Phasor II

if you have the depth knob too low, it will destroy your tone and give you this awful midrange-y sound. i've played all kinds of guitars thru this, but mostly a gibson with p-90's and a mustang. then to a tube screamer, to an mxr distortion+ thru this pedal and into a fender amp. the range of sound is really great. you can get sort of chorus sounds with no feedback and low depth, the exact sound of jonny greenwood's guitar in paranoid android with depth at ten and no feedback, and with depth and feedback at 10 and rate at like 3 you can get kraftwerk-like resonant filter burps. when you put a really distorted signal in you can get wild swooping sounds like the modern crappy plastic-cased phasers. its major shortcoming (besides the depth knob thing) is that there's a big empty space between the vintage leslie speaker sound and the kraftwerk sound that is just sort of thin and noisy. this could probably be put to use with some stereo digital reverb or something for a spacey eno sound, but i just haven't gotten it yet. but the synth filter sounds are good enough that i can run my digital synth which has no filters thru this and it sounds like a sine-wave-lfo-controlled filter sweep.

indestructable metal casing. i don't know if i'd take it to a gig, because i don't think i could replace it. but i know it wouldn't crap out on me.

three knobs, can't be that hard. it's very easy to get good sounds out of it and it's even easier to get bad sounds out of it.

they're long gone, but i forsee no danger

this is a very versatile pedal that i would recommend to anyone with a classic rock or art rock bent. somebody told me that king crimson and hendrix used these, but i don't believe that. it might have been another mu-tron though. i've been playing for like ten years, complete with capricious style switch-ups, and this pedal has followed me through all my "phases" wink wink. i think it's so great that there are pedals in existence with this level of subtlety and potential for expression in existence. i already outlined the shortcomings, the depth knob and the empty spot, and i can only add that something to change the contour or shape of the phase would be a immensely helpful (like on the mxr phase 100 or incredibly expensive bi-phase) but it's a classic pedal, and when i outgrow it i think the next step up is plugging into the filter of a minimoog, because that's really the only thing i can think of with the same sort of dramatic range. but if you don't have one you'll never find one, and if you find one you can't afford it, so in that respect it's a bit sad.

Has an almost digital almost eerie silence to it.  Only problem I have encountered is there is a loud pop when either switch is hit, but it most likely just needs to be clewaned, it has NEVER been cleaned had no maintanance, and it still sounds quiet.  Hell it even silences a buzzing guitar.  If you like the sound of a single coil but the silence of a humbucker, then plug this into your single coil and turn the power on.  And use it it bypass mode to silence the buzz.  It completely swallows up the sound and does the effects right up front instead of sounding like an afterthough, on a loopthrough allowing effects AND the original sound through, this thing doesn;t let anything original through it effects the whole damn sound which is GREAT.  Superslow or superfast, it all works great.

This thing has been put through hell.  Dents, dings, scratches, it has had 500 pound items dropped on it, full cabs, stacks, heads, etc dropped on it rested on it etc.  The power cord has practically been ripped out of it and it still rocks.  I do need to shorten the power cord about half an inch and resolder it up inside to take care of the chord and semi-intermittent power, but you would be hurting too if you were sitting under heavy shit all the time and someone used your power cord to yank you out without lifting up the piece of equipment.  This was even driven over by a 1 ton chevy van loaded down with stuff anf two tons of scrap in a trailor and it stood up.  Just make sure the nuts on the pots are always tight and you'll never have to worry about the thin pot lreads or anything.

I plugged this thing into the wall, guitar and amp, turned the knobs up, turned the power switch on, stomped on the switch, cranked the gutiar and reaped a power chord and OMFG this thing was CRAZY.  I could go completely nuts with it or tone it down for a nice mellow sound.  All without a manual, the thing is so easy a chimp could use it.

Um well, if you manage to break it you didn't need it in the first palce and have no business with guitar.  If you break it, I wonder how many thousands of guitars you have gone through and how many millions of dollars you must have from replacing them.  There is no more customer support unless you can find a shop to repair it, but as I said you don't need any support.  You break it, your a moron.

This thing is the most unique phaser.  All other phasers sound generally the same then there is this one, WOW what a difference.  Nobody bothers to put any time and effort into making something special anymore, and comparing this to current phasers proves it.  Nobody takes any pride anymore in what they do.  Thank god these old effects were built to last so you will always have that killer sound.

I run a mex tele (humbucker neck,single coil bridge) into an exciter surf/hurricane wah to '78 MXR dist+ to Mutron to Fulltone supa-trem to a mesa nomad 45 with boss NF-1 noise gate->Boss DD-3 digital delay in the fx loop. Before the true bypass mod, this pedal was still amazing but annoying since it made my bypassed signal sound mushy and compressed. Now I know this is the best effect I have. Slow rates with moderate depth and feedback give you that roller coaster trip. Faster speeds give classic warm analog phasing but the fastest speeds I have not found a good use for. Regardless, this is a fat phaser sound with lots of creamy bottom end. Also, turn the feedback down to 2 and with proper depth and rate settings (which I can't remember right now) you get a mild chorus effect that warms up your tone superbly. Bottom line: Despite the simple 3 knob design, you can spend months finding new sounds on this thing, and almost all of them are outstanding! Running effects into and behind this thing changes its sound all over again! Try a wah->distortion->Phasor II!!!!

Mine's used off ebay and no problems yet. The original bypass switch occasionally would not switch completely between on and off, leaving me in mute limbo but another stomp on the switch and it would be ok. The true bypass is a much better way to go, though, anyways. Unless you are some genius who builds robots and space shuttles, do not try to take this thing apart! The guts look good enough to stand up to normal wear+tear but will not stand up to ignorant curiosity! In other words, don't pick at it or you'll leave a scar.

So simple. Rate for the rate (about 5 sec to really fast), depth for the depth, and feedback for the amount of effect. There's also a power switch with LED- why they put this on, I don't know. I had mine modified for true bypass so it works with power off but normally they don't. Has an AC cord so no wall wart or batteries needed.

My local guitar tech put in a true bypass no problem. Thats all I've needed. I dream of the day that Mutron returns from the analog abyss and re-issues bi-phases and phasors and runs all the digital bullshit out of town.

Nothing gets a 10. If you want phase, check this thing out. I have to say I have not tried EH and phase 90/100s so I don't know how they compare but I hear they're different sounds altogether. I do know it is much warmer and less 'fake' sounding than the Boss super phaser. Not to knock boss, since they do make good pedals for what you pay most of the time.