 delay like the No Memory.
Even the Mooer ReEcho sounds and feels better, more versatile and more natural to me as it functions for both rhythmic and ambient delays on the same setting.

Not sure quite what you mean... are you saying that tweaking the parameters didn't really do anything to the sound of the presets? Because that would really make the whole ability to edit presets completely pointless.

This guy gets close to the lofi setting I was messing with, although it gets a little too toy telephone for me—I like it with the filter settings sounding a little less nasal, so it's more just generally weird than old-timey. Plus I think vinyl crackles coming off of anything other than actual vinyl is one of the corniest things ever. But, there's an approximate version of what I was having fun with.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkTtRyf7xFE[/youtube]

Also, this guy's review is good—it seems to me that the parameters are actually quite tweakable. I dunno man, consider me very interested.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK1QxEcQcug[/youtube]

[Chankgeez]

... or a quirky PT2399 delay...

This is what I was gonna suggest… but I'm the kind of person who likes pedals that don't try to do too many things.

So, I'd probably rather get a PT2399 delay and another pedal to make lo-fi sounds.

That being said, I might like something like a Timeline if I took the time to mess with it.

I guess it all depends on what you really want out of it. I'd never use the Timeline to its full advantage (especially in a live setting).

If you think you would, get it!

If you're buying it just to have fun, get it!

Either way, get it!

You can always sell it if you don't like it.

[Tristan]

I had the Timeline but my main gripe with it was that it doesn't have that many special settings or tweakability for that matter, it always sounds and reacts the way it does regardless of settings, in the end I'm much happier with a great analog delay like the DMM550TT, possibly combined with a great digital like the DD-5 or a quirky PT2399 delay like the No Memory.
Even the Mooer ReEcho sounds and feels better, more versatile and more natural to me as it functions for both rhythmic and ambient delays on the same setting.

Not sure quite what you mean... are you saying that tweaking the parameters didn't really do anything to the sound of the presets? Because that would really make the whole ability to edit presets completely pointless.

Exactly that, Strymon stuff sounds nice recorded and it seems like it has many different possibilities but when working with it in a live setting most of that doesn't really come through in my experience.
Not that it's bad stuff by any means but I think it's a bit overpriced and personally I'm more happy with a combination of two cheaper delays than I ever was with the Timeline.
In my opinion it's definitely not the be all end all delay as some people might claim it to be, it's mostly suited to ambient playing, for laying washes behind what you play.

[DRodriguez]

I personally love my strymon (both the big sky and the timeline.) But I am an audio nerd and a knob tweaker, so I really dig into the settings and make what I want. To me, the strymon presets always sound like the strymon sound, but once you start digging in and manipulating, you can get some really cool sounds whatever your style. There are also resources out there with pools of presets that you can import with a cheap usb to midi cable. I think strymon is great for easy ambient sounds, or people wanting something with endless tweak-ability.

I do think it's worth it's price simply with how clean it sounds noise-wise and the quality of the algorithms. Honestly, I put it on par versatility wise with some of the lexicon's I use in the studio, but with a different flavor.

[popvulture]

so I really dig into the settings and make what I want.

Good, this is the kind of thing that I find reassuring, and the demo video I posted indicated as much.

I think my only beef with this is that I'm not a fan of submenus. Even watching the guy do some submenu tweaks almost gives me a headache—it reminds me of when I first learned analog photography and could change all of my settings on my lens and keep my eye on the image/light meter. No fussing, just feel... now my digital SLR is so layered with menus that it's often a pain. That said, still gets the job done and probably with a good bit more tweakability, just something else to learn.

I need to see if I can find a friend here in town who'll let me borrow one for a couple days, actually get some in depth exploration.

[skullservant]

I'm on my second Timeline. I bought it because I wanted something I could tweak forever, but also play live. When I'm at home, I sit in front of it and tweak knobs for long periods of time. Then when I play live, I just use my presets. I haven't messed around with full wet a whole lot, but I did spend the other night messing around with the LoFi mode and it was pretty cool

[Tristan]

Yeah, I guess people are either in the DRodriguez camp or in my camp, try to really get a fair deal of in depth time with it and you'll be able to figure it out.

[popvulture]

In conjunction with my pedal switcher thread and my falling in love with the boss ES-8 the more I read about it, I also have gotta say that being able to program in specific patches via MIDI sounds like a fucking dream. To me that'd make all the potentially headache-inducing things well worth it.

I couldn't ever have something like the TL replace an awesome analog delay—my Maxon AD9 has been on my board forever, and it's never leaving. I'd still also love a Meet Maude, and one of these days I plan on finally picking up a weirdo digital like the Kilobyte (or maybe that Alexander after that new Knobs, oy).

At the end of the day, I think it'd be excellent to have one killer analog on my board next to something like the TL, mixing the classic/straightforward with something that can be a lot more Swiss Army. Ah, and I guess the Dispatch Master too, because that's never leaving either. Having teased guys who have 5 ODs on their boards, I'm a total hypocrite in the delay dept... I could easily have 5 of em for various reasons.

[Meriphew]

I love my Timeline. It can get you some great emulations of classic delay pedals, but it can also get completely bizarre sounds.

[popvulture]

Procured. Gotta say—it's pretty damn fun so far. The first thing I noticed is that a lot of the factory presets are WAY not subtle, but I can't say I wasn't expecting as much. The default setting for most patches seems to be pretty high repeats settings, so the first thing I did was kinda dial a couple back and enjoyed some of the more subtly weird tones I could dig out by diving into the parameters.

Plus... didn't know there was an fx loop on the back. I'ma stick my CT5 up in there and see what happens.

[ThurberMingus]

Plus... didn't know there was an fx loop on the back. I'ma stick my CT5 up in there and see what happens.

You are a mad genius!