Strymon Sunset vs Riverside – 3 Definitive Easy to Digest Comparisons
3 Easy to understand comparisons between the Strymon Sunset and Strymon Riverside
I’ve owned and played the Strymon Sunset and Strymon Riverside for a number of years now. Often I run into questions online where people want to know: Strymon Sunset vs Riverside? In most cases, these questions lead to long-winded threads that are confusing and far from clear.
For this reason, I will give you 3 clear and easy to understand comparisons between the Riverside and Sunset. This way you can decide which is best for you… or if both are best for you!
Tones
The Strymon Sunset offers more variety of tones than the Strymon Riverside. However, these tones have distinctive voicings. For example, tube-screamer and Rat. This makes the Sunset more versatile and can emulate various pedal sounds. On the other hand, the Riverside is a lot more neutral and the tones can fit situations where you would rather not have something that sounds a lot like a specific pedal. Additionally, the Riverside can do high gain a lot better. You can also scoop or boost mids – Something you cannot do on the Sunset apart from the baked-in mid-boost you get from some of the modes.
Stacking
The Sunset is naturally a stackable pedal. The fact that there are two sides and you can stack them in either order or in parallel make that more evident. Furthermore, it takes other pedals into it perfectly fine. The Riverside on the other hand can be voiced differently by putting analog overdrives after it. This is a great way to change the pedal’s voicing to be less neutral and more like something else – say for example the mid-hump of a BOSS SD-1 or the chime of a Klon. However, I’ve found the Riverside does not like other dirt pedals going into it quite as much. For this reason, I tend to put it before other overdrive and distortion pedals on the chain.
Blending
The Strymon Riverside is the better one in blending in with your overall tone. They say it sounds more like an amp than a pedal. That’s a pretty accurate description, except for the part of it not liking other overdrives going into it quite as much as the Sunset. An amp normally takes pedals just fine. As a boost, the Riverside is a better option as well as it adds less color to the tone.
Strymon Sunset vs Riverside – Which is best?
My personal opinion is that the Strymon Sunset is a better pedal than the Riverside. I used to have two of each – One pair in the original red and gold colors, but then when the Strymon Midnight series came out I bought one of each in black. Since then, I have sold the gold Riverside, but I intend to keep the midnight blackout one. And when it comes to the Sunset, since I definitely like it more, I plan to keep both the red and blacked out one for different pedalboards.
For more overdrive awesomeness check out my review on the Jackson Audio Optimist Cory Wong Pedal:
For one of the most versatile overdrive pedals around see this:
