Has anyone tried the Empress Phaser?

alec · #1 11-22-2012, 09:03 AM

I'm on a bit of a phaser quest at the moment. It started with my Yamaha MagicStomp which has some great phasers in it, but it's not too reliable and I'm looking for something standalone.
I had a Small Stone nano but it was too muddy and had a volume drop. I got a Boss PH-3 which sounds good on Rise, Fall and 10 stage. The 4 and 12 stage modes are too muddy and the 8 stage loses bass.
This week I got a Pigtronix EP-2 which is cool but despite its features, it still seems limited (haven't tried it in a band setting yet).

Now my attention turns to the Empress Phaser. It seems to have all the features I could dream of (except a centre freq control) but I don't know how it sounds on bass.

The things I like are: dynamic and LFO; adjustable dynamic attack and release; tap tempo; lots of modes, waveforms and ext control options; and perhaps most importantly - clean blend and adjustable gain. And the overall attention to detail. There is soooo much packed into this box!

The shortcomings might be the fixed frequency centre and the phasing stages limited to 2, 3 or 4. I guess these could hamstring it's usefulness on bass.

I've seen a few people on here speculating about this thing, but has anyone actually used it?

BTW, here's an overly detailed review of it on guitar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5IL8obAA18
and the manual http://www.empresseffects.com/manuals/phaser.pdf

falconspatriots · #2 11-22-2012, 10:41 AM

I bought a few months ago and love it!! I haven't used it as much as I've wanted to because the band I'm in just doesn't need phaser. The sound quality is top notch. Features wise, I haven't even been able to really try out everything extensively yet. The only thing I don't like about this pedal is that there are no presets. Soooo many things you can do with this thing I sometimes forgot how to get back to a setting.

alec · #3 11-22-2012, 05:34 PM

Cool! So you're happy with how it sounds on bass?

falconspatriots · #4 11-22-2012, 06:00 PM

I think its great!! The mix knob makes it very good for bass. It has two settings( controlled by internal dip switch)

1. (stock setting) When the Blend knob is cranked it's a 50/50 mix

2. When the Blend knob is cranked it's 100% wet. 12 oclock is 50/50. This makes it able to do some weird vibrato type sounds.

I love this pedal. I had it up for sale for a while. After seeing this thread I revisited it....it's not going anywhere

Downunderwonder · #5 11-22-2012, 11:41 PM

I had the Small Stone regular and then I got a vintage local production clone of an Ibanez from the early 80's maybe late 70's. Only two knobs, emphasis and rate, but it's magic on bass and kicked the Small Stone to the kerb. I just wish it had an LED indication.