KVR Audio

davidka · Post by **davidka** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 8:32 am

What do you think about Nomad Factory's phaser?

@midnight · Post by **@midnight** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 3:48 pm

Guitar Rig also has pretty good small stone and phase 90 emulations.

nexusdawn · Post by **nexusdawn** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:16 pm

No offense intended, but have those of you that just talked about other phaser plugins actually listened to the demos of Bigrock?

I must have tried 2/3's of the phaser plugins on the market, and while some of them are good, to my ears Bigrock really stands apart.

This is the sound I've been looking for years, organic, lush, vintage. The kind of effect that can actually enhance a sound, or be used to make new ones.

There's something special going on under the hood of this one.

I just posted a few months back regarding the desire for high quality chorus and phasers effects. We have great eq's, reverbs, compressors, etc, but good phaser's and chorus's are far and few between.

Bigrock has just changed that for me. Synthorus is the only chorus I use in my mixes, so it would be nice to see a few more alternatives. With all the vintage / circuit modeling taking place in other plugs, its nice to see them finally being employed in basic effects like chorus and phaser.

adydub · Post by **adydub** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:35 pm

ariston wrote:For sheer depth... Mobilohm. A beast of a phaser on steroids. Tends to be overlooked, somehow... or maybe it's just been around too long?

Shhhhh! SECRET WEAPON

Jafo · Post by **Jafo** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:41 pm

mrblitz000 wrote:How about Phase 90 from Antti at Smartelectronix:

+1. Phasers have differing characters, and this one smudges the sound in a way which greatly pleases me. My fave for analog, low-fi retro warmth and goodness.

@midnight · Post by **@midnight** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 12:38 am

nexusdawn wrote:No offense intended, but have those of you that just talked about other phaser plugins actually listened to the demos of Bigrock?

Yeah, I didn't hear anything the small stone in Guitar Rig couldn't do.

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 5:08 pm

@midnight wrote:
nexusdawn wrote:No offense intended, but have those of you that just talked about other phaser plugins actually listened to the demos of Bigrock?
Yeah, I didn't hear anything the small stone in Guitar Rig couldn't do.

then i strongly suggest you to listen again. the difference is hughe, imo. i'm biassed, as i work for artsacoustic, but honestly, i know most of the availlable plugin-phasers, and none of them do really nail the smallstone. i'd really say so, if there were. some do sound into that direction, but none of those i know come close to the real thing, exept bigrock. i have 2 smallstones here, one green russian one, and the original mk2 from 74 (enhanced, but able to produce the same sound as original in a certain setting). those are the ones widely known as the best sounding ones (mk2 first), and bigrock nails them. only difference is the bit more noise and the lfo waveform, which is somewhat more shaped on the russish one and bigrock emulates the shape of the mk2. i've yet to hear a plugin-phaser that sounds so good, especially at high resonance, where typical allpass-only phasers tend to get harsh.

just sayin'...

@midnight · Post by **@midnight** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 7:09 pm

Yeah, again, I listened to the demo's, and didn't hear anything I couldn't do in Guitar Rig. "a bit more noise.... shape of the lfo waveform" these things are such small details it doesn't even matter.

realmarco · Post by **realmarco** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 1:16 am

what I'd like to know is how have they made the Small-stone plugin emulation?...how did they reproduce the sound of a small-stone ?

this question could also be asked for every emulation plugins out there.

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 3:13 am

they had my two smallstones and anotherone (i believe the mk1, but i can be mistaken on thatone) from some of their friends. as they told me they measured the units inside alongside with the original cirquit digram (to get a clue what does what), as well as they measured the output with white noise, plotted it with waterfall diagrams and a frequency analyzer, i assume for the correct lfo waveform and for the correct frequency spread and width... that kind of thing... you have to ask them yourself to get more details... they have their form here on kvr...

CapnLockheed · Post by **CapnLockheed** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 5:18 am

That's all well and good but if I want the sound of a vintage Small Stone and I'm willing to spend what this plugin costs.....I think I'll just go on eBay and buy a REAL Small Stone!

Then again I have this habit of playing live....a studio rat might see it differently.

Cheers......CapLock

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 10:33 am

CapnLockheed wrote:That's all well and good but if I want the sound of a vintage Small Stone and I'm willing to spend what this plugin costs.....I think I'll just go on eBay and buy a REAL Small Stone! Then again I have this habit of playing live....a studio rat might see it differently.

Cheers......CapLock

hehe, well, yes you certainly could do that, though imo your point isn't as valid as you might think:

- artsacoustic modelled the mk2, which is by far known as the best sounding of all the smallstones, and i really doubt you'd get _thatone_ as cheap as the plugin. last time i checked they were around 120-170€ and most of all - it was really rare and hard to get in good condition, if at all.

- these units were not really reliable, went broke very fast.

- the mk1 and mk2 especially were very noisy, and all of them were and still are very sensible to the input level... you couldn't really hit them with a lot of gain...

- buy one, have one - buy the plugin, have - well - have as many as the machine 's cpu can give you

- the advanced page allowes you to do stuff you would have dreamed about to do with a smallstone

so, yeah, you could certainly try to get one used, if you're lucky... but not really so much of a benefit, exept you just don't want to bother and play only solid hardware and refuse to use such things as a laptop or recepror or such on stage... then that would be the best for you...

Z1202 · Post by **Z1202** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 11:29 am

@midnight wrote:Yeah, again, I listened to the demo's, and didn't hear anything I couldn't do in Guitar Rig. "a bit more noise.... shape of the lfo waveform" these things are such small details it doesn't even matter.

Reaktor's KleinStein is a younger brother of the Guitar Rig's Stoned Phaser.

spirit · Post by **spirit** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 1:43 pm

I'm a huge phaser fan - still got my old green SuperPhaser pedal tucked away with the SPX90 - couldn't bear to part with either of them

I've just demo'd the AA phaser - very nice, but the price is pretty steep. Do AA ever run sales/coupons ?

CapnLockheed · Post by **CapnLockheed** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 2:52 pm

brok landers wrote:
CapnLockheed wrote:That's all well and good but if I want the sound of a vintage Small Stone and I'm willing to spend what this plugin costs.....I think I'll just go on eBay and buy a REAL Small Stone! Then again I have this habit of playing live....a studio rat might see it differently.

Cheers......CapLock
hehe, well, yes you certainly could do that, though imo your point isn't as valid as you might think:

- artsacoustic modelled the mk2, which is by far known as the best sounding of all the smallstones, and i really doubt you'd get _thatone_ as cheap as the plugin. last time i checked they were around 120-170€ and most of all - it was really rare and hard to get in good condition, if at all.

- these units were not really reliable, went broke very fast.

- the mk1 and mk2 especially were very noisy, and all of them were and still are very sensible to the input level... you couldn't really hit them with a lot of gain...

- buy one, have one - buy the plugin, have - well - have as many as the machine 's cpu can give you

- the advanced page allowes you to do stuff you would have dreamed about to do with a smallstone

so, yeah, you could certainly try to get one used, if you're lucky... but not really so much of a benefit, exept you just don't want to bother and play only solid hardware and refuse to use such things as a laptop or recepror or such on stage... then that would be the best for you...

Some of your points are valid....some not so much. I live in New York. I know Mike Matthews personally. Old EH boxes are all over the place here. MkII Small Stones are relatively easy to come by,(for me anyway), especially if they are broken...which they often are, but I'm a tech. This also negates point of unreliability. And using a laptop on stage?? Now THERE'S an unreliability issue! Receptors? Expensive and limited IMHO. Small Stones are noisy but they can be modded to run quieter oh and there's these things called noise gates. Also some consider the noisiness of old EH effects to be part of their inherent charm. If EH went out of business,(again), or withdrew support that stompbox would not suddenly become useless. No x64 upgrade? No problem! Finally, if I buy a hardware stompbox I OWN it. I'm not just paying for the privilege using it. It belongs to me. I am free to repair it, modify it, reverse engineer it or paint it all crazy and psychedelic like. And when I am done with it and decide to move it along, I almost ALWAYS make a tidy profit on it. That's not to say I don't own and use LOT'S of guitar oriented software...I do. That's not to say that BigRock isn't the greatest stompbox emu since sliced bread...it may be. I'm just sayin' that it's not for me. Frankly, I'd rather layout $299 for ReValver MkIII.V than spend $89 for a single stompbox emu...no matter how good it is...but that's just me.

Greatest VST Phaser