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Toadworks Phantasm Phaser?

#21
bongomania said:
Ah, Toadworks man,
Please note that we try to keep a MUCH higher level of goodwill here than on Harmony Central, which is perhaps why Zeemno felt at liberty to express himself that way. Those of us that "know each other" don't take much offense when a point is challenged. (Although we clearly have our share of hotheads. :) )

Also, FWIW, the points you are describing about phase stages versus sweep depth are not in keeping with "common knowledge", even if common knowledge turns out to be incorrect. So please understand that when you say something like "stages are meaningless", pretty much everyone is going to raise their eyebrows and want you to back that statement up -again, even if you are stating something technically correct, it "sounds wrong" to the layman.
Click to expand...

I understand... sometimes it's hard shifting gears :) I didn't feel attacked, I just thought it was really cool that someone started this thread, and anyone who has been on HC understands how quickly perceived slights can escalate... I just don't have time for it.

As for the issue of common knowledge - hey, it's the Internet! Everyone's an expert :) If I told you how often I had to consult with our EE... well, it appens alot. I promise I'll be nice now.
 
#23
Joe P said:
There ya-go. Yes: there were some other Electronically bogus-ish kind of statements in that challenge, too.

Well, anyway - The phaser sounds great, for sure, but I'm impressed by the Mr. Squishy! I really dig the... Squishy-osity!

Killer Bass playing, too! ..Now, the Squish was AFTER the Envelope, right?

I'm pretty-much deciding that when I go envelope, I'll choose an envelope-controlled PHASER, rather than an envelope-controlled low pass filter.

Thanks, Mr. Toadworks -

Joe
Click to expand...


Ah HA! Good ears! Yes, the Squishy was after then Phantasm. The ACS feature (which is what really makes the funkiness) is fun, but in my opinion you really need sort of compression afterward to even it out.

BTW, for obvious reasons, you wouldn't want the compression before the Phantasm - it would kill the dynamics, rendering the ACS and ACD moot.

And thanks for the playing note... I'm not a bass player by any stretch, but I appreciate the compliment.
 
#24
grygrx said:
...he used his emoticons to try and "keep it light"...
Click to expand...
Oh, Man: Those smiley-things SUCK.

Especially when I see the 'have a nice day' Garfield-grin after a potentailly inflamatory statement - I mean: in real-life, it's the EXTRA-sarcastic, 'leave-no-doubt they're being sarcastic' person who does a Garfield grin after saying something questionable!

We should just WRITE better. That Smiley-thing is trash from the 'chat rooms' (Yeah - those places that are destroying expressive composition and writing skills from a generation...)

I must admit that I do get a kick out of "the EYEBROW", though.

Joe
 
#26
:(

When I first arrived at Talkbass, I was literally amazed how different this forum was from our 'domestic' Polish bassforum or other non-music forums I've attended. Everybody was very, I would even say ultra-polite and diplomatical with each other. You know, very broad use of 'no offence meant'-type sentences, various YMMV's, almost no off-topic posts, being a 'family' forum like banned profanity. All that made me want to be part of this community. So much different&better than other places.

But I realized I need to learn that diplomatic way of expresing myself, before I could be an active member. So my first post was after around 8 months of lurking. I got to know almost everybody here (well, mainly the amps and effects forum), but obviously, nobody does know me well yet.

This thread shows, I didn't learn good enough so far. :( Please understand, my English is far away from perfect. Sometimes I have to struggle when writing a post, to find the right words, to describe my thoughts accurately and to think ahead if someone could misinterpret my words in a wrong way. In my above post, I failed, I apologize.

From your two posts, I couldn't tell who you are in the Toadworks team. Now that it turn's out your the founder, inventor of the ACD and played bass on that cool track all I can say is.... wow! :cool:

I have never been at the Harmony Central Forums, but given the reputation, I doubt I'll ever do. But I am pretty sure Talkbass isn't the only forum out there, where high culture&discussion standards are maintained. Don't have anymore time to check others out...

As Bongomania mentioned, those statements you posted where very ":eyebrow:"-like. I believe, that when I learn how a particular effect works inside, I'd be able to pick the right pedals for my needs. Thus I got into this electronics stuff, but not very deep, it's only been a year or so. Since my current knowledge about how phasers work didn't match what you wrote, I had to confront it somehow. I now realize, this is what you call 'being competetive'. But I didn't wan't to be the 'winner' at all costs, I just wanted to learn something new.

After thinking a little about it, I think I am starting to understand why you stress the _offset_, not the number of shift stages. Since this wouldn't interest hardly anybody else, maybe, if I asked you very very kindly, I could PM you my thoughts and you could tell me, if I managed to become a small bit wiser in this subject? :) No need to derail this particular thread further IMO.

And I do think it's great and I am happy you have taken the tiem to chime in here. Not many pedal builders do that. Have you ever seen a Boss, Ibanez or Behringer employee on such a forum? (although there was an Ampeg 'insider' in the Amps forum once.)

And Smiley's are very cool... only if everybody understands them in the same way.

To sum up, I once again apologize for dressing my thoughts into not the right words. I'll be more careful from now on.

Good night everybody! (It's 1:59 AM here in Warsaw :) )

Best regards,
John
 
#28
Zeemno said:
:(

When I first arrived at Talkbass, I was literally amazed how different this forum was from our 'domestic' Polish bassforum or other non-music forums I've attended. Everybody was very, I would even say ultra-polite and diplomatical with each other. You know, very broad use of 'no offence meant'-type sentences, various YMMV's, almost no off-topic posts, being a 'family' forum like banned profanity. All that made me want to be part of this community. So much different&better than other places.

But I realized I need to learn that diplomatic way of expresing myself, before I could be an active member. So my first post was after around 8 months of lurking. I got to know almost everybody here (well, mainly the amps and effects forum), but obviously, nobody does know me well yet.

This thread shows, I didn't learn good enough so far. :( Please understand, my English is far away from perfect. Sometimes I have to struggle when writing a post, to find the right words, to describe my thoughts accurately and to think ahead if someone could misinterpret my words in a wrong way. In my above post, I failed, I apologize.

From your two posts, I couldn't tell who you are in the Toadworks team. Now that it turn's out your the founder, inventor of the ACD and played bass on that cool track all I can say is.... wow! :cool:

I have never been at the Harmony Central Forums, but given the reputation, I doubt I'll ever do. But I am pretty sure Talkbass isn't the only forum out there, where high culture&discussion standards are maintained. Don't have anymore time to check others out...

As Bongomania mentioned, those statements you posted where very ":eyebrow:"-like. I believe, that when I learn how a particular effect works inside, I'd be able to pick the right pedals for my needs. Thus I got into this electronics stuff, but not very deep, it's only been a year or so. Since my current knowledge about how phasers work didn't match what you wrote, I had to confront it somehow. I now realize, this is what you call 'being competetive'. But I didn't wan't to be the 'winner' at all costs, I just wanted to learn something new.

After thinking a little about it, I think I am starting to understand why you stress the _offset_, not the number of shift stages. Since this wouldn't interest hardly anybody else, maybe, if I asked you very very kindly, I could PM you my thoughts and you could tell me, if I managed to become a small bit wiser in this subject? :) No need to derail this particular thread further IMO.

And I do think it's great and I am happy you have taken the tiem to chime in here. Not many pedal builders do that. Have you ever seen a Boss, Ibanez or Behringer employee on such a forum? (although there was an Ampeg 'insider' in the Amps forum once.)

And Smiley's are very cool... only if everybody understands them in the same way.

To sum up, I once again apologize for dressing my thoughts into not the right words. I'll be more careful from now on.

Good night everybody! (It's 1:59 AM here in Warsaw :) )

Best regards,
John
Click to expand...


No worries buddy. Sorry if I overreacted.
 
#34
jetpackbassist said:
i won't post one, but search (here...)

http://[malware url removed].net/vicious-smiley-1815.gif
Click to expand...

YAAAAAAYYY!!!!

343 Salty Beans said:
Sorry for the double post, but what is the difference between width and depth on a phaser? I don't get it...:/
Click to expand...

Think about it like a sine wave, crests and troughs. Depth is the distance between crests and troughs while width is the distance between crest and crest.

Bear in mind this is the dysfunctional SpankyPants way of describing it. I am in no way an engineer or an expert on pretty much anything but goofiness.
 
#40
343 Salty Beans said:
Hopefully toady will chime back in and unleash his EE skills upon me. Thanks for the try, though.
Click to expand...

Phasers are complex. There are actually 2 different things going on.

First, the signal is split - one signal remains unaffected, the other is subjected to a phase offset. The LFO sweeps back & forth between phase offsets, equidistant from a center point (you can change this center point with the Phantasm's Axis control - a few other phasers offer this as well)

It might be easier to think of it this way - a phaser is just a very short time delay that causes a specific degree of phase offset between the clean and shifted signals, and the degree of offset is changing.

The rate of change is set by the Rate control - turn the LFO off, and the offset becomes fixed at a certain position (that's why most phasers have a "manual" control). Ever notice how using the Manual control on a phaser sounds vaguely like a cocked wah? The approach is different, but the end result is similar.

The Width knob actually controls the degree of sweep relative to the center point. There is no notch filter - what you think is a notch filter is in fact phase cancellation, the rate and degree of which is changing at a constant rate. Add to that the nature of a stinged instrument, and it sounds pretty cool.

It's a little abstract. I'm not an EE - I didn't fully understand this until well after we started working on Phantasm.
 

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