Strymon Riverside Multistage Drive Pedal

This is what Strymon say about the Riverside:

Riverside is the culmination of a thorough analysis of numerous analog and vacuum tube circuits. Our goal? To deliver a new world of harmonically rich, incredibly versatile, tube-inspired drive sounds.

Discover your amp’s potential
Riverside’s cascading gain stages create harmonically rich tones that are immensely musical and natural—from silky clean overdrive to colossal distortion, and all points between. Our analog JFET front-end ensures that Riverside responds to your guitar with uncompromised dynamics and feel. The precision crafted DSP generates dynamic complexity and pleasing harmonics at every stage, letting your amp shine at any gain level. Riverside takes your amp to places you never knew it could go.

Infinite sweet spot
Riverside’s continuously variable circuit tuning dynamically tweaks multiple parameters under the hood so that the sweet spot follows you at any gain setting. As you turn the Drive knob, Riverside makes continuous adjustments, tuning the circuit for optimum tone. This results in an incredibly versatile drive pedal that is equally capable of providing sparking cleans, mild overdrives, high-gain leads, and heavy saturated distortions.

Flexibility to adapt to any amp
Your amp choice has a large influence on the sound of any drive pedal connected to it. Riverside’s musical 3-band EQ, with independent Bass, Middle and Treble knobs, is designed to complement your amp’s tone with the flexibility needed to dial in your sound effectively and efficiently. The three-position Presence switch tailors the highest frequencies, allowing Riverside to integrate perfectly with any amp or setup, no matter how dark or bright.

Digital or analog? We chose both
The first stage of Riverside’s custom multistage drive topology is an all-analog, ultra low noise, discrete, class-A JFET circuit. This gain stage is digitally controlled to maximize headroom while adding as much as 20dB of pure analog gain, with tight integration to the subsequent DSP gain stages. With our hybrid approach you get the best of both analog and digital worlds: The JFET stage provides exceptional touch sensitivity and dynamic interaction with your guitar, while the incredibly powerful SHARC DSP facilitates the great level of detailed complexity and responsiveness you’ll want to hear.

Tone Adjustment and Shaping

• Drive adjusts the amount of gain applied to the signal. Employs continuously variable circuit tuning which adjusts many parameters as you turn the knob.
• Level controls the output volume level when the effect is engaged.
• Gain toggles between low or high gain channels.
• Low sets a gain structure allowing for a wide range of low to medium gain sounds. At high Drive settings the sound is heavily overdriven, and slightly ‘loose’ like a dimed vintage amp.
• High increases the gain throughout the signal path and tightens things up. Stays relatively clean at low Drive settings, shifting to heavy saturated distortion at maximum.
• Push toggles between flat or enhanced midrange frequencies.
• Norm can be used for cleaner, more transparent tones.
• Mid adds a mid-band EQ push just after the analog front-end gain. This pushes the subsequent drive stages harder, tightening up the response. Perfect for fat drive tones, or pushing a distorted or on- the-edge amp into further breakup.
• Bass is an active shelving/parametric low frequency control. The control is post-drive, shaping your drive tones before they reach your amp.
• Middle is a parametric mid boost/cut control with optimized frequency center. The control is post-drive, shaping your drive tones before they reach your amp.
• Treble is a wide-ranging high frequency active shelf control. The control is post-drive, shaping your drive tones before they reach your amp.

Rear Panel

• Presence is a three position switch that tailors the highest frequencies of the output signal.
• Minus (-) provides clarity with a controlled top end that works well with many amps that have a brighter voice.
• Enhanced (center) extends the top end to allow for more sizzle on high gain tones. Useful if you want enhanced detail in the uppermost frequencies.
• Plus (+) delivers extended high end detail to the darkest amps, and is also useful when plugging directly into a power amp.
• In is a high impedance mono input. Plug your instrument in here.
• Out is a mono signal output. Connect to your amp, other pedals, mixing board, etc.
• Boost allows use of an external switch to toggle up to +6dB of post boost on/off. Or connect to the EXP input of another Strymon pedal and simultaneously engage the Favorite settings on both pedals with Riverside’s Favorite switch.
• Expression Pedal Input provides continuous expression pedal control over any or all of the knobs, in any direction, with your foot. Or can be used in Volume Mode to control the volume level of the effect.
• Power – Plug your power supply in here. Maximum 9 volts DC center-negative, with a minimum of 250mA of current. Standard 5.5mm x 2.1mm barrel connection.

Secondary Functions

• Press and hold ON footswitch to enter Secondary Function mode. Release the footswitch, then turn the desired knob to adjust the parameter.
• Optional variable-threshold Noise Reduction tames hum, buzz, and system noise when you’re not playing. A downward expander with advanced signal detection techniques creates a seamless transition to noise reduced silence with all types of input signal dynamics.
• Boost Level sets up to +6dB of available boost when using an external Boost footswitch.