Strymon Timeline Basics - Demo and Review

Finally got my hands on the legendary Strymon Timeline!

I still have a long way to go before I figure out how to use it and if I really need it or not. But so far it's impressive and the tonal quality is great. It's slightly smaller than expected, and that's a good thing.

As for any negatives, I'd nit-pick the Value dial / knob. It just turns too easily, flying through the list of preset names. Wish it had detents/clicks for more exact selection. The 30-page downloadable manual is poorly written. That's pretty frustrating.

On the one hand, it offers 100 presets, but it's not like you have 100 extremely different sounds. In fact, after the first 50, then everything is repeated (at least that's my understanding from reading a few pages of the manual). All of the effects are sort of within the same family: delay, reverb, slap back, modulation, swell, and tremolo. Strymon gets to 50 by using different parameter combinations and slaps a name on each combo. Kind of like the Taco Bell model: 5 or 6 ingredients to make 20 entrees.

I'll update with any changing opinions that I might have in the future.