I've spent way too much time trying to get the phaser in the Axe to sound like that elusive MXR Phase 90. Recently, I've read a lot of articles about it and talked to some people who know a lot about effect circuits. I even dabbled around in LTspice trying to emulate the circuit. Long story short: You can calculate what the pedal is supposed to do all day long, but nothing beats a good white noise clip when trying to match a modulation effectAnd lucky me, I found one a couple of days ago. So with my new knowledge and this clip, I've matched the Phase 90 using a real time analyser, a spectrogram, and of course, my ears.
Here is a clip. I won't say which part is the pedal and which is the Axe-Fx III.
A couple of notes:
1. The speed is controlled by LFO 1, which is connected to the starting frequency parameter. I've done this because the pedal has a greater depth at slow rates than the regular depth control will allow for, and because I've done a custom waveform. The Phase 90 has this weird pseudo triangle waveform, that's also asymmetrical. I've done my best to approximate it.
2. The depth is scaled with the rate. When the rate goes up, the depth goes down. The depth in the preset is set for that classic Van Halen speed, which is quite slow. Lower the maximum value on the starting frequency modifier if you want higher rates.
At about a rate of 1.4 kHz, the span of the phaser blocks depth control at 10, matches the depth of the pedal. So at or above 1.4 kHz, you can remove the modifier and use the phaser blocks rate and depth controls. At fasters speeds, you don't notice the pedals custom waveform as much, so a sine waveform will work fine.
3. In threw in an MXR EVH Flanger with the EVH button engaged as a little bonus. It's not matched to white noise running through the pedal, but a demo of the pedal. Should be fairly close though.
The basic amp sound in the preset is a slightly modified version of a preset by user rrhoads17, so credit to him. After all this tweaking, I simply didn't feel like dialing in an amp and cab from scratch
PRESET: http://axechange.fractalaudio.com/detail.php?preset=7217
I've spent way too much time trying to get the phaser in the Axe to sound like that elusive MXR Phase 90. Recently, I've read a lot of articles about it and talked to some people who know a lot about effect circuits. I even dabbled around in LTspice trying to emulate the circuit. Long story short: You can calculate what the pedal is supposed to do all day long, but nothing beats a good white noise clip when trying to match a modulation effect
Here is a clip. I won't say which part is the pedal and which is the Axe-Fx III.
A couple of notes:
1. The speed is controlled by LFO 1, which is connected to the starting frequency parameter. I've done this because the pedal has a greater depth at slow rates than the regular depth control will allow for, and because I've done a custom waveform. The Phase 90 has this weird pseudo triangle waveform, that's also asymmetrical. I've done my best to approximate it.
2. The depth is scaled with the rate. When the rate goes up, the depth goes down. The depth in the preset is set for that classic Van Halen speed, which is quite slow. Lower the maximum value on the starting frequency modifier if you want higher rates.
At about a rate of 1.4 kHz, the span of the phaser blocks depth control at 10, matches the depth of the pedal. So at or above 1.4 kHz, you can remove the modifier and use the phaser blocks rate and depth controls. At fasters speeds, you don't notice the pedals custom waveform as much, so a sine waveform will work fine.
3. In threw in an MXR EVH Flanger with the EVH button engaged as a little bonus. It's not matched to white noise running through the pedal, but a demo of the pedal. Should be fairly close though.
The basic amp sound in the preset is a slightly modified version of a preset by user rrhoads17, so credit to him. After all this tweaking, I simply didn't feel like dialing in an amp and cab from scratch
PRESET: http://axechange.fractalaudio.com/detail.php?preset=7217