Yet another topic about the Jet Phaser

[Musicmatt030]

Sorry to create another thread about this but after searching for 3 hours i still cannot find the info I'm after.

I have been trying to get one of these for years and
I have almost all but given up on trying to find the awesome pedal made famous by the great Larry Graham.

The worst part about it is the pedal will actually be used in gigs, and not just stored away, I've heard that they are becoming quite the collectors item now and alot of people who are buying them are never even going to use them... what a waste .

I have mucked around with different effects and still can't get THAT sound, I've played phantom of the opera so many times on different pedals/settings my head is spinning.

I was kicking myself today as one sold on ebay a couple of days ago and i had the money... After quite a few expletives and everyone in the house staying out of my way for a good hour I decided i'd try to make my own yet i cannot find wiring diagrams/parts needed/specs etc. anywhere.

Then I stumbled upon the Line 6 DM4 http://www.imuso.co.uk/directory/rev...n-modeller.htm
and saw that it has a jet fuzz model, based on the jet phaser.

Ok I guess that's enough of a rant and I better actually ask a few questions now lol.

Does anyone here have this pedal and if you do is the jet fuzz setting close to the original?

Does someone have the information i need to be able to wire together my own or would it be too hard for me to make one? (I have low to medium skill with electronics, I'm not clueless, wiring in car stereos/alarms is easy and i've made the odd circuit board but i couldn't build a robot for example).


Does anyone know of a pedal/pedals combination that can get close?

and last but not least does anyone have one of these they want to get rid of? (I may not have the money for a few weeks now as I'm on disability so a $350 pedal is alot of money for me, but I'm happy to pay a deposit if you are willing to hold it for me)

Sorry for the long post, any help is apprechiated. Thanks.

[bongomania]

They turn up on Ebay about every three months it seems, so if you are watchful and patient another one will come along soon.

If you visit the www.diystompboxes.com forum, there are threads there from people who have tried to clone the Jet Phaser, and either succeeded or failed. It is a very advanced and difficult circuit to build. The one person I know of, very experienced, who completed one with 100% success said it was such a pain he was not going to do it again.

I haven't tried the Line 6, but I have tried other fuzz/phaser combinations and none of them sounded exactly like the Jet Phaser (and yes I had one at the time and was doing direct A/B comparisons). That said, I was perfectly happy with a lot of the sounds I could get from various other fuzz/phaser combinations, even though they weren't "the same", so I gave up after a while and decided to just enjoy those "similar" sounds. All you need for that is a smooth (not harsh/buzzy) fuzz and a phaser with a very deep cycle.

[RCCollins]

I think you can get pretty close - and maybe even come up with BETTER sounds - by combining different kinds of dirt with different phase effects.

Of course you've already heard that funk is in the fingers/thumb and Larry's effects won't make you sound like Larry and all that. Well nobody's a bigger LG freak than me, and I think you can get pretty close to Larry's over the top jet phase sound with any number of different distortion/phaser combos. So pick one of each that you like and try running them into each other, in parallel, with the dirt into the preamp and the phaser in your effects loop, etc. Play with various types of dirt. Try an envelope phaser. Do all these things and spend time doing it and you will come up with a sound that is YOURS and not just Larry Junior. That's what we need, ya know. LG would agree.

Example: I LOVE phased filtered dirt and I get a HUGE range of phased distortion tones by running a BBM and pink assmaster (alternately) into an ehx polyphase in envelope mode. the assmaster is great for "earthquake" type stuff (sensitivity way down, ass volume pretty high, bass at 12) but I think the BBM gets closer to the jet phase dirt - crank up the tone and play past the 12th fret, you can darn near cop an Ernie Isley "Who's That Lady" guitar sound this way (traditional phase mode) - that's a jet phase, right?

don't go blowing cash on vintage pedals while you're on a fixed income

[Musicmatt030]

To bongomania:

Thanks for the quick reply, I must remember to keep checking ebay then, once every 3 months isn't too bad. When i saw it was the only one under completed auctions I thought it may be a year or so before i see one again.

Could you tell me which combination of pedals that you used gave you the best similar sound, It doesn't have to be exact i just want that soul melting feel to it, ever since i heard it for the first time a few years back I haven't been able to get that sound out of my head.

Everything i've tried has only been somewhat close it doesn't have that feel to it. Although i am an amature with pedals/settings and have never used a jet phaser in real life and have only heard it on the one setting larry graham happens to have it on so this is probably why, seeing as you have owned one yourself I guess it would be alot easier for you to find the right combo so any help you can give me is very much apprechiated

To RCcollins:

Yeah i agree i don't want to sound exactly like larry for everything I play I'd just love that sound in a couple of songs to really blow people away that have never heard it before.

Thankyou for the suggestions on pedals , I'd really like to find something unique I love the sound of, My basses have an absolutely beautiful sound on their own, but as you said i don't want to sound like (insert name here) junior, I'd like my own sound so I'm going to start experimenting with different things.

Although that assmaster is around the same price as a jetphaser on ebay at $383 exc post. and I couldn't find a polyphase on there.

Cheers, Matt.

[Jared Lash]

There are two problems with using separate phasers and fuzz to get the jet phaser sound.

One is that the Roland has (had) that cool fast/slow stomp switch that would ramp the speed like a Leslie. I only know a couple other phasers (Maestro, Toneczar) that do that and they are either rare, expensive or both. But since Larry Graham didn't use that switch for Phantom of the Opera (I don't think) that may not be a big hurdle for you.

The second issue is that the AP-7 is an 8 stage phaser. Most inexpensive phasers are 4 stage (Small Stone, Phase 90 etc) and some (Tonefactor Nebula, other Phase 45 clones) are 2 stage. I used a Maxon PH-350 in either 6 or 10 stage mode for recreating the Jet Phaser, but that's a pretty expensive option. Fuzz into a 4 stage phaser is cool too, but it is a different sound.

The nice part is that the fuzz used doesn't seem to be a huge deal. I used a number of different ones, though the scooped tone of the Big Muff wasn't ideal. But cheaper fuzzes like the Danelectro Fab Fuzz and the Guyatone TZ-2 worked pretty well. Raunchy, cutting fuzzes seem to be your best bet.

[bongomania]

Just as a followup, I was unable to find the threads on diystompboxes that I was talking about. I don't know if their server died and lost them or what. All I could find was the schematic:
http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/ma...2_itemId=18222

[Musicmatt030]

Off the topic of jet phasers what could I expect out of this pedal? http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....2BSI%26otn%3D4

It sounds like it could have some cool effects, but has anyone actually used one of these?

To TheBigO:

Would it be possible to rewire a 4-6-10 stage phaser to run in 8 stage mode?

Also searching on ebay I found this: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/FX-PEDAL-SP40...QQcmdZViewItem

Pretty cheap and it is apparently a 4/8/10/12 stage phaser do you reckon it would be any good?

May be perfect for finding my own sound too, I just don't know much about effects pedals so I don't know what's good and whats not. I have a freedom distortion pedal which I think has the right amount of fuzz I'm looking for but I can't be sure untill I can run it through a phaser too.

To bongomania:

Thats cool mate atleast you gave me a link that used to have the information I wanted, I don't mind going on a bit of a wild goose chase I've already spent countless hours trying to find this pedal, the schematics may come in handy cheers.

[bongomania]

Originally Posted by Musicmatt030

Would it be possible to rewire a 4-6-10 stage phaser to run in 8 stage mode?

Actually the exact number of stages is unimportant- the question is, can it introduce as much phase variance as the particular circuit in the Jet Phaser? Each stage is essentially an arbitrary amount of phase shift, so in one phaser it makes sense to compare 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 stages; but between two different phasers, their 4 or 8 or whatever number of stages may not have the same amount of phase shift per stage.

As far as how to answer that question, I would say just look for one in a shop with a good return policy and try it out.

Behringer gear gets a lot of scorn for a variety of reasons, but if you're on a tight budget some of their gear is surprisingly good sounding.

[Jared Lash]

Hey Matt,

I'm not sure how much you know about Behringer stompboxes, but their business model is primarily about copying an existing pedal but building/selling it cheaper. That pedal in particular looks to clearly be a copy of the Boss PH-3. I haven't used the Behringer version, but the Boss phaser is a lot of fun. It has a very synthetic rather than organic sound, but has a ton of different sounds to play with, including the wacky "Step" phase mode.

The bad news (IMO) is that the higher stage phase settings cut lows significantly. I ran mine in the loop of a blend pedal for that reason, but I'm not sure you want to buy yet another pedal (the Barge Concepts VB-jr is about $100) to get the jet phase tone. I've run a fuzz through pretty much every phaser I've owned/borrowed (which is quite a few) including the Boss PH-3, but to be honest I don't remember how close I could get to the Jet Phaser tone with it.

Listening to the Jet Phase clip of the Line 6 DM4, it sounds pretty good to me. Now, I've never used one and manufacturer clips can be deceiving, but it might be the ticket. FWIW, it also models some pedals that get a good amount of love by bassists on TB (DOD 250, ProCo Rat, Boss Metal Zone) so perhaps looking for a used one might get you what you're looking for at a reasonable price.

[Musicmatt030]

Originally Posted by bongomania

Actually the exact number of stages is unimportant- the question is, can it introduce as much phase variance as the particular circuit in the Jet Phaser?

Ahh I'm starting to understand this now, Just because the AP7 had an 8 stage phaser, doesn't mean i need an 8 stage phaser, So i really need to hear the pedal rather than make an assessment based on numbers. Gotcha

Originally Posted by TheBigO

I haven't used the Behringer version, but the Boss phaser is a lot of fun. It has a very synthetic rather than organic sound, but has a ton of different sounds to play with, including the wacky "Step" phase mode.

I may get one then just to play around with, I thought about the loss of low end which is why I was thinking about grabbing a pedal to boost that, although I have a bx4500H head so would fiddling with the equaliser and using the sub harmonics processor be enough to boost low end?

Originally Posted by TheBigO

Listening to the Jet Phase clip of the Line 6 DM4, it sounds pretty good to me. Now, I've never used one and manufacturer clips can be deceiving, but it might be the ticket.

Listening to the clip here:
http://www.noiseon.com/effects/Line6...r/default.aspx

It sounds good but I read somewhere else that the tone is set on the phaser and it sounds like crap, I guess I'll have to try before I buy.

[Harbec]

I have a Jet Phaser!

[jetofuj]

I had one!



... and?

[FilterFunk]

I've heard that Ernie Isley used the Jet Phaser on "Who's That Lady." Obviously, he was playing ***tar, so it's not exactly the same. However, I always thought it sounded kind of flanged. Would a flanger with dirt help get you that Jet Phaser sound?

[Harbec]

Yes, maybe.