tigerbass was kind enough to loan me his and it arrived yesterday and I've been fiddling with it since.
More or less these are just some random thoughts that I'll add too and hopefully record and post some clips before I return it.
Anyone who has played a Quasar or especially the Baby Quasar knows what is at the heart of this feature packed beast. All of the qualities that make it's predecessors great phasers are still there. Leaving the Quasar Dlx in 4 stage mode, not using any of the more unusual waveforms (just sine and triangle), expression control, tap tempo or the ridiculously fast speeds that give ring mod-like tones and you get the feel for its ability as a more standard phaser.
And it is very much like I remembered it. The frequency control is a fantastic control that I wish more phasers had. The depth knob has a very wide range. It is more present and lush sounding at half depth than most phasers are all the way up.
The voice mode controls the positive and negative feedback. Dead center is useful for avoiding artifacts in the modes incorporating square waves. A bit on either side gives vibrato like sounds and all the way up gives very prominent pulses without getting into self-oscillation territory which is nice. Personally I like positive feedback much more on bass and the sweetspot for me is between 1 and 3 o'clock depending on other controls.
Mix knob is a clean blend that goes all the way wet if desired.
If I had a quibble about the basic phase tones it would be that there aren't a couple more interesting "basic" phaser waveshapes (assymetric, sawtooth up and/or down etc) but other than that it sounds great. Anyone who digs the Maxon PH-350 you can nail those tones with the waveform on triangle, frequency at 2 o'clock or so, the mix at 50, the depth around half to 3/4 and the voice and speed to taste. Obviously this one goes 4/6/8 stages to the Maxon's 4/6/10 but other than that it can ape the Maxon perfectly.
I'm a huge 6 stage phaser fan and this one sounds great. And the 8 stage gets into more electronica sounding phasing.
Tap tempo and manual speed modes work great and the "double back" feature on speed knob allows for ultra fast, clangy ring mod like sounds. Expression control is fun, especially of rate. Sweeping the phase manually is fun but I don't really have a use for it.
The more unique waveforms sound good but as always I think unless playing double stops or chords with room in the mix they will get lost in the mix on bass when playing clean. Also, the square wave modes will introduce more artifacts as the voice knob is turned from dead center.
Where I find the additional waveforms most useful on bass is when using a fuzz in front of the Quasar, especially a gated one. This easily gets the pedal into pseudo MuRF or Pitchfactor territory. I especially dig the random step mode. With fuzz it's everything I loved about the original Robotalk without the need for a blend pedal and volume boost.
It can be powered by 18V to increase headroom.
The LFO noise is louder than expected and being so feature laden I could see people having a steep learning curve or struggling to find or recall settings they like but other than that this really is the most amazing phaser I've ever tried.
More or less these are just some random thoughts that I'll add too and hopefully record and post some clips before I return it.
Anyone who has played a Quasar or especially the Baby Quasar knows what is at the heart of this feature packed beast. All of the qualities that make it's predecessors great phasers are still there. Leaving the Quasar Dlx in 4 stage mode, not using any of the more unusual waveforms (just sine and triangle), expression control, tap tempo or the ridiculously fast speeds that give ring mod-like tones and you get the feel for its ability as a more standard phaser.
And it is very much like I remembered it. The frequency control is a fantastic control that I wish more phasers had. The depth knob has a very wide range. It is more present and lush sounding at half depth than most phasers are all the way up.
The voice mode controls the positive and negative feedback. Dead center is useful for avoiding artifacts in the modes incorporating square waves. A bit on either side gives vibrato like sounds and all the way up gives very prominent pulses without getting into self-oscillation territory which is nice. Personally I like positive feedback much more on bass and the sweetspot for me is between 1 and 3 o'clock depending on other controls.
Mix knob is a clean blend that goes all the way wet if desired.
If I had a quibble about the basic phase tones it would be that there aren't a couple more interesting "basic" phaser waveshapes (assymetric, sawtooth up and/or down etc) but other than that it sounds great. Anyone who digs the Maxon PH-350 you can nail those tones with the waveform on triangle, frequency at 2 o'clock or so, the mix at 50, the depth around half to 3/4 and the voice and speed to taste. Obviously this one goes 4/6/8 stages to the Maxon's 4/6/10 but other than that it can ape the Maxon perfectly.
I'm a huge 6 stage phaser fan and this one sounds great. And the 8 stage gets into more electronica sounding phasing.
Tap tempo and manual speed modes work great and the "double back" feature on speed knob allows for ultra fast, clangy ring mod like sounds. Expression control is fun, especially of rate. Sweeping the phase manually is fun but I don't really have a use for it.
The more unique waveforms sound good but as always I think unless playing double stops or chords with room in the mix they will get lost in the mix on bass when playing clean. Also, the square wave modes will introduce more artifacts as the voice knob is turned from dead center.
Where I find the additional waveforms most useful on bass is when using a fuzz in front of the Quasar, especially a gated one. This easily gets the pedal into pseudo MuRF or Pitchfactor territory. I especially dig the random step mode. With fuzz it's everything I loved about the original Robotalk without the need for a blend pedal and volume boost.
It can be powered by 18V to increase headroom.
The LFO noise is louder than expected and being so feature laden I could see people having a steep learning curve or struggling to find or recall settings they like but other than that this really is the most amazing phaser I've ever tried.
