FW12 Phaser!

Geddy never sang falsetto. He's actually up there without going into a head voice.
With respect, I don't think that's right. (I'm willing to be corrected, of course.)

But the authorized biography of the band, "Rush Visions" by Bill Banasiewicz, refers to Geddy "developing a piercing overdriven falsetto" back in the band's "Led Zeppelin Junior" days (circa Fly By Night, in fact).

And, in fact, that's basically how I learned to sing in the Steve Perry / early Geddy Lee range. I started out with a high baritone or a low tenor kind of voice, alongside a very girlish or wispy falsetto. But basically I worked on enlarging and thickening and overdriving the falsetto and producing more nose-forward resonance, while smoothing over the transition between the falsetto and the chest voice. I eventually wound up with something in the Dennis DeYoung ballpark (vaguely Axl Rose when I rough it up).

Now, that's what Geddy Lee sounds like to me, from Working Man onward, when he sings high up. And when he talks, his spoken voice sounds more or less like my own (tenor-ish, but not unusually high). And as he's gotten older and his vocal chords have changed, I hear in some of his concert performances -- you know, those moments where the pitch gets a little slide-y and we all say, "Hey, give the guy a break, he's still trying to sing Temples of Syrinx after all these years" -- the same kinds of production-struggles that my own voice requires to maintain that overdriven falsetto sound.

Now someone like Jon Anderson is a different matter. Had you claimed that Jon Anderson never sang falsetto, and sings "up there without going into a head voice," I'd have been nodding along vigorously. Jon's speaking voice is exactly like his singing voice, and the production of it never sounds transition-y. He is an unusual human; his chest voice sounds like a cross between any other man's falsetto or head voice.

But, I just don't think that's what I'm hearing, when I listen to Geddy.

3 CAVEATS:
  • As I said, I'm willing to be corrected on this;
  • Are we perhaps using terms differently, leading to confusion? I think of there being 3 "voices": Chest, Head, and Falsetto. Your formulation ("Geddy never sang falsetto. He's actually up there without going into a head voice") eliminates both falsetto and head, which only leaves the chest voice...which implies that you are calling Geddy's shriek in the bridge of "Freewill" identical to the verses of "Dreamline" (and that's obviously not right!);
  • Obviously I give all due props to the talent, etc., no matter how he's doing it!
 
Yes, and I've heard him go smoothly across the entire range while warming up. It is absolutely uncanny. One voice.

But let's keep talking about the phaser here, actually. Sorry to have veered off topic.
Heh. Yer killin' me, here! :p Your first sentence is a reply containing a counterargument; your second cuts off the topic!

To "go smoothly across the entire range" is no proof one way or the other. (I'm not half the artist Geddy is, but even I can do that, from low G to high D.) It's exactly what you would expect of a person who'd merely worked hard on smoothing that transition.

But, yes, okay, you're right....

The phaser is great! How 'bout that phaser!
 
More importantly, your avatar seems to indicate the FM3 has landed on the moon. Is this a sign? :)
Yes it means that they're only shipping to customers that live on the moon. It's really important for any business really to keep that moon demographic happy ;).
 
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Every clip posted in this thread sounds fantastic, and quite different from each other.

Cannot wait for the official release so I can really dig into this thing.
 
I need to see if this thing can do incubus type tones! Mike I. has some great phaser tones on the early albums.

I am installing the new Firmware as I type this. It could already do Incubus type tones, it's just knowing how many stages, etc the pedals are doing. Here is a screenshot from my Warmth preset in the Axechange that mimics the Boss Super Phaser he uses in Mode II for the bridge in The Warmth is a 12 stage phase set really slow for example.

I love Phaser so I'm excited to play with the updates.
Screen Shot 2020-01-30 at 7.33.35 PM.png
 
I am installing the new Firmware as I type this. It could already do Incubus type tones, it's just knowing how many stages, etc the pedals are doing. Here is a screenshot from my Warmth preset in the Axechange that mimics the Boss Super Phaser he uses in Mode II for the bridge in The Warmth is a 12 stage phase set really slow for example.

I love Phaser so I'm excited to play with the updates.
View attachment 62920

Your “Warmth“ preset was the first user preset I ever downloaded and it got me to re-learn that song, which I haven’t played since my Junior year of high school! Tight work on that one!
 
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