Strymon La Brea turns Deco tape ideas into all-analog drive
Strymon Series A adds La Brea: an all-analog tape saturation drive with multi-stage gain, Shift contour, and a phase-accurate Dry blend.
The Deco white paper sat on Josh Forbes's desk for a long time. Twelve years of analog tinkering later, Strymon has a Series A drive that stays fully discrete — no DSP, no MIDI, no firmware — and uses multi-stage tape saturation to go from mild breakup to full fuzz.
La Brea's Tape Sat knob is the main gain path; a Gain switch flips Norm or High so you can stay musical or lean into heavier compression. Shift picks Flat, a high-shelf lift, or a high-mid contour on both the saturated and clean paths. The Dry control is the quiet star: it blends a phase-accurate clean signal from off to +6 dB, which Strymon says can open the soundstage and keep notes articulate even when Tape Sat is cranked — and can feed stronger transients into drives further down the chain.
Compared with Deco, Strymon's own FAQ is blunt: La Brea has significantly more gain via two cascaded saturation stages, a parallel dry path, a fully analog discrete circuit, and multiple high-shelf Shift options. Internally the pedal runs at 24 V for headroom, so with Dry up and Tape Sat low it can also behave as a vibey clean boost. True bypass, mono in and out, 71.9 mm wide × 115.1 mm deep × 59.2 mm tall.
Video: strymon — Introducing Strymon La Brea Analog Tape Drive — Deep Dive with Josh Forbes and Sean Halley
La Brea is in stock on the Strymon product page, with same-day or next-business-day shipping from the maker.
