Phasers. What’s Good?

[fretmeister]

As it says!

 

ive got a couple, but they all seem to suffer a bit on bass. 

Anyone got any recommendations for thick chewy low end swirling?

[Higgie]

I picked up the original Subdecay Quasar DLX. It’s great. Don’t get to use much Phaser, but it’s so versatile I decided to keep it around. Tap Tempo, (or expression control of sweep/rate) plus all the different waveforms, and a clean blend make for a really cool pedal 👍

[paul_5]

Small clone does it for me. Cheap and cheerful, but does its job (2 bars of music per gig) admirably!

Edited August 27, 2018 by paul_5

[dannybuoy]

Small Clone is a chorus, I presume you meant the Small Stone!

Both the Small Stone and MXR Phase 90 are great on bass.

[perrybassbp]

Easy! Earthquaker devices grand orbiter by far the best one I've tried  

[Al Krow]

My experience is that with modulation effects, multi-fx do a pretty good job - probably better than in any other area of simulation. And in the mix would anyone notice the different between your multi and a dedicated modulation pedal - probably not.

So if you want the best value pedal on the market today (bar none), it's worth checking out the Zoom MS-60B (I'm pretty happy to be using that on my board for phaser / tremolo / flange and chorus duties); a little more sophisticated and you have the Zoom B3n...and I suspect there won't be too many dedicated pedals that are going to be much better at chorus that your beloved Helix?

But are you in the process of deciding the Helix isn't for you and "making your way back to love babe dedicated pedals and the happiness in side?"

[paul_5]

32 minutes ago, dannybuoy said:

Small Clone is a chorus, I presume you meant the Small Stone!

Both the Small Stone and MXR Phase 90 are great on bass.

Right you are, Small Stone is a lovely phaser. Small Clone is a lovely chorus. 

[Skybone]

It all depends on the amount of sweep you want with your sound.

The MXR Phase 90 is good, but has a limited sweep (IMO), where the EHX Small Stone has quite a wide sweep pattern.

For my money, it would be a Small Stone every time. Especially the "big box" Small Stone, not the Nano, because they look ace. Unfortunately, I've just sold my last "big box" Small Stone, so I'm feeling a tad nostalgic about them.

The Small Clone (again, the "big box" version) is a superb Chorus too. Just sold one of those as well.

The Red Witch Phaser and the MoogerFooger Phaser are both supposed to be great too, but I've never tried either.

Edited August 28, 2018 by Skybone

[fretmeister]

9 hours ago, Al Krow said:

My experience is that with modulation effects, multi-fx do a pretty good job - probably better than in any other area of simulation. And in the mix would anyone notice the different between your multi and a dedicated modulation pedal - probably not.

So if you want the best value pedal on the market today (bar none), it's worth checking out the Zoom MS-60B (I'm pretty happy to be using that on my board for phaser / tremolo / flange and chorus duties); a little more sophisticated and you have the Zoom B3n...and I suspect there won't be too many dedicated pedals that are going to be much better at chorus that your beloved Helix?

But are you in the process of deciding the Helix isn't for you and "making your way back to love babe dedicated pedals and the happiness in side?"

I still love my Helix - but it's a rack and I cannot be arsed to carry it around with me.

It gets all the love at home. And the Helix is the only thing I use for guitar (although I reckon I've played about 10 mins of guitar in the last year).

 

But I want a small board to take out with me - when it comes to carrying stuff low weight and convenience wins every time!

[Al Krow]

12 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

I still love my Helix - but it's a rack and I cannot be arsed to carry it around with me.

It gets all the love at home. And the Helix is the only thing I use for guitar (although I reckon I've played about 10 mins of guitar in the last year).

But I want a small board to take out with me - when it comes to carrying stuff low weight and convenience wins every time!

Gotcha. And you're never going to get me to disagree with the benefits of portability!

The full fat Helix's are, for me anyway,  big beasts and the fact that they can't quite do away entirely / match up to certain dedicated pedals (e.g. FI synth) means you end up with two boards, which is a faff. 

I do really like @HazBeen's board with a Helix HX paired with a few dedicated pedals where dedicated pedals still do things "better" for the sounds he wants; and if I was staring over that would seem be a really good option. 

Anyway I'm rapidly going off topic... 😄 

 

[Sibob]

I actually love my Boss PH-3, chose it as I specifically wanted the 'barber-pole' always-rising phase effect, and this was the only pedal I could find that wasn't a silly price that could do it.

Si

Edited August 28, 2018 by Sibob
PH-3 not Ps-3 lol

[fretmeister]

1 hour ago, Sibob said:

I actually love my Boss PH-3, chose it as I specifically wanted the 'barber-pole' always-rising phase effect, and this was the only pedal I could find that wasn't a silly price that could do it.

Si

ah - I'd forgotten about them.

 

Very reasonable used on ebay too.

 

MMmmmm!!!

Edited August 28, 2018 by Sibob

[fretmeister]

20 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Gotcha. And you're never going to get me to disagree with the benefits of portability!

The full fat Helix's are, for me anyway,  big beasts and the fact that they can't quite do away entirely / match up to certain dedicated pedals (e.g. FI synth) means you end up with two boards, which is a faff. 

I do really like @HazBeen's board with a Helix HX paired with a few dedicated pedals where dedicated pedals still do things "better" for the sounds he wants; and if I was staring over that would seem be a really good option. 

Anyway I'm rapidly going off topic... 😄 

 

 

Funnily enough - one of my favourite patches is using 2 of the Darkglass models in parallel paths with very different EQ on each... but without any amps or cabs. Just using EQ, some compression.

 

Does the HX do parallel paths? If it can then I might be convinced to look at the HX.

 

 

[Quatschmacher]

The Moogerfooger is awesome. It’s a big pedal but it sounds so lush.

The phaser side of the Glou-Glou Rendez Vous is also fantastic, again though, another big, expensive and now discontinued pedal. 

[Quatschmacher]

3 hours ago, Skybone said:

The MXR Phase 90 is good, but has a limited sweep (IMO),

Do you mean in terms of depth of sweep or the speed of the sweep?

For my use, the speeds were fine as I don’t use the fast, underwater-sounding side of things, though that is perhaps because the lack of depth and resonance controls made those speeds unusable to me, on the block version, that is. The script version sounded better at faster speeds as it has lower resonance and seems to have a lower depth setting.

For what they do though, the MXR Phase 90s sound great.

Edited August 28, 2018 by Quatschmacher

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited March 1, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[Al Krow]

40 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

Funnily enough - one of my favourite patches is using 2 of the Darkglass models in parallel paths with very different EQ on each... but without any amps or cabs. Just using EQ, some compression.

Does the HX do parallel paths? If it can then I might be convinced to look at the HX.

I think it does, but that's based on hearsay - I'm sure one of the HX owners ( e.g. @GisserD or Hazbeen ) will be along shortly to confirm!

Fyi - this is Hazbeen's board from earlier in the year which I referred to earlier:

 

[Japhet]

I've always preferred flangers to phasers. Seem to get a much richer sound. I have an old Soundblox (Source Audio) flanger which can create all sorts of effects.

[Al Krow]

55 minutes ago, Japhet said:

I've always preferred flangers to phasers. Seem to get a much richer sound. I have an old Soundblox (Source Audio) flanger which can create all sorts of effects.

+1 ^^

There's an added subtlety to flangers which, for me, is just nicer to listen to than the more "in your face" chorus or phasers. 

But I appreciate that we're in very much personal taste territory here!

[Sibob]

Subtlety is fine on recordings, but live, might simply get lost in the mix (depending on the band). I always fine I run effects more extreme in a band than sounds appropriate when they're solo'd

Si

[Al Krow]

1 minute ago, Sibob said:

Subtlety is fine on recordings, but live, might simply get lost in the mix (depending on the band). I always find I run effects more extreme in a band than sounds appropriate when they're solo'd

Si

Fair point and totally agree. But I'd suggest all modulation effects are relatively subtle in the mix, other than perhaps tremolo?

[Wolverinebass]

If you want something cheap and cheerful, I got given this as a leaving present. Not bad. 

 

[Wolverinebass]

3 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Fair point and totally agree. But I'd suggest all modulation effects are relatively subtle in the mix, other than perhaps tremolo?

No, they're not always subtle. I run my 12 string with bi-amp distortion as well as dual flanging and dual delay on the top as well. You can hear everything even in a band context.

[Al Krow]

Just now, Wolverinebass said:

No, they're not always subtle. I run my 12 string with bi-amp distortion as well as dual flanging and dual delay on the top as well. You can hear everything even in a band context.

With that set up, yes I absolutely bet you can!   

[dave_bass5]

I love my Helix, best swirly thing ive ever owned, but im talking about the TC Electronics Helix Phaser, not that big lump of a thing Line 6 make 🙂

As its tone print enabled its very versatile.

Saying that, i will be replacing it with a Source Audio Lunar (or any of the modulation pedals). This allows up to 6 presets, so will do chorus as well as flanger/phase etc.