Greatest VST Phaser

[4damind]

but if you are looking for the well-known Smallstone sound, it is difficult and you often end up with the Bigrock again (it simply does this sound IMO the best).

The last time I asked you which version of the Small Stone you exactly compared Bigrock to, you did not answer me.

It seems I missed this.
Of course, there are different editions, so there should not be "the" Smallstone sound. But I always have the Jarre sound in my ear, he also used the Smallstone on white noise (from his EMS?) or on the Eminent. The Bigrock comes pretty close to that.
The big difference to the hardware is that the Smallstone has no phase offset in the stereo field. That can only be done by the plugin or you would probably have to connect 2 Smallstone phasers together (I don't know how Jarre did it).
I had tested several plug-ins and from the sound alone, I liked the Fixphaser the best (without having an emulation of a special hardware in mind, only from the sound and the "smoothness")

[vurt]

im going to assume, like me, jens has a more rock sound as "the small stone sound"
he'll probably go prog, ill go space rock! hawkwind!!!

although, they also used the p90 at times.
probably used both at once at some point, they had one on pretty much every instrument! very phaserr heavy some hw songs

[4damind]

Hehe, yeah, the big guys with the big stones.... ehm... rocks
Would you actually use a stereo phaser on an E-Guitar, it's probably rather uncommon?

[vurt]

hawkwind used synths too

[chk071]

I had tested several plug-ins and from the sound alone, I liked the Fixphaser the best (without having an emulation of a special hardware in mind, only from the sound and the "smoothness")

That's my impression as well, having tried quite a few Phasers (from DAW included ones, like the Presonus and Steinberg Phasers, over MPhaser, NI's Phasis, Adam Szabo's Phazor, the Admiral Quality one, Arturia's Bi-Tron, the Eventide Classic Phaser, Soundtoys PhaseMistress and many synth's onboard Phasers.

Shows once again how different those filter based effects can sound. Some of them are worlds apart really, sonically.

I will get Fix Phaser next time it comes on sale (hopefully next month...). It ate my CPU alive when I demo'd it, but, that sound... most creamy, smooth of them all.

[jens]

im going to assume, like me, jens has a more rock sound as "the small stone sound"
he'll probably go prog, ill go space rock! hawkwind!!!

although, they also used the p90 at times.
probably used both at once at some point, they had one on pretty much every instrument! very phaserr heavy some hw songs

Yay, Hawkwind, they rule! (And so do Ozric Tentacles by the way)

Yes, well, I read some claims that the Small Stone of today sounds very different at least to the Small Stone of way way back... this is said to be due to the rarity of some of the components that were used in the earlier circuits...

I have a Truetone GarageTone Oil Can and they claim that...

When we were first thinking about making a phaser, we pulled in a bunch of old and new phasers from other companies to see which sounded the best to our ears. One of the guys in the office brought in an old “Electra” phaser from the mid 70’s which sounded better than anything else we tried. We did some research on it and found out that it was actually made by Electro-Harmonix for the Electra Guitar Company around 1975-76 and was, in fact, a re-housed Small Stone. We compared it to a Small Stone and it didn’t sound anything like it… the old one sounded infinitely better.

The reason why E-H changed the circuit over the years is that the main chips used in the old version haven’t been made for decades. Undaunted by that inconvenient fact, I gave the old circuit to our chief engineer, R.G. Keen, and asked him to figure out a way to use some equivalent chips to work in a similar circuit to re-create the sound of the Electra pedal. It was a tall order, but he figured it out and after a few tweaks, we had the Garagetone Oil Can Phaser and yes, it sounds just like that old Electra Phaser from the 70’s.

[jens]

Would you actually use a stereo phaser on an E-Guitar, it's probably rather uncommon?

Why would you not?

[vurt]

yup ozrics are awesome!
seen them a bunch too

[jens]

Now I am green with envy! Somehow I never did...

[vurt]

wish i could somehow share the experience.
are they not still touring? although im not sure what the deal with touring will be post brexit? some talk if it being prohibitively expensive. even for stadium acts, let alone smelly hippy's

[4damind]

Would you actually use a stereo phaser on an E-Guitar, it's probably rather uncommon?

Why would you not?

I don't know... when I hear a stereo phaser, I don't immediately think of an E-Guitar But maybe that's because I don't listen to much rock music There are no rules.

[alienmachine]

I have two hardware SmallStones, a Russian version and a reissue. For Jarre fans like me, Reaktor's Kleinstein is the closer to a SmallStone phaser I have found and it predates BigRock by some years. I know it's not strictly VST, but the only other alternative for me is BigRock, no doubt about it.

As far as I know, Jarre had his Small Stone modified to run slower. Also, he ran one channel with the dry phaser signal and the other channel with a delay. That is why you hear a wide stereo spread in his records.

Some examples (and self promotion) below

https://soundcloud.com/alien-machine/em ... rings-demo

https://soundcloud.com/alien-machine/em ... quick-demo

[Bulbizarre]

PhaseMistress is pretty good. DAW phaser can work too with some saturation afterward. I was wondering of maybe getting a strong MXR analog phaser to compare precisely wether hardware can do better.

[s28]

Valhalla Delays new phaser mode set to 0ms delay time, mix 100% sounda excellent. With the reso and age and delay time parameters you can coax all kinds of great sounds out of it.

[metalifuxx]

im going to assume, like me, jens has a more rock sound as "the small stone sound"
he'll probably go prog, ill go space rock! hawkwind!!!

although, they also used the p90 at times.
probably used both at once at some point, they had one on pretty much every instrument! very phaserr heavy some hw songs

Yay, Hawkwind, they rule! (And so do Ozric Tentacles by the way)

Yes, well, I read some claims that the Small Stone of today sounds very different at least to the Small Stone of way way back... this is said to be due to the rarity of some of the components that were used in the earlier circuits...

I have a Truetone GarageTone Oil Can and they claim that...

When we were first thinking about making a phaser, we pulled in a bunch of old and new phasers from other companies to see which sounded the best to our ears. One of the guys in the office brought in an old “Electra” phaser from the mid 70’s which sounded better than anything else we tried. We did some research on it and found out that it was actually made by Electro-Harmonix for the Electra Guitar Company around 1975-76 and was, in fact, a re-housed Small Stone. We compared it to a Small Stone and it didn’t sound anything like it… the old one sounded infinitely better.

The reason why E-H changed the circuit over the years is that the main chips used in the old version haven’t been made for decades. Undaunted by that inconvenient fact, I gave the old circuit to our chief engineer, R.G. Keen, and asked him to figure out a way to use some equivalent chips to work in a similar circuit to re-create the sound of the Electra pedal. It was a tall order, but he figured it out and after a few tweaks, we had the Garagetone Oil Can Phaser and yes, it sounds just like that old Electra Phaser from the 70’s.

Never knew about the Oil Can phaser and now i want one but you can’t find them anywhere now, not even used.