A Strymon pedal on the floor is one kind of magic. A Strymon plugin on a digital recording track is equally magical. The same reverb halls, tape echo, and tape-style width, sitting in the mix where you can automate a trail, freeze a pad, and leave space on a vocal that a stompbox never has to worry about. These VSTs exist so you can use those effects in a digital recording project, not only through an amp in the room.
Here is every Strymon plugin, what it feels like in a mix, and which one to reach for. Browse them on the Strymon brand page. For the story behind the boxes, read how a DSP giant learned to love analog.
What to Know Before You Load a Strymon Plugin
Every plugin here runs as VST3, AU, and AAX on Windows and Mac. Activation uses the industry standard iLok system. You can put a separate instance of the effect on every track, which is the whole point: a BigSky hall reverb on the vocal, a different BigSky spring reverb on the guitar, Cloudburst Ensemble on a pad, none of them fighting for one pedal’s preset slot.
Pedal or plugin is not an either/or. If you want tape echo under your foot, that is the El Capistan V2. If you want that same family of sound on a recording session, that is the plugin. Same idea for Deco V2 and Cloudburst on the board. The plugins are how those stompbox effects live in the DAW.
1. Strymon BigSky Reverb Plugin – Best Overall Strymon Plugin
BigSky is the reason a lot of players learned the word “hall” as a feeling, not a room. The plugin is twelve reverb machines in one insert: spring tension, plate sheen, Cloud particles, Bloom that unfolds after the note, Shimmer that grows a choir above the chord, Magneto for diffused tape-style repeats. Hold can freeze or infinite-sustain the tail so a pad never has to end.
On a recording, that range matters more than it does on a board. You are not picking one sound for a set. You are picking a space for this vocal, a different space for the guitar solo, and a third for the synth that has to feel farther away than the drums. Load another instance. Change the machine. The mix still holds together because it is all BigSky’s sense of air.
Best for: the flagship Strymon reverb inside the session, on as many tracks as the song needs. If you only add one Strymon plugin, make it this one.
2. Strymon Echo Bundle – Best Delay Package
The Echo Bundle is El Capistan and DIG together: vintage tape echo and dual digital delay, the two delay personalities Strymon is famous for, without making you pick a camp. Tape for slap, wow, and the grit that shows up when you push repeats. DIG for 80s rack ping-pong, dotted rhythms, and the clean delay that still has a voice.
If the song needs both (and a lot of records do), this is the pair. One license, two plugins, two completely different echo worlds. You can still get El Capistan or DIG on their own if you already know which delay you live in.
Best for: producers and players who want tape and digital delay in the DAW, and do not want to choose a single flavor.
3. Strymon El Capistan Tape Echo Plugin – Best Tape Delay
Feed a guitar, a vocal, even a snare into El Capistan and the delay stops sounding like a plugin. Three tape-machine types, three head setups, tape age and crinkle, wow and flutter, a spring you can mix under the repeats. Single Moving feels like a sliding head. Single Fixed and Multi Fixed are the classic multi-head machines, including dotted and quarter-note stacks that turn a simple riff into a pattern.
This is slapback that sits behind a vocal like a second singer who knows when to shut up. It is also the long, crumbling echo you ride into a chorus. On the floor, the hardware cousin is the El Capistan V2. In the session, the plugin is the one you automate when the second verse needs more dirt on the tape.
Best for: country slap, rockabilly, lo-fi guitar, any track that should sound like it hit magnetic tape.
Want that echo under your foot as well as in the mix? The El Capistan V2 lives with the rest of the delay pedals.
4. Strymon DIG Dual Digital Delay Plugin – Best Dual Digital Delay
DIG is two delays at once, voiced like the rack units that made the 80s feel wide. Three machines: ADM (early 80s adaptive delta), 12-bit PCM, and a clean 24/96 modern path. Series, parallel, or ping-pong. Each side gets its own time, repeats, and subdivision, and you can lock it to the DAW so the dotted eighth is actually in time with the grid.
Where El Capistan is atmosphere, DIG is architecture. Intricate syncopated patterns, a short delay into a long one, a digital wash that blurs into reverb without smearing the attack. If you write rhythmic guitar parts, or you want a vocal delay that dances instead of hangs, this is the plugin.
Best for: dotted-eighth parts, ping-pong stereo, 80s digital character, anything that has to lock to the click.
5. Strymon Deco Tape Saturation Plugin – Best Tape Width and Drive
Before racks of pedals, tape machines were the effect. Deco is that workflow: one deck for saturation, a second for doubletrack, flange, and the lag that makes a part feel like two performances. Open-reel or cassette character, including the old auto-limiting circuit that squashes in a way a compressor plugin usually does not.
On a dry DI guitar, a little Saturation is the difference between a file and a record. Push it and you get the edge of tape compression. The Doubletracker side is automatic width: lag time, auto-flange, the sense that a second machine is running just behind the first. The pedal on the board is Deco V2. The plugin is how you put that same trick on a vocal, a synth, or a whole bus.
Best for: making a dry track feel recorded, stereo width without a chorus pedal, subtle flange, mix glue.
6. Strymon Cloudburst Ambient Reverb Plugin – Best Ambient and Ensemble
Cloudburst is not trying to be twelve rooms. It is trying to be a sky. Ambient reverb with an Ensemble engine that watches 48 frequency bands and grows upper harmonics, like a string section blooming out of whatever you played. Subtle, it adds air and motion. Open, it turns a guitar or a vocal into a pad you can sit an arrangement on.
If BigSky is the studio locker of reverbs, Cloudburst is the one machine you leave on when the song is supposed to feel larger than the room. The hardware version is the Cloudburst pedal. The plugin is how you stack Ensemble on a vocal and a different wash on the guitar without a switch dance mid-take. For more reverb on the floor, wander the reverb pedals, including the BlueSky V2.
Best for: ambient guitar, film-style beds, vocals that need a halo, any track that should keep ringing after the hands stop.
How to Choose a Strymon Plugin
- One plugin, maximum range: BigSky. Twelve machines, freeze, the hall most sessions can live on.
- Delay, both flavors: the Echo Bundle. Tape and dual digital in one license.
- Only tape echo: El Capistan.
- Only rhythmic digital delay: DIG.
- Width, drive, and that “hit tape” feeling: Deco.
- Long wash and harmonic bloom: Cloudburst.
You do not need all of them. A lot of sessions are BigSky plus one delay. Add Deco when the DI feels too clean. Add Cloudburst when the reverb is supposed to become part of the arrangement, not just a room around it.
Pedal on the Floor, Plugin in the Session
Keep the stompboxes for playing. Keep the plugins for the mix. A pedal is the sound under your hands. A plugin is the same family of algorithm, with a separate instance per track and automation you will actually use. That is why Strymon built these VSTs: so the effects that made the pedals famous can live in a digital recording project without a pedalboard in the booth.
Browse every Strymon pedal and plugin on the Strymon page, then pick the one that fits best into your musical flow.