Phasers !
Phasers were always one of my favourite stomp box effects. I had a few models, but the best (by far) was a beat up Roland Phase II (AP2). It was old way back in the ‘olden days’ !, but it was the best sounding phaser I ever heard – especially after I sprayed it metallic purple (to match a guitar I had at the time in the same lovely colour).
Here’s a video showing it’s sonic loveliness:
Until recently, I’ve not been able to find a decent (let alone good) software replacement. The ‘Phazor’ (free) plugin by Adam Szabohttp://www.adamszabo.com/phazor/ being the best I could find. I recently purchased a phaser library for the Nebula plugin (separate post / review of Nebula to follow soon). This library by Tim Petherick is the stuff indeed ! He has sampled four classic units and they all sound very good. http://www.timpetherick.co.uk/classic-phasers/
A good test for a phaser is on a clean guitar sound, here’s a video I made of such a scenario. For those interested the signal chain is as follows:
PEQII: Flstudio EQ (HF boost)
Nebula compressor: ‘Rayphlex soft II’
Nebula Phaser: ‘Stone Phase HQ fast up’
Valhalla Ubermod: (multifx preset I created)
I love the really transparent chorus / ensemble sound that you can get from something like the mighty Valhalla uber-mod plugin. Conversley, a really authentic phaser is a great sounding thing in it’s own right and both effects together are truly nice !
