Modulation effects

Hi,

Might sound like a dumb question, but if I rocked my wah pedal back and forth would it sound like a phaser? If not why/

Thanks!

no, becaue a wah is a steep bandpass filter while a phaser doubles your signal and varies the phase shift oten via minute delay changes and many accentuate it with a notch filter that sweeps along with the LFO that adjusts phase/delay. Plus phasers do this over abd over, the more stges of phasing the more delayed signals with differing phase shift and filtering. Phase, flange and chorus are all related. Get a book.

Wah is strictly a filtering effect invented by the Thomas Organ Company during their attempts to replicate the ound of an all tube UK vox amp via olid state circuitry. They failed, by the way, but their variable middboost circuitry went in a pedal known as the vox clyde McCoy that later morphed into the cy baby and vox king wah and was copied and altered by Gibson as the maestro boomerang (shaft theme) and by morely (optical circuit, stomp proof but different) and colorsound (everything else not voxy, morely and not shafty) until the 80s when the classic crybaby became a consistent product.

Cool thanks, I was wondering if I could get away with not getting a phasor to play: Shine on you crazy diamond

you can play it without a phasor if you can play it without a vintage hiwatt DR103.... make it your own, Mark

Yeah, thanks!

Actually, on the same topic, I am weighing up a Uni-vibe or the Phasor. I could as you say make it my own but I still kind of want one of those effects cause they sound cool. They are obviously two completely different effects, and I just have no idea which one to buy

a univibe is just a specialized, unversatile phasor with a vibrato mode... it just seems different being very dark and throbby because it utilizes photocells to create the phasing in 'chorus' mode versus other designs that use op amps or OTA's made from multiple FETs both of which designs are inherently more hifi than LDR circuitry... the voice of each phasor is partially determined by the phasing 'engine' and LFO circuitry, the other part is the preamp and how many stages of phasing....

it pains me to say this, but for most people's purposes a line6 modulation pedal or that m5 will cover a lot of wobbly bases on the cheap and in the case of the M series will give you some other passable effect simulations for less than a vintage or boutique 1 trick pony.... if you wanna get fancy you can spend a fortune collecting stuff.... personally I always liked the mid 70s small stone I owned for 15 years... simple to dial in and capable of all sorts of sounds with a great, open midrange.... not very univibey though... and I still sold it for $250.... because phasing is cheesey

Cool thanks for the help. I will head down to the music store and try a few pedals!

you can't go wrong with a phase 90.... old small stones sound markedly better than new ones for some reason, but the bad stone reissue sounds pretty good even though its a completely different circuit than the small stone, so if you want the EHX sound I recommend bad stone unless you can find a vintage small stone....

believe it or not the old DOD phasors kick serious ass, even the ones from the 90s with the cheesey plastic switch and most of them can be had cheaply... Boss's super hasor comes with a bunch of different LFO shapes rather than just triangle so it can be pretty rhythmic, but I enver thought it sounded special

if you can lay hands on a mu-tron or ADA phaser from the 70s, those units are really musical and versatile

there aren't any mass market univibe clones that really sound right, but even the Dunlop one gets close enough for someone who ahs never used an old shin-ei... personally I would just get a Line6 m5 because line 6's univibe simulatin sounds nicer than a lot of affordable clones and the m5 comes with a million other simulations that might be handy

Yeah the M5 looks pretty cool

I've been thinking of getting one myself... especially because it accepts midi commands

If it's Gilmour tones you're after, I'd recommend a Vibe pedal over a phaser to be honest, at least in my experience it's been the one that gets me closest. I'd also recommend placing your modulation AFTER any delay pedal you're using, it better replicates the sound of Rotary Cabinets, which are in Gilmour's set up 90% of the time. That said, as others have mentioned here, make it your own! Experiment, trying out different stuff, even while searching for someone else's tone, is how you end up finding your own :) I play that tune with a slow but deep flanger effect, it's just that lovely little bit different

if you wanna get picky, here's the site:

http://www.gilmourish.com/

but while the univibe was meant to simulate a leslie and is technically a phaser in 'coprus mixing' mode it doesn't sound like either, nothing sounds like a rotating speaker cab be it a true leslie modded for guitar, a fender vibratone, maestro rover or Yamaha... I think that live gimour has the rotating speakers rotating all the time but being in Pink Floyd he just has to layer up the modulation effects out front of his hiwatts sometimes too.... in the studio is anyone's guess...

By the looks of the site he'd normally have it mixed relatively low against the normal cabs to add a bit of depth and movement, but depending on the era he used a wide range of pedals (notably the old vintage Electric Mistress which seems to be somewhat of a mainstay) and different kinds of cabs to get his tone - I could rant on forever about this, I've perused this sight and others endlessly searching for Gilmour's sounds

hahaha, but half of it is his delicate touch.. he has wonderful dynamics on both picking and fretting hands! I am not a huge Floyd fan, but I appreciate how gilmur bent the blues and soul to flyd's esoteric purposes while still managing to appeal to the mainstream and I think its less gear than a distinctive voicing stemming from his relationship to the strings... the effects are important but secondary to his great coordination between his right and left hand viz-a-viz fretting and picking/strumming pressure in a myriad of combinations of pressure, attack and release

Oh I completely agree, Gilmour sounds like Gilmour because he's Gilmour! No matter what you do to emulate him you're not going to get it 100%, same as any other guitarist, but we should learn to embrace those nuances of difference as the things that make it US playing guitar :)

at least if we're any good... Gilmour's one of those standout guys who can be playing a cigar box uke and sound like himself

Very true, it's always the guys that put the 110% effort into their rigs that sound like themselves no matter what... speaking of which, did you ever see the video of Eric Johnson playing through Zakk Wylde's rig? For a man that has a practically superhuman feel for the nuances of tone, it's amazing how he can pick up a whole different setup and still sound very much the same