Legendary Phasers — The JHS Show

In this article, I'm going to cover the most legendary phasers ever made, the OGs of phase. To clarify, we’re only going to gush over the classic phaser effects pedals-- no new gear --and I’m also not talking about the phaser guns you see in Star Trek.

This is JHS. We build guitar pedals, not spaceships**. Capiche?

**Okay, we do have one pedal called the Space Commander, but that’s a total coincidence.

Shin-Ei Univibe

It all started in 1967, when a Japanese company called Honey (later known as Shin-Ei) designed the first Univibe. Around the same time, Univox releases their own Univibe, but it’s the same piece of gear, just rebranded. The Univibe ends up on the board of Jimi Hendrix, which he uses in his iconic “Star Spangled Banner” performance at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in 1969. It’s one of the biggest moments in counterculture history, and as a direct result, four years later the US permanently pulls their troops out of Vietnam and President Jimmy Carter pardons all draft dodgers.

Yeah. We just proved that a Japanese engineer was directly responsible for the end of the US involvement in the Vietnam War. No big deal.

Long story short, the Univibe was the first effects pedal that made modulation move through a guitar signal. It’s really important. A lot of people say it's a chorus. It actually says chorus on the enclosure. Some people said it's a vibrato, and, again, it says vibrato on the box. This guitar pedal was having an identity crisis when it first hit music store shelves, and that’s totally normal. At its heart, it was a phaser. A phaser knocks your signal out of phase and puts it back in phase, which creates this swooshing, whooshing sound. I actually did an episode on the Shin-Ei Univibe already called Univibe 101, so go watch that if you want a refresher.

Eventide PS101

In the seventies, the Univibe evolved into the phaser we know and love, which knocked the signal in and out of phase in a brand new way. It was smoother, more controlled and a lot more complex as a circuit.

One of the first companies to experiment with this was Eventide Clockworks, who produced an unbelievable, amazingly good-looking rack unit called the PS101. When this thing came out in 1971, it cost $575 (the equivalent of about $3500 today), which is bonkers. Needless to say, it wasn’t marketed to middle-class musicians. This was studio grade gear, and you needed to shell out big bucks to use it. I wasn’t able to get hold of one of these units to play it personally, so I can’t confirm whether it’s worth three grand or not.

Maestro PS-1 Phase Shifter

Also in 1971, Maestro released the PS-1 Phase Shifter, which both is and isn’t a guitar pedal. I’d say it is, because it technically sits at your feet (although you can also mount it on your mic stand), but it’s definitely not the size or shape of a traditional stompbox.

Pedal nerds will probably remember that Maestro released the pedal ever, the Maestro Fuzztone FZ-1, so it’s pretty cool that they also have dibs on the first phaser effect. This unit was designed by Tom Oberheim, who is a bonafide genius. I don’t say that lightly. This man is the Stephen Hawking of the synthesizer world. Tom invented this effect using his knowledge of synthesizer circuitry, and the results are beautiful.

Oberheim Electronics Phasor

In 1973/1974, Oberheim released another phase unit under his own brand: the Oberheim Electronics Phasor. This is one of the most difficult guitar pedals to find anywhere; my friend Jamie loaned me his Phasor for this episode, and I was pumped, because I've always wanted to try this. It's fantastic.

Now you might not have seen an Oberheim Phasor with the white creme enclosure, but you've probably seen the Maestro Mini-Phase, which is the same thing with a different paint color. I have the octave box here from the same series. He basically made all of these so that guitarists could buy them from Maestro or Oberheim Electronics, but he made them all and just painted the Maestro versions differently. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the Phasor’s aesthetic, which reminds me of IBM, but both models sound awesome.

MXR Phase 90

In the August 1974 issue of Rolling Stone, MXR released their first ad ever (and possibly the greatest opening statement of any company ever), which simply stated: MXR Innovations. We are here. No pricing. No further explanation. It took up the entire back cover page of the magazine. Seriously, that was a baller move, and it worked.

One of the first pedals they released was The MXR Phase 90. I did a really big deep dive into these already on the JHS Show, so check out that episode.

Truly, though, if you want to understand the Phase 90, you’ve got to understand a guy named Keith Barr. Keith Barr designed the Phase 90, and just like Tom Oberheim, he was an actual genius. There are a lot of geniuses involved in phasers, which I don’t totally understand but I’m very grateful for. MXR was based out of Rochester, New York, and when the Phase 90 came out, it changed the game. It's the very first color-coded effect pedal. From 1974 onwards, MXR made sure that the effect corresponded to a color with every single pedal they released, meaning that they successfully implemented a consistent color-based system for organizing their pedals. The MXR Phase 90 phaser was always orange, the MXR Distortion Plus was always yellow, the MXR Dyna Comp compressor was always red, and so on.

This was a historic moment. For the first time ever, guitarists started associating a color with an effect consistently. MXR even releases these cards with each pedal, almost with a trading card or a baseball card feel, and they have all the info about the specific pedal and effect listed out.

Long story short, thanks to MXR and Keith Barr, when I think of the phaser effect, I think of the color orange. That’s pretty cool.

Colorsound Phazex & Colorsound Supaphase

In the early ’70s, you couldn’t find a pdal company more happenin’ than London-based Colorsound. They’re seriously one of my favorite companies, because they let their graphics evolve alongside their effects. The Colorsound Phazex is a great example of that. Unfortunately, when I took my Phasex out to play, I realized it was broken, so instead Nick and I jammed with the Colorsound Supa Phaze, which is a phaser on the treadmill.

It's like a mixture of a guitar effect and a toaster, and it functions about the same way: it's a little clunky, but it gets the job done.

Electro-Harmonix Bad Stone Phase Shifter & Electro-Harmonix Small Stone

In 1974/1975, things really started launching off. This was the year that Electro-Harmonix engineer Dave Cockrell came up with the Bad Stone Phase Shifter. Now, cards on the table: this is an ugly pedal, and that’s okay. I’m allowed to love something even if it’s ugly**. But seriously, this early design is awful. The logo looks like a mummy face. Fortunately, the next version nixed the logo and looked about a million times better.

**Feel free to watch a little film called Beauty and the Beast if you disagree.

Now, phasers have different stages, meaning different amounts of phase gain stages. The Bad Stone is a six stage phaser. You’re probably more familiar with the Electro-Harmonix Small Stone, which is a four stage phaser. I’m a huge fan of the Small Stone. I think it’s beautiful, minimal, simple, crisp, and clean. There are a few different versions of the Small Stone, but they’re all rockin’.

Roland Jet Phaser AP7

Next up is the Roland Jet Phaser AP7, which was released in 1975. Basically, this is a pedal from BOSS before BOSS was BOSS, back when BOSS was a company called Roland. Now, I debated whether to include the Roland Phase Five, which is an envelope controlled phaser. I decided to skip it, mainly because the effect of the pedal is cool, but not as dramatic as the Jet Phaser AP7, and I'm always going to go for drama.

The Jet has knobs for “faster” and “slower,” and I’m going to let you fill in the gaps on how they function. The Jet Phaser has two modes, Phase 1 and 2, which lets you switch between different stages of phase. There’s a “jet” knob, which kicks on the fuzz. Yes, the Jet Phaser puts a fuzz in a phase pedal, and it puts it in place before the phase. It's pure madness, but in the best way.

Boss PH-1/Traffic Light Trio Series

What does a traffic light have to do it's phaser? Everything. Traffic lights are red, yellow, green, and the 1977 Roland boss launched the compact series-- which they called the PH-1 series and I call the Traffic Light Trio. PH-1 series were four stage phasers that came in three different colors. Like any sane pedal collector, I have them all. Not because I need them, but because I want them. There’s a difference.

BOSS also released the PH-1R, which has added resonance, so that’s a good reissue option.

Mu-Tron Phasor II & III

The next pedal was also released in 1977 (at least, I’m 90% sure it was; if you have definite information on this, please pass it along): the Mutron Phasor II.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this is a complicated pedal. Needlessly complicated? That’s a matter of opinion. It has really cool features like feedback, depth, rate, and modes like deep rotating and spatial sound. It was heavily endorsed by a guy named Stevie Wonder (you may have heard of him; he’s just starting to make a name for himself). Supposedly, this was Stevie Wonder's favorite phaser, which makes me think that Mu-Tron was marketing this to keys and synth players more than guitarists. They even marketed it as “synthesizer effects” in addition to phaser, and you don’t see a lot of guitarists looking for synth machines.

The Phasor II is a pretty large piece of gear, but they marketed it as “small enough to be a mini synthesizer.” If you’ve ever had the pleasure of playing a full-sized synth, you’ll know that this is fairly accurate. For a pedal, though, it’s a little bulky (read: weighs roughly 900 lbs). Fortunately, Mu-tron recently rebooted as a brand and the reissued gear is much easier to handle.

DOD Phasor 401, 201 & 490

Next up is the first phaser I ever owned, and it comes to us from Salt Lake City, Utah: the DOD Phasor. There's several models, the 401, 201 & 490. The 401 is the first phaser I owned, but the 490 is much better looking, so that’s the pedal I opted to use in this week’s jam session.

To really paint the right picture for this pedal, I’m going to quote the original dealer sheet: “The DOD Phasor is a standard phasing unit with up to 720 degrees of phase shift, controls for speed and phase, and a foot switch. It makes the 490 a reliable unit.” Basically, this pedal gives you a lot of options, so if you have a choice between these three models, I’d definitely go with the 490.

Coincidentally, I used the Phasor 490 in the JHS Show episode where I rebuilt my Y2K pedalboard. Check that out if you haven’t already.

Pearl PH-44 Phaser

Next up is a pedal from the mid ’80s, and it’s a pedal that Zach Vex, founder of ZVex Pedals, has called the greatest pedal of all time: the Pearl PH-44 Phaser.

Yes, that's Pearl, the drum company. Sort of like Yamaha, they wore a lot of different hats, and didn’t limit their company to only making drums. In this case, they produced these funky little pedals with little push buttons, a lot of controls, plus manual feedback like you normally see on a flanger, but instead it’s in a phaser? Hey, go big or go home.

This pedal is straight-up bananas, but the eighties were a wild time to be alive period, let alone alive and making guitar pedals.

Ibanez PH7 Phaser & Ibanez AP7 Analog Phaser & Ibanez PM7 Phase Modulator

The last of these legendary OG phasers comes from the year 1999. I choose this last because 1999 is the end of a century, and I want to end this list on one of the first (and best) modern phasers. It comes from this Ibanez series called Tone-Lok. We have the PH7 Phaser, the AP7 Analog Phaser (which for some reason is ungodly expensive and difficult to find) and the PM7 Phase Modulator. I’m a fan of the PM7 specifically, just because it features different waveforms, including saw, square and triangle.

Considering this is one series that features three separate phasers, I think we can safely assume that phase was hitting a point of mass consumption in ’99. It helps that this brand-- and this line of pedals, specifically --was being endorsed by bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit.

Honorable Mentions

Before we wrap this up, I need to throw in a few honorable mentions.

The Univox Micro Fazer came out of Japan in 1975, probably produced by Shin-Ei. There were a ton of versions of this, so if you’re a collector and you own an old vintage phaser with a slight slope and one knob on the right side, this is it.
The Kent Black Gold just has a cool name. Case closed.
There's also a version of the Kent Black Gold made by St. Louis Music Supply called the Sweeper. Both versions are really classic.
A really unique brand called Top Gear launched from the back of a music store around Denmark street and dropped the Top Gear Funky Phaser in 1977. They also made just a normal Top Gear Phaser, but it's not as funky.
The Maxon Phase Tone dropped in 1978, but you can find this with the Ibanez label or the Maxon label.
Last up are two pedals from the classic Ibanez Ten Series: the Ibanez PH10 and Ibanez BPL. They're the same exact phaser, just different reboots because the first version wasn’t selling as well, so they changed the color. Apparently, it worked?

Basically, just get out there and try some different phasers. Try one of these vintage units if you can get your hands on one. Mostly, just play your guitar and have fun. Don’t overthink it.