The New Strymon NightSky Time-Warped Reverberator is a Revolutionary Twinkle Starred Sci-Fi Atmospheric Delight - with optional Reverb Tail Pattern Sequencer

OK - so it’s taken a little while to process this all, and I really did not think I would be in line for acquiring another Reverb this year - especially considering how many formidable releases there have been in this genre in the last few months - and with the looming introduction of the Chase Bliss Audio / Meris Automatone CXM 1978.

Early rumours pretty much indicated that it was going to be some sort of Reverb, and there were lots of nods to the Ursa Major Space Station SST-282 - but this is not that. I would imagine in fact that this would appeal to quite a different sort of player compared to the more universal / traditional / vanilla appeal of the Volante Magnetic / Tape Style Delay.

This is actually a full-on Sci-Fi Soundtrack Reverb - and where Meris’ Mercury 7 Reverb was/is a sort of homage to Blade Runner, the NightSky pretty much covers the whole Sci-Fi Cannon. For those thinking that this would be a saccharine shimmery confection - they are only very partially right, as everything here is optionable - you simply just turn down the Elements you don’t want to deploy.

The Starting point here is really in the Decay portion / block of the control topology where you select the Type of Reverb (Texture) and then its core properties. So if you just want to use the minimum number of controls here - it’s basically the Decay block plus the Mix and Tone blocks / elements (9 Controls!) - all else can be disabled - and there’s a lot going on here with a total potential 18 control elements at your fingertips.

So, as a bare minimum :

Decay Length is the magnitude or time for the Reverb tail to fade out.

Texture is the 3 core Reverb Types :

• Sparse = Granular-sounding reverb which uses a limited number of reflections to produce separated echoes when input is of a staccato / short and sharp nature, but otherwise renders as a smooth reverb ("individual reflections rattling around" when strings are struck hard)
• Dense = Fast response with multiple reflections - very similar in style to a Plate Reverb
• Diffuse = Multiple Diffusers employed to expand dynamic range of Reverb and create slow-building atmospheric Wash

Size / Pitch varies the Processor / Clock Rate - which impacts both on the Dynamics and Number of the Reflections and the nature of Decay Artefacts

Quantize sets the Range and Response for the Size / Pitch knob in 3 variations :

• Smooth = Size/Pitch varies smoothly and continuously over a 2.5 octave pitch range
• Half Step = Size/Pitch is quantized into half-step intervals over a two octave range
• Scale = Size/Pitch is quantized into selectable scales over a two octave range

The Next block along is the Mix controls - where you have separate Level / Output controls for Reverb and Dry signals - where noon is approximately unity and Dry adds up to +3dB when rotated fully clockwise. Obviously you can completely turn off the Dry signal by setting that knob fully CCW.

Finally in the minimal settings stakes - you typically need to tweak your Low and High Frequency response or Tone - where you have individual controls to temper each of those profiles, and a ’Filter’ type essentially in how you apply the frequency controls :

• Regen = Removes high frequencies from the regenerating core creating a reverb that gets progressively darker as it decays
• Low Pass = Applies a Synth-style peaking low-pass filter to the reverb output to selectively share the frequency content

So that’s really all you need to know by default!

You can then bring the Modulation into play - in terms of which part of the signal the Modulation targets and with what intensity and wave form - including random stepped shape and Envelope filtering. The Voice block contains the various Shimmer effects and controls - which you can select up and down the harmonic scale and how textured or twinkly those shimmery artefacts are.

Then there is another level of complexity where you can set Sequencer patterns for the Reverb tails / trails - which you can either step up manually via ON / Sequence Step footswitch, or else trigger the Favorite / Sequence Tap footswitch to step through the sequence automatically per tap-tempo input.