This pedal is probably among my favourite pedals on my pedalboard. I consider it my secret weapon among all my guitar sound effects because it is capable of producing some unique sounds which can help you to stand out among other guitar players. Whether you want to round your overall tone with a vintage feel, filter out your distorted solos, bounce on your funky rhythm patterns or produce synth-like spacy sounds, its all there.
This phaser pedal is a lot different than usual vintage type phasers (namely MXR or Electro-Harmonix) and Ive heared some people rave about how they dont like it because it doesnt sound like those two pedals. Well, it doesnt because it is a different pedal. If you re after an MXR Phase 90 sound, get one of those. If you want to enhance your distorted solos in a Van Halen manner, you should try MXR EVH signature phaser. If you want to recreate the vintage feel of Robin Trower try to get your hands on a Mutron. But if you want something unique, versatile and capable of producing a lot of different sounds, you might try Boss PH 3.
This pedal is very easy to use and regardless of how you tweak the knobs it always offers interesting sounds. It has four knobs as follows:
RATE – adjusts the speed of a wave at which the filter changes. A first knob in a chain which sets the tempo of the phasing effect and has to be dialed to match the tempo of the song for the sound to come to its full potential
DEPTH – Adjusts the depth of the filter change
RESONANCE – A great feature not commonly found on phaser pedals. It acts like a filter and adjusts its strength. A very useful feature that helps to easily shape the overall sound from mild and mellow waves to heavy and sharp cuts in a tone.
STAGE – offers seven different effect types
- 4 STAGE PHASER – A light vintage phaser found on many records. It is a chorus like effect and can take you to a David Gilmour Dark Side Of The Moon territory. Turing the resonance counterclockwise and keeping it at the minimum produces a nice tremolo effect while pushing the depth knob takes you across the Robin Trowes Bridge Of Sighs.
- 8 STAGE PHASER – A deeper phasing effect yet with a vintage feel. Great to use if you want more colour or an ethereal atmosphere. The best sound for this stage IMO is to set all knobs at center position or add a little depth.
- 10 STAGE PHASER – Not a common stage, but it provides a deep phase effect great for deep ambiental swirls
- 12 STAGE PHASER – Acts like two 6 stage phasers connected in series. Very deep phasing effect that you probably will not use all the time but if you push the resonance a bit (and perhaps add a little delay) you can produce interesting synth sounds
- FALL – Continuously falling sound (only the downward part of the phase is reproduced), good for country licks if you back off the resonanace.
- RISE – Continuously rising sound (only the upward part of the phase is reproduced). This is my favourite stage. It acts a bit like an autowah with heavy filter and sharp cuts in tone and a little touch of a flanger which makes it excellent for funky rhythm patterns. Set all the knobs at noon and the sound is allready great. If you set the rate in the tempo of your strums and play a little with the resonance knob you can get many different sounds in this stage alone. Backing off the resonance helps you enhance your attack (great for pop and funk) while turning the resonance button makes you Funkadelic. I can bouce all day on funk rhythms using this stage alone. Another way to use this stage is to use it with a distorsion or an overdrive. It produces very interesting filtered solo sounds somewhat reminiscent of Dave Navarro solo in R.H.C.P. song Aeroplane.
- STEP – A feature that many find unuseful, but I disagree. In this stage filter modifications occur in a random manner, so strumming a single note or a chord will produce truly spacy sounds. Using this feature you can probably put your keyboard player or a DJ into shame.
This pedal offers a TAP TEMPO option, but as with the most Boss compact pedals I find it complicated to use (you have to depress the pedal, hold it for 2 seconds, then step on it twice in a tempo you desire and hold it for 2 seconds again when you want to get back to the normal mode). But you can connect an optional footswitch to the pedal and easily set the tempo of the effect on the fly. Or you can connect an expression pedal and adjust and change the rate of the effect with it.
Perhaps I wouldnt reccomend this pedal to vintage purists, but I highly reccomend it to those that want a large spectrum of unique sounds and like to explore new sonic grounds.
Sound clips comming soon.
Review by
Fila, April 4, 2010
The bottom line is: I rate it 4 stars for value for money because it is a bit expensive and not many guitar players keep the phaser effect on all the time. I give it 5 stars for all other categories