Stomp Verb Shootout - Big Sky, Polara and Splash MK3
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- With the current trend for massive liquid reverbs, we take a look at how these three compare - Strymon Big Sky, Digitech Polara and Crazy Tube Circuits Splash MK3.
Richard Beech gets ambient
The Polara's "liveliness" control is almost all the way up on this demo. Backing it down a tad warms it up a lot.
I have the Polara and the HOF, both can be tweaked to sound smooth and natural.
I liked the splash most ! Beautiful sound in a small package.
Can't believe you didn't try all three together! ;)
I was wanting that to happen as well!
It feels to me like the sound of the Splash pedal in Excite mode is more unified with input guitar signal. The other two pedals feel like there's the guitar sound, and then the reverb sound, and they don't come together quite as fully as with the Splash. Clearly the Big Sky is more powerful as a tool, but when it comes to the sounds of the modes that the Splash supports, the Splash seems to be the clear winner for me. If I could have only one, I'd go for that one.
+Andrew Morales I've got to agree. I really want to hear with a synth. I'm definitely considering getting it after this review though, that's one luscious sound.
+Andrew Morales I agree on all counts. The Splash responds immediately with a full-bodied tone while it suits equally well electrics, electro-acoustics and electro-classicals.
The way the splash places a room behind the guitar tone (rather than immersing the guitar in space) is much more pleasing to my ears than the (btw, phantastic) sound out of the Strymon. It really boils down to where you want to hear your guitar in time and space.
As for octave shifting, etc., that's not something I would miss - we wouldn't want to put keyboarders out of work, now would we…
For me, the Splash.
Stunningly beautiful Rich - thank you! I came to realize a few years ago, Im a reverb fella. Not so much a delay chap! This is right up my street! For direct recording its a shame the Splash is mono :-(
mCKENIC there is a Splash MKIII Stereo+ now, but its about $400. Very impressive reverb.
"Here's my room reverb."
/plays massive ambient reverb
I preferred the Polara to either of the other two.
strange, there seems to be a chorus like effect with the Polara, is this down to how the reverb interacts with the original signal or does the unit have modulation?,
I don't like the effect too much seems to muddy things up a bit,
the splash sounds wonderful
+watchtheskies Yep we noticed that I think its the less complex modulation on the Polara that you can just hear the individual chorussing algorithm.
Great video, clean recording, can you please tell me what brand is the yellow cable you are using? Many thanks!
Wow....the Splash is amazing. I became familiar because it comes stock on the Dreadbox Nyx semi-modular synthesizer. Really makes the synth. I’m going for the Splash MK3 Stereo+ over some other all-in-one reverb. Its has such a natural tone to it.
OK, first off, I'm not a guitarist.
Don't get me wrong, I love how versatile the Polara is, but that splash, even with it's limitations, is just divine, 'creamier', more authentic sounding.
At 2:30 there was noticeable and annoying 'twissping' (I had to make that word up, to suit what I heard lol) at the tail of the reverb. A kind of wispy bit, which after a second was all I could concentrate on. Maybe the reverb tail is too clean, and needs rolling off.
The splash is smoother in bottom mids, but I dare say the Polara has some amazing modulation effects.
The Splash sounds the best, hands down. I didn't hear something I would call a matter of taste here. The Splash CLEARLY preserved the organic guitar tone better and was notably fuller and rounder, and the verb sounded more natural because is it. Too me... and THIS is just a personal opinion, the Strymon, while absolutely genius and versatile, it all has a cold sound too it.
The Polara is the better deal of the bunch and has stereo.
Got me the Polara yesterday, already owned the Big Sky.
I must say watching all Polara video's before...I was a bit dissapointed when I attached it next to the Big Sky to accompany my synths.
The Polara is no match at all for the Big Sky imo
At some points I did not realise it was on :-)
The Polara needs a stronger friend pedal to grow beyond the Big Sky.
It looks cool, but even for the money for me not totaly worth buying.
I too have both pedals, but I must say the Polara is very good sounding reverb pedal.
Even though the Strymon - like the Eventide Space - is practically a reverb workstation & can be dialed in a million different ways, at all settings here it sounded not as well integrated into the guitar tone as the Splash did.
Weirdly enough, I got the same impression with the Polara: that it sounds more well-integrated into the basic sound than the Strymon does. I thought adjusting the predelay of the Strymon would fix that problem, but I saw that at some point of the video, and it didn't.
very beautiful guitar!
What guitar is that? I don't see it in the Taylor website.
In this video the Big Sky sounds better than the Polara because it obviously has a high frequency cut. I am surprised the Polara hasn't a kind of similar control or feature. All reverbs should have a low and a high freq cut in my opinion. The Splash is a mono pedal and cannot be used in a home studio, but it's OK for guitar players that only use it with a mono guitar amp as you do here.
Bigsky With the Splash sounded lush! @12:16 Reverb heaven lol. I have the Polara I use with Minilogue I'm tempted to get the bigsky as well... and a Guitar ;)
beeeautiful guitar!!!
Such a shame that in neither of the 'splash' reviews you ever found the kill dry pull-up switch. One of the main features I love about this pedal.
Great to see somebody use these guitars. Which mp do you run it into?
How can i get the metal polara's knobs?
What is the name of that VOX combo in background please? First time seeing that one.
Vox bruno
I wish this review was done into two amps mic'd in stereo. Hard to tell the full quality of the reverb in mono, even though that's how you'd run it live... I'd like to compare for studio applications where I would run the pedals in stereo :-)
Why not just use a keyboard?
HOF2 is out... might want to do a new shootout? (leave out the Strymon, due to cost).
1. Splash - very smooth and accurate sound
2. Polara - more bright and cut through sound
3. Strymon - good but too overpriced.
Polara and Strymon do stereo.
Both of them has a nice warm and somehow old tone. The small pedal is more musical. So the small is like a 40-year woman, a big pedal like 30-year woman :) I like them. Thx for sharing!
Splash is winner :)
+BMR Studio gross
Come on pedal company's please put the power input at the top
I never thought of this before, why would you want the power jack on top? I'm just curious.
Jesus how not Big sky to splash stereo or blue sky to splash? LOL
Is the output Mono or what ?
+Ares Kalogeropoulos Yeah, it's mono. I was looking at getting this for studio use, I'll have to think about it a little more now.
Sad for such a huge spaces to be mono.
And very strange.
I suppose it makes sense it it's just aimed at guitarists, but would it really have been that hard to add an extra output?
It seems like a huge oversight to me.
To much twanging ,poor sound quality to be able to compare properly