Interstellar Space Machine.

Create expansive soundscapes and evolving, otherworldly tones. Add layers upon layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity within an enveloping stereo field. Infuse your rack with vintage warmth and retro futuristic soul.

Tape Delay, Looper, And More.

Packed with powerful features while maintaining intuitive playability, Magneto is a stereo multi-head tape delay that also functions as a looper, phrase sampler, vintage spring reverb unit, phase-aligned clock multiplier, chaotic oscillator, zero latency sub-oscillator and more, with extensive CV I/O.

Transform Your Modular.

Turn simple monophonic signals into complex orchestrations. Create new oscillator tones using self-oscillation. Add rich stereo dimension to your sound, and enjoy the inherent warmth and sweet, subtle distortion characteristics of magnetic tape. Magneto transforms even the smallest rack into a fully expressive, immersive instrument.

Vintage Vibe.

To capture the full experience and complexity of a vintage tape echo machine, every last tape system attribute was relentlessly studied and faithfully recreated. From the sought-after natural saturation and soft clipping of magnetic tape when driven hard, to hands-on real-time controls for tape age, tape crinkle, and mechanical wow and flutter, Magneto delivers a rich multi-head delay experience that adds life and vibe to your sound.

Play It Like An Instrument.

Every function, control, gain stage, and signal path component in Magneto works together to respond musically and smoothly, even during the wildest live modular improvisations. All this is combined with a luxurious spring reverb to take the sound of your modular setup to a new level, and your sonic explorations into far-out territories.

Features

Warm Up Your Rack.

Not only does Magneto deliver the warm, luscious delay signals that tape delays are known for, it is also capable of a high degree of saturation.

Turn up the Record Level knob to send a hot signal to the record head for any amount of tape saturation you desire.

Turn up the Tape Age control for warmer repeats. Add some truly beautiful Spring Reverb.

Tone and Mechanics Control.

The effect of the Low Cut and Tape Age knobs are explored, followed by the mechanical ‘deterioration’ of the machine with the Crinkle and Wow and Flutter controls. The Speed knob is put to use for sonic enhancement.

Shift Head Pitch and Rhythm Manipulations.

The Shift Heads mode creates a synchronous, rhythmic musical production that results from the playback heads running at different speeds.

Record Level Saturation Effects.

The tape drips with saturation when the Record Level is turned up. This example shows how things can get good when you push the limits. The Low Cut and Tape Age get in on the action for good measure.

Multi-part Orchestration from Mono Input.

A slow sequence is transformed with the Shift Heads while the Infinite transport CV is toggled using one of Magneto’s own clock outputs.

Magneto as Sub-Oscillator.

Using Magneto as a zero-latency sub-oscillator is as easy as sending a Gate signal to the Restart CV. Adding feedback creates sub-octaves of the sub-octave.

Video Game Sampler.

Minor Pentatonics ruled the day in the arcades. Here the Phrase Sample mode is used to fire some lasers and score some points.

Funky Rhythms, Gated Reverbs, and Transport Manipulations.

Magneto provides the clock to a lively sequence and fills out the rhythm with delays and gated Reverb using the Spring CV input. The transport controls let you manipulate the machine in a variety of ways. When the deck is stopped, the Speed knob becomes an audio scrubber.

Speed Changes While Following Clock Input.

Magneto gracefully re-syncs to the Clock CV input after Speed knob manipulations temporarily change the delay time and pitch of the audio that has already been recorded. An LFO connected to the Speed CV provides a gentle vibrato.

Magneto as a Chaotic Oscillator.

Magneto self-oscillates in ever-evolving ways as the Speed knob is manipulated to change the pitch of oscillation. Combining this with Magneto’s Pitch Quantize mode, or controlling the Pitch with an external 1V/oct CV results in a unique sound generator in its own right.

Creating Harmonies with Quantized Pitch.

A monotonic static input tone is morphed into a chordal tone generator by varying the SPEED knob while recording the incoming tone. The 1v/oct SPEED CV adds more possibilities.

Sound On Sound Looper.

Sounds are recorded at varying tape speeds in looper mode to create a full spectrum of slowly evolving sound-on-sound textures.

Adding Ambience.

A little free-form improvisation with Magneto providing a multitude of ambience.

Vari-Speed Phrase Sampler.

Magneto becomes a classic keyboard vari-speed sample playback machine by utilizing the 1v/oct Speed CV and the Restart CV inputs.

Guitar Sounds Through Magneto.

Why should synth players have all the fun? Here Magneto processes a guitar signal to create a new world of sonic possibilities.

Sci Fi Lo Fi.

Travel back in time when the sound of the future was ominous and unforgettable. Magneto completes the journey with vintage spring reverb and oscillating lo-fi delay tones.

Pause Speed and Fun with Transport Controls.

Magneto’s Pause speed can be varied from snappy quick to super slow. The transport controls invite spontaneous creativity, and smoothly transition back to reality when you decide it’s time.

Control & Routing

Front Panel

Circuit Board

Completely Analog Dry Path.

In a typical digital effect the dry signal gets converted to digital, causing conversion noise and latency. Signals are often attenuated before combining digital dry and wet, with makeup gain amplifying the conversion noise. To avoid this terrifying scenario, we’ve equipped Magneto with a completely analog dry path. Why go to all this trouble? Because the improvements in dynamic range and reduction in noise are so dramatic.

Insanely Powerful DSP.

We’ve outfitted Magneto with the incredibly powerful Analog Devices SHARC ADSP-21369 processor, which provides a 366 MHz core instruction rate, and an incredible 2.4 Gigaflops of peak performance. Thanks to this high-powered technology platform within Magneto, we had the freedom to craft our processor-intense tape echo algorithms without compromise.

Specs

Sound Design

• Tape-voiced delay machine with four playback heads and one record head
• Processor-intense dTape algorithm delivers meticulously nuanced recreations of vintage tape echo systems
• Three operational modes: Echo, Sound On Sound Looper, Phrase Sampler
• Varispeed algorithm with dynamic machine mechanics, 8:1 speed range
• Input record level for clean reproduction to warm, fat saturation
• Self-oscillating for tone generation
• Independent Spring Reverb

Control

• Dedicated control over tape mechanics, machine health, and tone: Low Cut, Tape Age, Crinkle, Wow & Flutter
• Transport controls (buttons and CV inputs) for real-time performance options
• Individual Playback Head Level controls
• Individual head Feedback assignment independent of playback level
• Three stereo head panning options, including user-defined custom panning
• Phase aligned clock out (CLK OUT) CVs synched with clock in (CLK IN) CV

Ranges

• Maximum Delay/Loop Time: 15 seconds at maximum Speed, two minutes at minimum Speed
• Minimum Delay Time: 200µS at maximum speed
• Clock In CV Range: 50ms – 15s
• TAP Button Range: 50ms – 15s
• TAP CV Range: 10ms – 15s

All Strymon pedals are Designed and Built in the USA.