Mobius: Lessons in Imperfection

So I made another mistake. A $350 mistake.

But in a life characterized by constant mistakes, I’m glad I make mistakes that make me happy from time to time.

I’ve finally taken the dive and purchased a Strymon Mobius. For the uninitiated, Strymon is a musical effects company that specializes in high-quality guitar pedals, and the Mobius is a multi-effect with extremely finite configuration and customization.

The Mobius is a collection of 12 modulation effects, including a chorus, flanger, phaser, univibe, tremolo, filter, and more. Each individual effect has multiple settings which can be customized and saved as one of 200 presets.

In short: this pedal makes my guitar sound washy and spinning; warm and cold; happy and sad; lush and tinny; old and fresh; dead and alive.

After moving some pedals around on the board and wiring everything up, I spent a solid 3 hours just playing with it. Exploring all the factory presets, that range from “useful for certain things” to “I want this on all the time”, and then a good amount of time making a few of my own.

The chorus can be soaking or subtle. The flanger makes everything sound like a jet engine. The filter is incredibly useful and versatile. And both tremolos add an incredible grace to slow and emotional playing.

Every option is made to alter or destroy my signal in a variety of ways, and every setting is a new lesson in imperfection. Paired with my Avalanche Run, it’s a magical mystery tour of sound and feelings.

Additionally, the Mobius has an Autoswell effect, which is essentially an automated version of a swell performed by a Volume pedal. It’s a little less precise, but it’s certainly convenient. I’m thinking about replacing my large volume pedal – an Ernie Ball VP Jr. – with a small expression pedal to have finer control over the Mobius.

Each preset on the Mobius can have its own custom expression pedal settings, making it very worthwhile to put an expression pedal on my board. Currently juggling a few options, but I think the Dunlop DVP4 may work nicely. Still looking into what will work best.

I do note that there is a slight delay going in and out of bypass. It’s not incredibly large, but it makes it pretty difficult to turn the Mobius on and off right when I need to, and it cuts out pretty abruptly, so if I miss the beat it becomes very apparent. Switching between the A and B presets seems pretty instantaneous though.

My only other complaint is that the Type and Value knobs are very smooth, which makes them very easy to accidentally move and change. I can understand the Value knob being more smooth, as it makes adjusting parameters easier, but I really wish the Type knob had a hard click on every turn. If I want to change to the next effect type over, I have to very consciously look and carefully adjust the knob, as opposed to just reaching down and clicking it over once.

These are both small issues, and certainly not enough to sour my opinion towards the Mobius.

All in all, I’m very happy with my Mobius, and it’s rightly earned it’s place front and center on my board. I love every single sound that comes out of it and exploring how deep the configurations can go.

Welcome to the family, Mobius.