Eventide Instant Phaser Mk II released

[jens]

Regarding "jerky" LFO, I've checked schematic of original machine and it is a smart little thing.
LFO is actually square LFO going into fixed low pass filter. When LFO speed increase, output waveform resembles triangle wave more and more, with decreasing amplitude as LFO frequency increases. When LFO speed decrease, output waveform resembles square wave more and more. Thing is that sweep rate (when output is swept) is roughly constant and independent of LFO frequency. With LFO frequency in lower range, you get upward sweep then pause than downward sweep then pause again.
With effects such as phasers, choruses and flangers, amount of perceived detune is proportional to sweep rate. This means that with usual LFO modulator scheme, detune amount increase when you increase LFO frequency, and vice versa. OTOH, folks at Eventide probably figured out sweet spot for detune amount, and than made LFO scheme such that detune amount is constant regardless of LFO speed.

EDIT: one big correction, schematic was for BPC-101 phaser expansion card for Instant Flanger, not for PS-101, I haven't found PS-101 schematic, but it would not be surprised that they've used similar scheme.

Very interesting - thanks for that! It might partly explain why this thing sounds so musical on basically any setting...


b.t.w.: I find it interesting how Tony Agnello in the video goes on about the irregular shape of the LFO (so he apparently considers it a crucial part of the emulation), yet people want to replace it with a bog-standard digital LFO because it sound wrong to them

It seems this generation of computer musos got so used to the digital "perfection", that finally - or let's rather say once again - the "imperfections" of analog indeed appear faulty to them. This certainly is not a question of right or wrong but rather of personal expectations, aesthetics and so forth.

And a lot of what you want/need depends on the music you make and the kind of instruments you use.

[SteveWZ]

From Eventide homepage:

First Studio Phaser
Released in 1971, the Eventide Instant Phaser began the studio effects revolution by successfully simulating tape flanging, an effect that’s been at the core of legendary albums for the last five decades. Modeled on the original hardware unit, the Instant Phaser Mk II plug-in accomplishes the same legendary sound with all the analog personality, smooth modulations, and inherent musicality. The capabilities have been expanded, and now you can even take your phaser on an excursion from the 70s far into the future with the delightfully characteristic “Age” knob. Outfitted with a complete host of control options, the Instant Phaser Mk II is out of the rack and into your plugin arsenal.

Aged not Old
The Instant Phaser Mk II perfectly captures the unique, imprecise analog character of the original hardware. During development we discovered that the values of some of the components change with age; they drift further and further from their marked values. The result is that an Instant Phaser which has been powered up for years will sound different than it did on day one. The new plug-in features an innovative Age knob, which allows you simulate this aging of the components of the phase shift networks and the LFO. Once we started down this path, in a salute to entropy, we decided to extrapolate far into the future.

Features
The Instant Phaser Mk II offers three different sonic characteristics that change the amount of phase-shift sections, simply labeled “Shallow”, “Deep”, and “Wide”. When “Wide” is selected, the Instant Phaser Mk II gives you a different amount of phase-shifting on both right and left channels, resulting in a slightly different effect in each ear. You can use this to turn flat mono guitars into huge stereo leads, or make your single channel synthesizer fill out the sides of your mix.
Add Age for component drift with time
Offers three different flavors of phasing with the Mode switch: Shallow, Deep, and Wide
Utilize one of four distinct methods to control the phasing
Depth allows you to combine the phased signal with the dry signal
Added Side Chain function allows you to trigger the Envelope Follower from a separate source in the mix for inter-track mingling
Exercise total control of the Oscillator with Sync and Retrig controls
Use Feedback control for a more pronounced sound
Includes standard gain input and output

Eventide have always had good sounding mod effects.

[Russell Grand]

b.t.w.: I find it interesting how Tony Agnello in the video goes on about the irregular shape of the LFO (so he apparently considers it a crucial part of the emulation), yet people want to replace it with a bog-standard digital LFO because it sound wrong to them

It seems this generation of computer musos got so used to the digital "perfection", that finally - or let's rather say once again - the "imperfections" of analog indeed appear faulty to them. This certainly is not a question of right or wrong but rather of personal expectations, aesthetics and so forth.

[Cody Valentine]

demoed this and it is a must buy. loving it on drums and stacked trippy choruses right now. will purchase this week

[ATS]

yeah I made the mistake of demoing this. Had to get it. I got it from JRR Shop for about $31.

[Sampleconstruct]

Sounds nice.

[SMH]

Still going for Stunning Phaser for all my phaser tasks, it has both incredible sound and it got the best envelope follower I found in a phaser.

[Igro]

The only thing I don't love about this is the LFO. Am I the only one that finds it kind of jerky sounding in an awkward way? I've had much better results faking a sine LFO via VST automation in my host and setting it to manual. Otherwise, it really does sound better than anything else out there in plugin land.

Yepp, this phaser is not really good on pads at all, where you want a constantly evolving sound. It fails here because of this weird gap.
For pads, the NI Phasis is hard to beat.