Chaos Audio Stratus review – the ultimate compact multi-effects?
$299/£245, chaosaudio.com
The guitar world is often besmirched for being stuck in the past, venerating 70-year-old tech in a way that is entirely at odds with the innovative spirit that transformed the guitar into the most influential instrument of the 20th century in the 1950s.
READ MORE: Origin Effects Deluxe55 review – is this the ultimate ‘tweed in a box’ pedal?
But people who dismiss the innovation in guitar must not be looking too hard at the floor – and the effects pedals we’re all stomping on. In the last year especially it’s felt like we’ve entered a new golden age where technology, innovation and affordability are dovetailing to create a landscape where it’s never been easier and more accessible to make new and interesting sounds with an electric guitar.
One of the biggest areas of growth recently has been the world of multi-effects – especially smaller pedals that are designed to provide a wealth of high-quality sounds in what would have been an unthinkably compact and user-friendly package just a few years ago.
Line 6 kicked this off with the hugely impressive update of the M9, the HX One, and since then various other brands have followed suit – most notably TC Electronic with its new Plethora X1. But what about the smaller boutique brands? Is multi-effects wizardry just a preserve of megacorps? Enter the Chaos Audio Stratus.
Image: Press
Chaos Audio Stratus – what is it?
The history of the Stratus is a long and tricky one – an initially unsuccessful Kickstarter project in 2020, the pedal was retooled, resubmitted, and managed to be successfully backed on the crowdfunding platform midway through 2021. It was also, seemingly, the first guitar pedal in space, as you’ll see below.
Back here on earth, the premise was simple really – it’s a multi-effects for people who maybe don’t love multi-effects, or as Chaos Audio puts it on their own website, ‘a Swiss Army Knife for your guitar’.
Effectively, the Stratus is a hardware component for Chaos Audio’s suite of amp and effects plug-ins – you get 14 effects plugins bundled in with your purchase (worth over $260 if bought separately) plus a five-minute looper. With the Stratus’ most recent update you also get integrated AI amp modeling, with three quality amp plugins by way of Aida DSP’s AIDA-X tech.
The pedal itself is very simple; input and output jacks, a power socket and USB-C control, then a strip of LEDs up top and a single knob and a footswitch. If you just went full Han Solo and got a bad feeling about this, don’t fret. Yes, the bulk of the Stratus’ functionality is controlled via a companion smartphone app – which is available on both iOS and Android – but Chaos Audio promises that set-up and editing is smooth and seamless… let’s find out about that, and whether this pedal offers enough to stand apart in a sea of multi-effects units already flooding the market.
Image: Press
Chaos Audio Stratus – build and setup
The Stratus is a curious thing on your pedalboard – unlike most stompboxes which have a relatively flat top, this is more like a black chunky doorstop. The shape could make it a little tricky to get access to if you’re setting it up between other pedals, especially ones with big footprints, but I didn’t have any issues with this in my test. Build quality feels solid and reassuring – especially given the relatively affordable price point. And hey, it went to space and back – surely that’s a glowing recommendation on the durability side?
I’m always a little apprehensive about any guitar product that requires heavy integration with an app – it can be a complete deal-breaker if the connection isn’t smooth and consistent – and with nearly every important thing on the Stratus being app-based, that apprehension was doubled.
Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised by how smooth and painless the whole process was. After downloading the app to my iPhone and turning the pedal on, it took barely five minutes to get everything connected and ready to roll.
Image: Press
Chaos Audio Stratus – sounds
Running a Jazzmaster into my trusty HiWatt head, I decide the best place to start is to try each of the onboard effects individually – you can chain these plugins if you want, but I wanted to get a sense of the plugins’ general quality before determining if they play nice together.
Given that this pedal is barely more expensive than one boutique pedal, I’m hugely impressed by the quality on show – these algorithms can give Meris or Walrus Audio a run for their money. I’m particularly taken with the reverbs on tap; especially the Cosmo algorithm – it’s very ethereal and blends really well with drive. It also feels quite wonderful to realise that this tiny pedal can make a wall of sound that’s so massive.
If there’s one sound most people judge any multi-effects by, it’s the drive section – it’s historically been a weak spot of even the best multi-effects units, and while things have come on leaps and bounds in recent years, there’s still a lot of people who feel they don’t quite capture the full character of an analogue pedal. I won’t say the drive sounds will change your life on the Stratus, but they’re very good – I got a lot of mileage from them, especially when stacking with other plugins onboard.
Image: Press
Ah yes, stacking – because unlike many other multi-effects pedals out there, you can not only store unlimited presets for the Stratus, but you can also chain different effects in any order your heart desires.
For me, this is where the Stratus gets really interesting – combining the onboard drive and tremolo created a really interesting lo-fi bluesy tone, for example – though my imagination was somewhat curtailed soon after.
Unfortunately, my attempts at stacking more than two effects at once maxed out the internal memory and I was left with my wildest excesses untapped. How many effects you can stack does seem to be dependent on the plugins you’re using – I managed to get three with some of the less demanding algorithms, but it certainly does put a damper on any plans you might have to get super experimental.
I mentioned you get a bunch of plugins free with the pedal, but you can also download a bunch of others (for a price) from Stratus to give even more tonal options should you want them. They’re pretty reasonably priced and bundles make things even more affordable, but be aware that you’re probably going to have less sounds on tap than you would with a big-box modelling unit from Fractal or Line 6.
Image: Press
Chaos Audio Stratus – should I buy one?
There was a part of me that didn’t want to like the Stratus. As a pedal snob I almost didn’t want to believe that you could get such a wealth of high-quality sounds for such a low price, much less that those sounds could compete with the sounds you’d find in a high-end DSP unit from one of the big brands. But you can and it does.
While it definitely had a few compromises – the lag I experienced when trying to run more than two effects was not fun, and the way absolutely everything is hidden in the app will alienate a lot of players – but it doesn’t detract from the fundamental quality of what’s on offer here.
Whether you’re a beginner looking to make their first excursions into the world of high-quality effects, or a pedal veteran looking for a high-quality ‘occasional’ pedal to slot onto your ‘board, it’s a seriously compelling option.
Chaos Audio Stratus alternatives
The single-shot multi-effects game was pretty much started by Line 6 with the venerable M9, but the new HX One ($249/£199) brings the concept bang up to date with Helix-derived sounds, and the street price has come down by $50 since launch. A similar concept is the new TC Electronic Plethora X1 ($129/£119 street) – but one which leans heavily on TC’s impressive TonePrint sounds library. If you want to have a bit more control from your multi-effects, the new HeadRush Flex Prime ($499/£459) offers modern high-end DSP in a compact package.
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