The Deco was one of those pedals that, in first unboxing and turning on, I was like, “Ok, this is sort of cool but, I’m not sure where all the craze about it comes from”. The demos I watched sounded so very awesome, my expectations were definitely set to 11 — Click it on and magic will happen. The reality: While it wasn’t hard technically speaking, it did take some time to really understand how best to work with this pedal and, to untap its full potential.

At first, most of my focus was on the Doubletracker side, hardly giving thought to the saturation side. I liked the general chorus and flanger sounds but, in that they really feel subtle to moderate (read: not over the top and in your face), I think my mind was expecting so much more. With time, I started to dial in a bunch of sounds I really liked especially focused on more nuanced flange/chorus double tracking-esque (adding some fullness and sense of space) and, how to quickly dial in some killer slapback or easy lead type delays. There is something so natural about all of it — so very easy to close your eyes and image the tape decks spinning.

The saturation side grew on me slowly but surely and now, it is an always on effect — used much more often than the Doubletracker side. To the idea of visualization, I see the soft glow and feel the warmth as the power brings to life the older tape machines and console electronics. Laugh if you want but, and while I am not all that old, it reminds me of turning on the old stereo units my dad use to have — one could just hear the units surge to life.

As I run my board into a few different solid state amps, I feel that the Deco, which sits at the intersection between my drive pedals and delay pedals, with the saturation right between 11 ~ 12pm on the dial, gives my tone some final polishing and a touch of warmth before hitting the delays and verbs; this, while simulating an effect as if the drive pedals sitting before were then interacting with the front-end of a tube amp.

One trick suggested on the forums that I would pass on –> If you use and expression pedal to control the Lag Time parameter, you can effectively dial/sweep in on the fly different effects with your foot — flanger, to chorus, to delays.

Editors Note: The contents of this blog entry was originally posted as a response to a threaded discussion on theGearPage.net forums and subsequently has been edited/updated before re-sharing here. The link to the original thread can be found here: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/strymon-deco-users-what-settings-makes-this-pedal-indispensable.2152470/