So many varied ways to phase for days.
Sweet, distinct phase voice. Resonance, mix, range, and volume controls expand tone-shaping possibilities significantly. High quality.
Expensive.
$279
Spaceman Explorer
spacemaneffects.com
Spaceman effects tend to be cherished, treasured, and, in some cases, driven to insane resale market prices because they reliably sound fantastic. But Spaceman pedals are also rare creatures. And even its most popular pedals tend to come and go—often disappearing before real players can beat collectors to the punch. The analog, 6-stage optical Explorer phaser, however, is the unusual Spaceman pedal that is reappearing in the wild after a hiatus. It returns in a more compact enclosure. But this time out the Explorer offers access to six additional waveforms that build on an already expansive modulation vocabulary.
Not So Simply Red
I love one-knob phasers. They are a sure-fire means to mindless fun, and one less thing to worry about when drifting off amid some psychedelic-jam reverie. That mindlessness comes at a cost, of course. A classic Small Stone or Phase 90 tends to sound just like it’s supposed to and little more. So while you can extract everything from rotary speaker sounds to staccato pitch shifting with such a circuit, they’re usually imprinted with a specific voice and phase coloration—what you hear is what you get.
The Explorer brushes aside those constraints in very cool fashion. For starters, the mix control helps you render the phase effect nearly subliminal. That enables you to use pretty extreme phase voices in low-key ways—a beautiful means to apply the effect to add motion in a spare mix. The Explorer also comes with an output volume control. This means you can overcome any perceived volume loss when using intense waveforms. But it also gives your signal a slight—and slightly dirty—bump even when the effect mix is low. The volume gives you options in that direction, too. And although there probably won’t be hordes of players dying to use the Explorer at less than unity gain, the ability to do so opens up interesting arrangement possibilities in which you can move from straight-ahead clean passages to quieter effected chapters in a song without missing a beat. It also gives you a means to mate the Explorer more easily to an unruly or unpredictable fuzz.
The Explorer’s wave-shaping options are abundant and powerful. The rate control generally falls in line with most classic analog phasers in terms of range—moving from molasses sweeps to insectile stutters. Resonance, of course, adds vowelly emphasis to the waveforms. Its effect is strong enough that I tended to leave it in a modest 8 to 10 o’clock range. But it can also help put a phase over the top in a crowded effects mix and help add rhythmic emphasis. The Explorer’s range control is, perhaps, the hidden gem. There’s nothing magical about it. It’s essentially a filter that enables you to thin out or add a low-end bump to the signal. But the extra low end can be a beautiful sweetening agent with slower phase rates (which get chewier and dreamier with more low end) and gives you extra wiggle room for tailoring the Explorer to different guitars, amps, and effects in your chain.
The extra low end can be a beautiful sweetening agent with slower phase rates.
Crest-to-Trough Awesome
The Explorer isn’t the only contemporary phaser with the option for multiple waveforms. But there is something about the essential sweetness and clarity of its voice that makes the differences among these wave types feel more distinct. The sine wave is smooth-snaky and sounds dreamy at slow rates and sitting low in the wet/dry mix. Ramp-up and ramp-down waves have a pronounced “reset” pulse at the peak of each wave that tends to reinforce certain rhythm-based approaches. Triangle generates pretty, precise, and steady heartbeat pulses that make lots of room for picking detail at dryer mix levels, but it also sounds awesome at more stroboscopic rates and higher intensities. The square wave at a 50-precent rate and with a healthy heap of low end from the range control is another favorite—and with the resonance just right, you can get a very bubbly auto-wah effect. The alternate phase patterns, which are accessed by powering up while holding down the footswitch, are all worth investigating as well. And the arpeggiated phases, in particular, are especially cool—lending textures that evoke everything from bouncing ball bearings to tinkling glockenspiels.
The Verdict
The Explorer often distinguishes itself by living at a cool intersection of organic and mechanical precision pulses and sounds. But the abundant tone-shaping options mean you can fine tune these tone crossovers like a surgeon. It’s fun, too. The right sound rarely feels out of reach or impossible on the Explorer, so the search seldom feels like work. For anyone that has suffered the limitations of 1-knob phasers but been intimidated by more complex alternatives, there are a lot of cool compromises here. The Explorer is expensive. But it’s a high-quality U.S.-made pedal that reflects a lot of thought and experience. It may just tempt you to sell the rest of the phasers in your collection, too—a smart, constructive way to offset the cost, if you ask me.
A decisively dank love letter to the fuzz/phase combo.
Phase and fuzz voices pair well. Simple controls. Radical neon looks.
More controls would open up more possibilities.
$189
Fuzzrocious Electric Ocean
fuzzrociouspedals.com
Pairing a phaser with a fuzz pedal dates to the halcyon days of stompbox invention. Hendrix's Fuzz Face and Uni-Vibe certainly set the stage. But by 1975, Roland packaged phaser and fuzz together in in the AP-7 Jet Phaser, which Larry Graham would use to drive his bass to heavier and funkier places.
The minds behind New Jersey's Fuzzrocious pedals have composed their so-called "love letter" to the Jet Phaser in the form of the Electric Ocean, an original take on a fuzz/phase circuit that is nonetheless heavily inspired by the Jet Phaser's functionality. Created in collaboration with Nicholas Williams of Dunwich Amplification, the Electric Ocean is a relatively straight-ahead stomp. But don't let the simplicity fool you: There's a lot of fun to be had here.
Two's Company
At 5.75" x 4.75", the Electric Ocean takes up more pedalboard room than some will like. But its enclosure—emblazoned with neon pink and yellow seahorses—will have plenty of folks asking, "Hey, what's that one?" after the set ends. Three hot-pink knobs control the volume of the phaser signal and two different phase rates, which are selectable via the left footswitch. The two yellow knobs control fuzz volume and tone. At the top of the unit, two toggles select the fuzz/phase effect order and turn the fuzz on and off (the fuzz is not footswitchable). An internal trim pot alters the phase voice via a bandpass filter. It has an impressively wide sweep that offers everything from dark to tinny voicings and a useful range of more conventional phase sounds. To my ears, the trim pot yielded the widest range of tones in the middle setting, so I left it there. Pink and yellow LEDs for the bypass and phase rate switches add extra saccharine charm.
Dialed-In from the Get-Go
Fuzzrocious took care of much of the guesswork associated with using fuzz and phase together by dialing in the basic voices and keeping the ability to adjust them to a minimum. But while there's less control over certain parameters, the basic voices sound really good, so I'm not going to argue with their approach. Using the phaser on its own, I was reminded of the Bob Moog-designed Maestro MP-1, which, like the Fuzzrocious, is a 6-stage OTA-driven circuit. I would happily swap the phaser volume control on the Fuzzrocious with a dry blend knob or the Maestro's "balls" (depth) control. That said, the Fuzzrocious gives me all the control I need to go from satisfying warm, slow ooze to fast ray-gun vibrato sounds, and I can use the left switch to jump between them to my heart's delight. (Switches between phase settings do not ramp in speed and intensity.)
With nothing more than a little spring reverb, the Electric Ocean served doomy riffage just as well as Fillmore-style noodling and basement strumming.
The midrange-focused silicon Fuzz Face–style circuit pairs well with the phase circuit. And pair it shall, because the fuzz effect cannot be used in isolation. The fuzz tone control is subtle, so I mostly set it and forgot it, and used the level to move from moderate fuzz to fully doused saturation. That said, there's nothing delicate about the fuzz in any mode.
With my sound fully sauced, the most dramatic control on the pedal was the effect order switch. It's a lot of fun to hear the fuzz and phaser interact in different ways. With a slower phase feeding the fuzz I found the effect touch-sensitive and interactive. With just a little spring reverb, the Electric Ocean served doomy riffage just as readily as Fillmore-style noodling and basement strumming. And in this effect order you can really hear how the Electric Ocean's simplicity lends flexibility.
Flipping the order and bumping the fuzz volume creates a totally heavy-handed, saturated sound that, like many strong flavors, might not be what you want all the time. But when you want to sound over the top and are less concerned about dynamics, this is the move.
The Verdict
Some might gripe about the Electric Ocean's limited controls. Personally, I applaud Fuzzrocious for keeping the variables to a minimum. It's a confident move that makes the pedal's intent clear and streamlines operation. Sure, I can imagine an external depth knob adding flexibility. But the Electric Ocean sounds great exactly how it is. From clean gurgle-y phaser tones to liquid fuzz bliss, I found my tones quickly and spent my time playing my guitar rather than twiddling knobs.
Fuzzrocious Electric Ocean Demo | First Look
Maestro's smooth, stylish PS-1 inspiresa simple and unique vintage-voiced analog phaser.
Great digital approximations of the Maestro PS-1's smooth, distinctive voice. Open, airy tonality. Nice combo of transparency and distinctive character.
No ramping between speeds.
$149
Mojo Hand FX Mister-O Phaser Shifter
mojohandfx.com
Though enormous and limited by modern standards, the original Maestro PS-1 (created by Tom Oberheim in 1971) is the very picture of pedal design elegance. It's also one of the most swirlingly smooth phase circuits to ever exist.
Mojo Hand FX's digital, six-stage Mister-O is inspired by the silky voice of the PS-1. The company did away with the design limitations of the original—like speed presets and fixed depth and resonance—but Mister-O still speaks in a deep, enrapturing, and distinctive phase voice that sets it apart from more common phasers. It also retains the straight-ahead simplicity that makes vintage phasers so attractive.
Fender Telecaster and black-panel Fender Tremolux recorded through Universal Audio OX and Universal Audio Apollo Twin to Universal Audio LUNA.
Segment one is all knobs at noon (original Maestro PS-1 "medium" rate). Segment two is depth and color at noon speed at minimum (original Maestro PS-1 "slow" setting). Segment three is all knobs at noon (original Maestro PS-1 "fast" setting). Subsequent segments feature depth and color at 3 o'clock, maximum settings, and 9 o'clock
Styled Out … Subtly
If you love vintage pedal style, the Mister-O is a snack-sized meal of visual treats. "Mister-O" is printed in an original font that evokes the old Maestro logo. The white-on-black pinstripe looks ace. And while I'd be ultra-stoked if Mojo Hand had used red, gold, and blue knobs, the tri-color branding at the bottom hints at Maestro's beautiful '70s color motifs. (Future versions of the Mister-O will be called Mr. O to avoid confusion with the Maestro brand.)
Where the original PS-1 used three rocker switches to select slow, medium, and fast phase rates, the Mister-O utilizes a variable speed knob as well as depth and color (resonance) knobs that enable deviations from the original's voice. It's a cool set of additional but traditional controls that enable experimentation without getting into the weeds.
Apart from lacking analog circuitry, Mojo Hand omitted one important facet of the original Phase Shifter's functionality: It doesn't share the capability for ramping between speeds—a function that enhanced the PS-1's Leslie-ness. Though it might have elevated the very appealing $149 street price considerably, an expression pedal that approximated that functionality would be a nice addition.
Elastic But Never Overbearing
In the humble, one-page manual that accompanies the Mister-O, Mojo Hand suggests a few voices based on original Maestro sounds. These settings—all of which utilize depth and color controls at noon—are tuned to match that of the PS-1. They are truly sweet spots that are a great place to start—and stay, as I often did.
Mister-O's clear low-end carves out room for other phasing nuances that make the output sound more complex and detailed.
Phasers are inherently non-transparent. They change your tone as they cycle through a waveform, and every phaser does this with a distinct voice. Mister-O's is a wide-frequency voice that seems to retain much of a guitar's natural color. Players that gripe about tone suck and volume loss in vintage modulators will love this facet of Mister-O's performance envelope. (I even sensed a slight bump in volume in phase mode.) But Mister-O also heaps on a lot of unique, vintage patina'd personality. The contoured clarity it lends to low frequencies, for instance, is beautiful. It's not quite as bubble-gum chewy as a good Phase 90, which is extra gooey, in part, because of the unique way it filters and "stretches" low end frequencies. The choice between chewiness and low-end articulation is down to personal preference. But I loved the way Mister-O's clear low-end carves out room for other phasing nuances that make the output sound more complex and detailed. It might be the first phaser I routinely use for fingerpicking.
Advanced color and depth controls emphasize mid-range resonant peaks, which can make Mister-O feel more pulsing than elastic. But the effect is no less weird or psychedelic. The color knob can add extra noise as you get into its weirdest zones. Though I'd venture that anyone exploring these more bizarro sounds will not be terribly offended by a little white noise wash. At lower depth and color settings—and particularly at fast speeds—the Mister-O offers a cool, wobbly alternative to low-intensity tremolo.
If you tend to use your phaser for Hendrix and Gilmour-style fuzz-and-phase sounds, Mister-O's open tonalities—particularly the airy, present top end—are well suited to the task. The enhanced control also gives you more power to tweak resonant peaks to suit your pickups and drive source. The original Maestro voicings are ideal for fuzzy fare, but you shouldn't be shy about ladling deep textures on top. Because Mister-O is so articulate, there's plenty of room to heap on gnarly buzz without obscuring nuance in the modulation.
The Verdict
The Mojo Hand FX Mister-O is more than a little evocative of the original Maestro PS-1. But above all, it has a flexible, unique, and warm vintage voice that manages the minor miracle of sounding authentically analog and colorful while enabling your guitar's tone to shine. There's something effortlessly classy about the sound of the Mister-O. And it's refreshing to be able to explore such distinctly vintage phase flavors without treading that same old path—especially at such a reasonable price.
