Phaserholics anonymous....

[lunik]

I can't be the only person who loves phasers. I thought I'd start a thread about them.

Theres just something warm , loud and gurgly or gentle and tasteful, about them - another absolute timeless classic effect from the 70's - guitars and electric pianos ran through phasers into slighty crunchy tube amps: its a wonderful sound on so many recordings from the period.

Non of the software phasers I've collected are quite like a decent real phaser pedal though: though they all have a personality which is great. I use Kjaerhus classic phaser a lot at the moment - run into into Blocksifh with saturation turned up on channels for keys etc.

Theres a sort of cascading "folding over" sound at the top and bottom limits of the LFO on an analogue phaser that I havn't heard totally nailed on a vst - though Delta Forces phaser gets quite close - plus just a sort of organic grainyness with the hardware units not quite represented in vst.

Modulating some band reject filters basically makes a phaser, but the analogue ones do this in a special way as far as I know - electronics boffs will know the details - and presumably contributes to the sound.

Phaser - the Queen of modulation effects (The King being leslie cabs perhaps?)

[Muff Wiggler]

hell yeah

Audiodamage Phase Two is super luscious

[lunik]

ooo...didn;t know about that one!

[MickGael]

I admit to liking the "Stoned Phaser" in Guitar Rig 2 an awful lot. If only I could afford it.

[kodama]

Can't forget SupaPhaser!

[shamann]

Here's a little software phaser demo I recently put together in this thread.

phaser clip

Order of sounds:
dry loop
xhip phaser
Kjaerhus Classic Phaser
antti's Phase-90
Simulanalog's PS-1
Bram's Supaphaser
Luxonix LFX-1310
Audiomulch phaser
Audio Damage Phase Two

The settings aren't identical (which would mostly be impossible given the differences between each), it was really just meant to give an idea of flavour. Check out the original post for a slightly longer caveat.

I like phasers, though I've not always known what to do with them with the kind of music I make, since the classic/clichéed uses don't always apply outside of the classic/clichéed settings. Usually, when it comes to modulators, I get more mileage from amp mods or flexible delay modulators.

I've especially been giving AD's Phase Two a lot of time lately to figure out what I like to do with phasers, since I love its sound and configuration. I've been stacking it a lot with low-pass filters, getting all sorts of great speak-and-spell type of sounds.

[safeaim]

Audiomulch Phaser really sounded interesting
My myself, I'm a big fan of the Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Bundle's PH2S, great sound
Been drooling for AD Phase Two for a while, looks like I rather check ou tthe audiomulch phaser

[lunik]

that last 3 each have the 'folding over' quality I mentioned.

Yes, audiomulches puts up a surprising performance. I have AM, have to look at its phaser further!

Here's a little software phaser demo I recently put together in this thread.

phaser clip

Order of sounds:
dry loop
xhip phaser
Kjaerhus Classic Phaser
antti's Phase-90
Simulanalog's PS-1
Bram's Supaphaser
Luxonix LFX-1310
Audiomulch phaser
Audio Damage Phase Two

The settings aren't identical (which would mostly be impossible given the differences between each), it was really just meant to give an idea of flavour. Check out the original post for a slightly longer caveat.

I like phasers, though I've not always known what to do with them with the kind of music I make, since the classic/clichéed uses don't always apply outside of the classic/clichéed settings. Usually, when it comes to modulators, I get more mileage from amp mods or flexible delay modulators.

I've especially been giving AD's Phase Two a lot of time lately to figure out what I like to do with phasers, since I love its sound and configuration. I've been stacking it a lot with low-pass filters, getting all sorts of great speak-and-spell type of sounds.

[boin]

Modulating some band reject filters basically makes a phaser, but the analogue ones do this in a special way as far as I know - electronics boffs will know the details - and presumably contributes to the sound.

To get a phaser you put the sound thru a chain of variable all-pass filters and sum this with the original input. You get a signal cancellation for every frequency in which the all-pass filters produce a multiple of 180 degrees of total phase difference - a notch in the frequency response (band-reject); for all other frequencies you had different amounts of reinforcement, producing peaks between the notches. You need two all-pass filters to get one notch. That's why phasers always had stages in multiples of two. You could also feedback the phased output signal to the input, acting as a resonance control. Identical all-pass filter stages were common, resulting in a particular configuration of the resulting notches but there were also some other different designs. Triangle or near-triangle modulating waveforms were the most usual.

The real trick was how to modulate the all-pass filters. The Maestro phaser (the first one, maybe?) used individual transistor stages for the all-pass filters and AFAIR had LDRs (light-dependent resistors) as variable filter elements - but maybe I'm confusing it with the phaser that Klaus Schulze used at the time. The MXR Phase-90 used opamps for the filters (4 identical stages, two notches) and FETs operating as VCR's (voltage controlled resistors). The Mutrons had the all-pass filters built around OTAs, using current modulation to vary the notch frequencies.

Many things can affect the sound in these circuits and - as it happens frequently - part of the magic is in the imperfections. For example, FET VCR's add distortion depending on the signal level; the FET's needed to be matched but no match is perfect, causing some smearing (?) in the frequency response. Signal level was also critical for controlling OTA's distortion - which is different from the FET-VCR distortion.

These are some of the reasons why no two Phase-90, for example, sounded exactly alike. I remember testing a few of them in a guitar shop and finding one absolutely marvellous while the others were just "good". The same applies in some degree to any other phaser from that era.

[lunik]

Phasers with adjustable stereo 'phase' are great - independant channel stereo phasers can be set up to do this. Blue Line dx plugins from years ago had this
in the phaser and filter module....create some very tripping stereo effects with headphones.

Here's a little software phaser demo I recently put together in this thread.

phaser clip

Order of sounds:
dry loop
xhip phaser
Kjaerhus Classic Phaser
antti's Phase-90
Simulanalog's PS-1
Bram's Supaphaser
Luxonix LFX-1310
Audiomulch phaser
Audio Damage Phase Two

The settings aren't identical (which would mostly be impossible given the differences between each), it was really just meant to give an idea of flavour. Check out the original post for a slightly longer caveat.

I like phasers, though I've not always known what to do with them with the kind of music I make, since the classic/clichéed uses don't always apply outside of the classic/clichéed settings. Usually, when it comes to modulators, I get more mileage from amp mods or flexible delay modulators.

I've especially been giving AD's Phase Two a lot of time lately to figure out what I like to do with phasers, since I love its sound and configuration. I've been stacking it a lot with low-pass filters, getting all sorts of great speak-and-spell type of sounds.

[Mr. Tunes]

Big phaser fan over here! My most frequented phaser is in Sampletank2

[lunik]

Thanks for the background!

Don't know triangles were most common LFO wavelength.

Presumably these nonlinearities could be modelled somehow in software...with a 'random nonlinearity' browser/preset manager to let you keep a setting you stumbled across (and could share with others).

Easier said than done I'm sure.

Modulating some band reject filters basically makes a phaser, but the analogue ones do this in a special way as far as I know - electronics boffs will know the details - and presumably contributes to the sound.

To get a phaser you put the sound thru a chain of variable all-pass filters and sum this with the original input. You get a signal cancellation for every frequency in which the all-pass filters produce a multiple of 180 degrees of total phase difference - a notch in the frequency response (band-reject); for all other frequencies you had different amounts of reinforcement, producing peaks between the notches. You need two all-pass filters to get one notch. That's why phasers always had stages in multiples of two. You could also feedback the phased output signal to the input, acting as a resonance control. Identical all-pass filter stages were common, resulting in a particular configuration of the resulting notches but there were also some other different designs. Triangle or near-triangle modulating waveforms were the most usual.

The real trick was how to modulate the all-pass filters. The Maestro phaser (the first one, maybe?) used individual transistor stages for the all-pass filters and AFAIR had LDRs (light-dependent resistors) as variable filter elements - but maybe I'm confusing it with the phaser that Klaus Schulze used at the time. The MXR Phase-90 used opamps for the filters (4 identical stages, two notches) and FETs operating as VCR's (voltage controlled resistors). The Mutrons had the all-pass filters built around OTAs, using current modulation to vary the notch frequencies.

Many things can affect the sound in these circuits and - as it happens frequently - part of the magic is in the imperfections. For example, FET VCR's add distortion depending on the signal level; the FET's needed to be matched but no match is perfect, causing some smearing (?) in the frequency response. Signal level was also critical for controlling OTA's distortion - which is different from the FET-VCR distortion.

These are some of the reasons why no two Phase-90, for example, sounded exactly alike. I remember testing a few of them in a guitar shop and finding one absolutely marvellous while the others were just "good". The same applies in some degree to any other phaser from that era.

[original flipper]

HI

I love phaser/flangers!

There is a tune by Burning Spear aka Winston Rodney called 'Civilised Reggae' (Dub version) where there is the most UNBELIEVABLE phaser which is in sync with the tune and has an astounding sweep that just about covers the whole spectrum with a wash of eq'd, spacious reverbed phase love - I wish I could post it - I would reccomend any phase lover to search it out.

The MHC Space Phaser aint half bad, along with the Ohm Phaser and SuperPhaser (one of a few programs I have donated towards - I was that impressed by it)... I would like to hear more demoes of the AD Phaser as the ones up on the site are not up to much IMO.

Flipper.

[lunik]

Flangers can be a bit nasty to my ears, not as warm and gurgly as phasers. rather 80's. tho I have used them!

Hears a questions though:

Is the manually slowly down one line of a dual line gerry rigged tape deck to create the first ever phase/flange sounds...

is that flange or phasing? Techincally its flange isn;t? (modulated delayed signal of origonal produced an unlimited series of notch filters?)

That technique can produce some very warm phasey results, at least on some old records where thats what I think they are doing.

One or two stage phasers (ie one or two notches) can produce some very subtle modulation which is pretty cool.

HI

I love phaser/flangers!

There is a tune by Burning Spear aka Winston Rodney called 'Civilised Reggae' (Dub version) where there is the most UNBELIEVABLE phaser which is in sync with the tune and has an astounding sweep that just about covers the whole spectrum with a wash of eq'd, spacious reverbed phase love - I wish I could post it - I would reccomend any phase lover to search it out.

The MHC Space Phaser aint half bad, along with the Ohm Phaser and SuperPhaser (one of a few programs I have donated towards - I was that impressed by it)... I would like to hear more demoes of the AD Phaser as the ones up on the site are not up to much IMO.

Flipper.

[Music Engineer]

Is the manually slowly down one line of a dual line gerry rigged tape deck to create the first ever phase/flange sounds...

is that flange or phasing? Techincally its flange isn;t? (modulated delayed signal of origonal produced an unlimited series of notch filters?)

yes - if you delay a signal, there is a frequency for which the delay is exactly half a period - thus: this frequency gets cancelled out when mixing original and delayed signal. the same thing occurs for all odd multiples of this frequency - modulating the delay is known as flanging. the difference in the sonic result comes from the fact, that in flangers the notches (and also the peaks) are harmonically related. in phasers this is not the case

[LINK REMOVED]