Effects Bay

The following is a guest post review of the PH-3 Phase Shifter by George DesRoches. If you are interested in guest posting, please contact me!

So, I had 130 bucks to spend around Christmas time, and sat in Guitar Center for nearly an hour trying to decide if and what I would buy with it. Eventually, being the BOSS whore that I am, I relented and purchased their PH-3 Phase Shifter, and so far I’m glad with my choice. This green monster is packed full of snazzy sweeping tones and amazing phasing effects that can colour and fill any tone.

The pedal has 4 basic phaser settings: 4 step (vintage sounding), 8 step (balanced/standard sound), 10 step (deep phaser), and 12 step (two 6 step phases in consecutive order) phasing, which means that you can have a quick, shallow modulation all the way to a deep, pulsating swoosh and swell in your tone without much tweaking. In addition, there are also a fall and rise phase setting, which are particularly exciting. Each create a perpetual downwards or upwards sweep respectively, which can make a clean guitar sound etheral or a distorted guitar sound like a power-saw. This creates an almost metallic flanger tone, which is perfect for experimental or metal tones. Another added feature is the step-filter, which runs the guitar sound through random phase stages at a steady pace. At a slow rate, the step filter sounds like a slicer effect, while at faster speeds it sounds like a vibrato or tremelo. For a normally straight-forward area of modulation, this pedal manages to give you almost every aspect of it’s trademark sound, as well as giving you elements you cannot find anywhere else.

The PH-3, like all Boss stompboxes, are built like a tank with a near indestructable metal chassis, and can be powered by either 9v battery or DC adapter. You can control the rate of the phase by either using the knob on the main panel, a tap tempo (via the main pedal or an FS-5U footswitch extension), or an EV-5 expression pedal. You can also adjust the depth of the phasel, which shows how wide of a phase effect you have. You can also increase the strength of the phase by using the resonance knob, though if the resonance is too strong, it can somewhat distort the output signal. Besides that, however, this pedal is great, worth the price, and something I suggest to be on every guitarist’s pedalboard.

About the author:
George DesRoches

My gear: Fender HSS Stratocaster (soon to be HSH within the next week or so), Dunlop Dimebag Darrel Cry Baby From Hell, BOSS MD-2 MegaDistortion, DS-1 Distortion, TR-2 Tremelo, CH-1 SUPERChorus, and DD-20 Giga Delay, with a Raven RG200 amp and a Line 6 Spider III 15 watt when needed.

Check out my band, T.R.B., at
http://www.teearebee.co.nr
http://www.myspace.com/teearebee
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/The-Random-Band/110510314252?ref=ts
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=67927983941&ref=tsm
http://twitter.com/therandomband

You can follow George on Twitter (@TeeAreBee)

You can pick up the Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter for $95.95 at Musician’s Friend.

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