It was I who came up with the EXACT product concept that would eventually become the Strymon Iridium. I shared the product concept with Cliff first, in 2010.
Initially my idea was for a single space rack unit with knobs only. Amp sounds only, no effects and no menu or editor. Operating just like a real amplifier, but with Fractal quality modeling under the hood. Then, my idea morphed into a guitar pedal...
My amp modeler pedal product idea had one specific thing about it that was an innovation - true stereo, separate left & right paths from physical input to output with stereo amp modeling running within the internal DSP of the pedal, so the user could place their other stereo effects pedals either before, or after their "amp sound" - enter the stereo amp modeler pedal.
In 2010, there was not a single digital amp modeler pedal that operated in true stereo. Not one in existence. The reason why I came up with the idea for a stereo amp modeler pedal in the first place was because in 2010, companies like Eventide and Strymon started to release stereo effects pedals that had a sound quality approaching the previous era's DSP effects rack units and now, due to these pedals all having true stereo operations with dedicated left and right inputs and outputs, in order to build a stereo pedalboard around this new generation of stereo effects pedals, (that could incorporate amp modeling), a possible amp modeler pedal also had to be equipped with dedicated left and right inputs and outputs, so that users could have a compatible "amp sound" with the ability to position their "amp sound" anywhere they wished, within the stereo pedal signal chain. I knew back in 2010, that the day would come when the majority of guitarists and producers would be working from a home studio, and that running their guitar rig in stereo would become standard as people became familiar with stereo guitar sounds while using technologies like the Fractal Audio Axe-Fx, Line 6 Helix and Amp suite plugins like Guitar Rig and eventually Neural DSP's Archetype plugins. Stereo guitar sounds would be the expected norm, and no longer something niche. How did I know this back in 2010? Because I've been running stereo guitar rigs since 1992 and understood that no one who spends $400 on a reverb or delay pedal is going to run it in mono, once they hear what it sounds like in stereo.
Before you consider responding to this post with a claim that a stereo amp modeler pedal is an obvious product, or that anyone could have come up with the idea, or an attempt to debunk that the product idea was originally mine and no one else's, please consider the following:
Fractal Audio [2010]
I first pitched the idea to Cliff, who said that he liked the idea but that he was focused on the Axe-Fx platform and that a lower price point type of product was outside of his business model at the time. Since then, the FM3 has crossed that boundary, so perhaps a Fractal Audio guitar pedal is possible now?
Yamaha/Line 6 [2014]
In 2014, I had a meeting with Yamaha/Line 6 about my stereo pedal platform idea. I presented the idea and the immediate response was "No one runs a stereo guitar rig, who's going to buy this?" I explained why it was necessary and went into all the details about stereo pedalboards and integration between existing stereo pedals and amp modeling on a pedalboard, positioned wherever the user wants - stereo effects before, or after the amp sound. The response after all my explanation was: "no one is going to buy a pedal like that, especially if it only does the sounds of a Fender Twin/Deluxe, a Vox AC30TB and a Marshall SLP". In 2018, the HX Stomp came out, and it had separate left and right inputs, and dual amp modeling operation from the internal DSP. Was Yamaha/Line 6 bluffing, in order to collect information on my product concept? The smug attitude of this company's lead designer would have be believe that management went above his head to gather this info themselves from me, as the 2015 Helix product was PERFECT and a Fractal Killer according to the lead designer. He who told me that no guitar amp modeling product from Line 6 will ever have more than a single mono instrument input.
Strymon [2016]
In 2016, I pitched the exact same idea that I pitched to Yamaha/Line 6, to Strymon on their online blog, in a public space online. At this time, Strymon had a prototype amp modeler pedal, that they were using at trade shows to demonstrate their other pedals. Their prototype had only one amp model and was mono only. At this point, they had only considered that such a pedal needed to be mono because wet effects go POST AMP sound. I explained how experimental guitarists like Neil Halstead & Christian Savill of Slowdive and Robin Guthrie of The Cocteau Twins commonly ran stereo effects like stereo delays and stereo reverbs in front of a pair of guitar amps - that sound of wet effects in front of two amplifiers was a completely unique sound where the effects were baked into the amp tone. Compared to sending a dry guitar amp signal into stereo effects, either by using guitar pedals, or by using auxiliary effects sends and returns on a mixing console in a studio, or with effects plugins after a dry guitar amp sound inside a DAW, having these big lush stereo effects in front of two amps was increasingly becoming highly prevalent in modern music, both live and in the studio. Especially within praise and worship music, where the sound of stereo delay in front of two amps - more specifically the sound of U2's "Where The Streets Have No Name" had become the newly adopted sound of Christian rock music.
Strymon seemed to understand all this, and that stereo effects in front of two amps was a thing.... is a thing... and that thing was going to continue to grow in popularity, within several different musical genres until it might one day become the most common way that guitarists use effects.
In my experience, many hard rock and metal players who grew up in the 1980's HATE this kind of "stereo effects in front of two amps" rig and fail to understand it, no matter how it is explained. As much as I love hard rock and metal music myself, I have found that guitarists in these genres largely believe (religiously) that wet effects must be positioned after the dry amp sound as POST effects and that any other positioning of effects with a guitar amplifier is incorrect and improper. Sacrilegious! I have also found that most metal players think that an amp's effects loop is the only way to implement wet effects into a live guitar rig. Dave Friedman would do a service to humanity, making a YouTube video explaining how mono effects loops in guitar amplifiers came to be and why they are a totally compromised attempt of replicating the effects mixing system in a recording studio, where stereo effects are used within the auxiliary send/return channels of a mixing console to mix music.
To be continued...
