Strymon dropped the Fairfax overdrive pedal as their first all-analog effect after spending years making DSP stuff, and it recreates a weird valve drive unit that Garnet Amplifiers built for Randy Bachman back in 1965. The company engineered a miniaturized preamp and Class-A power amp with custom circuitry that mimics output transformer saturation, while the 9V input gets bumped to 40V internally for high headroom and amp-like response. A Sag knob lets you dial in compression at low settings or push it into spitting fuzz territory when cranked.
The new Series A lineup exists because Strymon's analog team wanted an outlet for their designs without any MIDI, USB, firmware, or digital processing involved. The pedal offers everything from light saturation to full-on overdrive with a Bright switch for tweaking highs, and the whole thing runs for 199 bucks.
The new Series A lineup exists because Strymon's analog team wanted an outlet for their designs without any MIDI, USB, firmware, or digital processing involved. The pedal offers everything from light saturation to full-on overdrive with a Bright switch for tweaking highs, and the whole thing runs for 199 bucks.
