UAD Starlight VS Strymon El Capistan
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ม.ค. 2025
- Thanks again to Corey Rexroad for lending me another great delay pedal in the El Cap to do this shootout!
Gear:
Fender Custom Shop Nocaster
Matchless C30
Matchless 2x12 (Celestion 25W Greenback)
Shure SM57
UAD Apollo
That rug really ties the room together.
And wu peed on it
“Fucken a’!!”- The Dude
Both have great usable tones. I think it comes down to functionality and what you need the pedals to do. The starlight is obviously more flexible with analogue and digital modes and built in preset functionality.
But the El Cap does have a preset available via a favorite switch. Also love the infinite repeats function whilst holding down the tap button on the El Cap.
Love them both ✌️
They both sound great. I own an El Cap and now I want to try the Starlighter. I am a sucker for modulation. It sounds great on the Starlight.
I seem to be in the minority judging by the comments, but I liked the UA pedal better. The low end seemed to hold up much better - grittier with more attitude. The El Cap seemed to lose some low end and generally was a bit hi-fi.
Where the starlight shines to me was the modulation. But the el cap is a thing of beauty years later
Great video, thank you. 👍. The degrading repeats of the el cap is fantastic but the UA is fuller frequency.
With all respect for Strymon, the Starlight nails it. Period. I had a El Cap for a couple of months, then i sold it for the Empress Tape Delay wich i finally sold for the UAD Starlight pedal. I'm a happy delay pedal man now. ;-)
Love my El CAp.. El CAp does the sound degradation thing which is pretty special..
Great video. These are the 2 that I have but the el cap seems so much warmer which is my preference. I liked the whole preset thing but the el cap takes it on warmth for me.
Nice. El Cap is still great! I love the darker more worn tape effect. Sounds so moody. Also, it has that built in Spring reverb, which is so useful.
Man el cap is really a thing of beauty.
El Cap's great for soft ambient stuffs and background wash, but I like the Starlight's brighter percussive repeats more
El cap. Had both sold the Starlight, adds some low mids / muddyness when engaged that I didn’t like and that’s with the preamp bypassed. El Cap won for me, it’s a great delay!
For maximum tapy-ness Strymon deco after El Capistan and tone heaven
Anyone saying that one pedal is way better than the other is a cork sniffer. They both sound very close to the other. You cant go wrong either one!
Ive tried and compared the El Capistan, Volante, a couple of Real Tape echos and the UA Starlight, and the UA comes closest to the real machines for me way more than anything Strymon has done. The Strymon delays just have their own character and whilst it sounds good its not actually anything like a real tape echo, it just the Strymon sound. The UA nails all the little details and characteristics of a good tape Echo unit and is now my favourite delay pedal for that reason. The Memory Man as well sounds better and more authentic to me than even the EHX XO version or the Xvive versions, having owned vintage MM's in the past the UA is much more like the vintage units than the modern ones, and without the headaches of the vintage units (the preamps and bypass schemes are a pain! unless you want it on all the time, plus they are noisy as hell!)
Really awesome pedal
Exactly. It’s crazy how people judge the Starlight and have probably never heard or played a real tape delay.
True. I absolutely adore re-201, the tone, the sound, the feel. And for years I’ve been trying to find the best tape delay emulation which is easy to put in a pedal board, easy to maintain and easy to move around. I have a Nemesis delay, I’ve tried el cap, deco, empress and a lot of different tape delay emulations. They are really good but they don’t have the clarity (even of a really beat up poor maintained real tape machine). Sonically the real tape have a kind of grit, presence in the tone which the emulations lack of. So yesterday I went to a local fx store to try Volante and Starlight back to back and buy a new delay pedal. After just one strum it was clear that the Starlight sonically is in the league of its own. It has it. It is the closest thing to the real tape sound I’ve heard. So I’ve bought it right away. Then I went out of the store, did few steps then went back and bough a volante as well. The Strymon has so much parameters to tweak with almost analogue experience, that is really fantastic. I wish someday UAFX would release a kind of hybrid of these two: a starlight with volante controls.
@@b10buzz Exactly what I'm thinking. The controls and the layout are the reason I bought the Volante twice. The sterile sound is the reason I sold it twice as well.
I like the el cap for crispness.
The El cap does NOT emulate the preamp famously associated with the mechanism modeled. That pedal show talks about this.
Amazing how well the older Strymon holds up even against the mighty UA here in 2021 with their years of modeling experience and near unlimited resources. Of course, both of these sound way cleaner than real tape delays, which are noisy as heck and unpredictable, but have a kind of 3D quality that's hard to emulate. Thanks for the video.
Great comparison here. Thanks, and I am now subscribed.
The El Capistan is still doing it strong against newer units. But, acually. The old Digitech DSP 128 can do this to, almost. So many older 19" units out there with a wonderful sound, to them.
Still have and gig with my digitech 128 I use a simple midi controller, bought it when it came out for about $350 because it can do 3 fx at once, there are new boxes today that can’t do that
Mix the El cap with something like the "chase tone secret preamp" and you have something special
great comparison dude!
Lower fidelity of El Cap kinda sounds cooler in isolation; it gets lost in a mix, though - winds up sounding like reverb. Starlight gives more distinct repeats, which do sound like an Echoplex.
When I started using the elcap live I found the same issues. Ends up like a washy reverb. I sold it because of that. I’ve also owned an ep3 deluxe memory man, boss dm2 pretty much all the classic delays besides a space echo. The elcap has a vibe but it didn’t remind me of my echoplex
Strymon is great, but strymons often have a sort of digital diffuseness I don’t love. It does sound great, but it feels unintentionally lo-fi in a particular way in addition to the intentionally low-fi quality.
The starlight, on the other hand, isn’t just more “full range”. It really just captures and plays back crisp details in the sound that the el cap just isn’t able to replicate.
If you want true stereo through you can’t use Strymon; they sum the LR input signals to mono during processing.
Can I buy your carpet?
Thanks, just the comparison I was looking for. They both sound good, but not great, There's a clinical predictability to their repeats compared to real analogue (or tape) delays. I generally prefer the UA pedals as they tend to sound more like your instrument than an effect driven by your guitar, but in this case I prefer the darker Capistan. I don't like that UA has handicapped their pedals by not including midi, expression pedal or other control options.
I can tell by the comments most of you have never heard the Starlight in person nor have you played a real tape. If you did you’d know just how accurate the Starlight is. The El Cap is great, but the Starlight is next level.
I have an EP-3 and a Fulltone SSTE….I have tried the Starlight….no,it’s not the same….it’s fairly close,but is too dark…it sounds good,but it’s not a dead nuts copy….the EL Cap is more Hi-Fi sounding than the Starlight,which is darker and fatter sounding…I prefer the EL Cap personally…but the Starlight sounds good too…..neither sound as good as the real thing though…
how the heck does one power these with a power brick? The UAFX needs a 400 mA power supply!!!
Great video man.
So close it hardly matters anymore.
Which do you prefer after a year has passed?
Excellent comparison. I just ordered the UA reverb but, based on these sounds, will not be swapping the Starlight for my El Cap, it's degrading repeats are much closer to a tap echo and have a warm fuzziness.
great demo! can you tell me why the noise is suddenly increasing at 8:19? does it came from the pedal?
Yes it comes from the pedal. I watched the 30 minute long Sweetwater demo, and apparently as you turn the repeats up on the EPIII mode, it's an exact replication of what would happen on those older units. Something to do with the preamp of the older tape units.
@@adamizer85 ahh i see! thanks for your detailed answer :)
It's probably emulating the increased gain of the preamp from the original Echoplex.
Seems like most all the comments favor the Mighty El Cap? I was looking at one of these two, for an Acoustic Rig ? ( with a Big Sky & Tri Avatar Chorus ) Starlight Dealbreaker white-noise @ 8:19.
I would recommend you try them in person. If you’re looking for accuracy compared to real vintage tape, then the Starlight is objectively better.
Some feedback - always demo your clean sound right before you engage each pedal. It shows how and whether the pedal affects the dry signal.
Matthew, thank you so much for the video. Very helpful. You prefer Starlight over Strymon delays? Do you run pream coloration on or off ?
I had a hard time balancing your taking and playing volume. Really had to ride the volume.
Did you have the preamp emulation turned on in the starlight? Makes a huge difference
I shot this before that feature was available via the UAD app, so theres no preamp emulation on the Starlight in this video. It does make a massive difference. I've found I prefer it with no emulation. I like the sound of the tape repeats but I don't necessarily want my dry sound to change when I kick on a delay.
The Starlight is the best delay on the market by a mile.
For the most effective tape degradation and the biggest delay times you must set the switches on Single/B! I enjoyed the Starlight sound, impressive for sure, but in my opinion, El Cap all the way! 🙌🏻💜
UA Starlight all the way! So much more pedal for not much money.
El cap is still better sounding to me.
The Starlight sounds like the original signal is effected?! I don't like it.The Strymon sounds higher fidelity to me, and tasteful.
I could be wrong but think it is analog dry through like the el cap
@@Dam-oH it is, unless you disable it. People really need to hear these pedals in person. The starlight is wayyyyy more accurate to the real tape delays especially with wow and flutter.
They both sound great but I’m going with the Starlight.
Uh, thats like your opinion man.
El cap all day
El Capistan! 🙏🏻
strymon all the way！
I cannot believe how overpriced pedals have become. Yeah they've kept up with technologies advancements but that doesn't justify a constant increase of pedal prices (inflation)
el cap easy wins
Fan Boy?
@@Calle565 I have 3 delay Tc Electronic, 2 Delay BOSS, 2 delay Strymon, Line 6 delay,Lexicon Pcm 80 and Alesis Quadraverb, in my recording studio
The volume difference between the guitar and your voice make this unwatchable
I disagree and I am hearing challenged. Great comparison ...and his comments were so brief, it was more of a non-issue for me.