Why the BigSky is overrated (and what to buy instead).
The BigSky is a fine pedal. It is not the pedal you think it is.
Two sides. One page.
Johnny argues the piece. Then he argues against himself. Somebody has to check his work. Read both, then call the winner below.
The take is shown below.
I owned a BigSky from 2014 to 2020. I sold it and bought a Meris Mercury7 and never looked back. I have used the BigSky on records since then because it was on the engineer's rack, and every time I have, I have thought: this is a pedal that does twelve algorithms in a way that is good enough that nobody complains. That is not the same as being great.
The BigSky's best algorithm is the Hall. Its second-best algorithm is the Plate. Its Shimmer is, controversially, not as good as the Empress Reverb's Shimmer, which has more parameter control and a less saccharine octave-up smearing. Its Bloom is genuinely original. Its Spring is a joke compared to a real spring tank or even a Catalinbread Topanga. The Magneto is a tape delay pretending to be a reverb and is on the BigSky because Strymon couldn't fit it in El Capistan. The Cloud is the only algorithm I miss, and I miss it specifically because the Mercury7 doesn't quite do what the Cloud does for ambient pads.
Here is what people don't tell you about the BigSky. It costs $480 and replaced the Eventide Space, which was better at almost everything except the user interface. The BigSky won because of the UI, not because of the algorithms. The UI is genuinely a triumph. The pedal is genuinely fine.
What to buy instead, depending on what you actually need. If you want one good Hall and one good Plate and you don't need shimmer or modulation, buy a Boss RV-200 for $260 and pocket the difference. If you want experimental, generative, evolving reverbs that the BigSky cannot do, buy a Hologram Microcosm or a Chase Bliss CXM 1978. If you want ambient pads and shimmer that doesn't sound like a kazoo, the Mercury7 is still the right answer six years later. If you want a spring tank, buy a spring tank or a Topanga. If you want all twelve algorithms in one box because you don't want to think about it, then yes, buy the BigSky. That is a real reason to buy it. It is not a reason to call it the best reverb pedal.
Lo (lo.flannery) has both a BigSky and a Mercury7 on her board. I have watched her switch between them in a single song. She uses the Mercury7 for the parts that matter. She uses the BigSky for the parts that don't. That is the right way to think about it.
'The BigSky won because of the UI, not because of the algorithms. The UI is a triumph. The pedal is fine.'
— Johnny
Good enough that nobody complains is the definition of a professional tool, and the replacement list is five boxes for the one it dismisses. That is not an alternative. That is a hobby.
The essay's central damning phrase, twelve algorithms good enough that nobody complains, describes the most difficult achievement in product design. Session tools earn their racks by never being the problem: recallable, predictable, excellent across the whole menu, forgettable in the best sense. The BigSky on the engineer's rack that the author keeps using on records is not evidence against the pedal. It is the pedal's entire argument, demonstrated by the witness for the prosecution, repeatedly, on paid work.
Now count the replacement list. An RV-200 for the Hall and Plate. A Microcosm or CXM 1978 for the experimental end. A Mercury7 for pads and shimmer. A real spring tank or a Topanga for spring. Four to five boxes, four to five power draws, a board redesign, and somewhere north of fifteen hundred dollars to outperform one four-hundred-fifty-dollar pedal at each specialty. For a specialist with strong opinions and studio real estate, a beautiful plan. For the working guitarist the verdict is aimed at, the honest advice was the one buried at the bottom: if you want it all in one box, buy the BigSky, that is a real reason. It is the reason ninety percent of buyers had.
The algorithm-by-algorithm autopsy also misstates what a multi-reverb is for. Nobody expects the Spring to beat a tank, any more than a Swiss Army knife's saw beats a saw. The category promise is coverage at professional quality, and the essay's own scoring, best-in-class Hall, genuinely original Bloom, a Cloud the author still misses six years later, reads like a strong pass wearing a hostile headline.
Fine pedal, wrong crown, says the essay. But the crown was awarded by a decade of session racks, not a press cycle, and the racks have heard the alternatives.
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