Audio link for the new Keeley Phaser This is the first OTA 6-stage Analog phaser with TAP TEMPO and LESLIE STYLE RAMP! This is a chance to get a truly innovative pedal at a great price!
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The Keeley Electronics Phaser is a 100% analog signal path pedal, with modern features, like tap tempo.
The Keeley Phaser boasts a 6-stage analog phasing circuit based on OTA IC's. Phasers with these circuits are known for very rich and deep phaser sounds. The phasing is not as mechanical as their JFET cousins and this contributes greatly to their lush sound. The Keeley Phaser has a beautiful resonant response in the slow speeds and a sonorous shimmer at the faster settings.
While we were working on the sound, we were also looking for new methods of control. Features like speed ramps and tap tempos were what we had in mind. We tried creating some of these features without digital help at first. It soon became apparent that this was very limiting.
What we wanted the digital circuitry to feel like was an "Invisible Hand" turning the knobs on your completely analog effect. This is very much what we achieved with the Keeley Phaser. Your signal is never sampled, your sound never deconstructed. It's as if an impossibly good guitar tech adjusted your phaser to the exact speed you were tapping.
In addition to the tap tempo feature we added a ramp that allows you to merge seamlessly between two different speeds. We were looking for something similar to the brake on a Leslie. This feature turned out to be way more fun than we expected!
This is a design idea from our long time friend David Szabados who was my partner on the entire Time Machine Boost pedal. He also created the design we went with.
He also did the graphics in the picture.
Want to get to learn the new Keeley Phaser some more?
QUICK START INSTRUCTION GUIDE for the Keeley Phaser
A brief history of the Keeley Phaser
The original idea for the Keeley Phaser came from Nathanael Medlam, the Keeley Modifications Team Manager. His idea was a phaser that had the same lush sound as the old phasers like the Maestro. But with some nice modern touches like a lower noise profile and a case that was pedal board friendly.
I was a fan of the Mu-Tron Phaser I and II. Any phaser that came from our shop had to have killer tone, enough that it just sounded better with the darn thing on all the time!
We first experimented with tried and true method of creating phase, the JFET circuits. Here is an early example.
Most of what is in that picture was our attempts to make it sound 'right'. We realized to create the phaser sound we wanted we needed two things,
1. More stages than the customary 4
2. The more classic phaser approach, using OTA's
After a LOT of design work, on both the analog signal path and the digital control. We came up with this first try at a single board design.
This prototype had almost all the elements that would make it into the final design.
At Keeley we have begun to use a more streamlined approach to design. Including Solid Works to do our board placing, knob placing and graphics examination. Here is a rendering of an EARLY version of the proposed graphics.
The graphics in that rendering remained our working version right up until the last stage. Finally we decided that a cleaner more traditional look would be better for the product.
People really like the simple, straight-forward look of the Keeley Compressor, so we have kept our design the same when it comes to the Phaser. The sound is simple too, SIMPLY AWESOME! You will be hard pressed to find a more thick, lush sounding phaser even when looking to some of the vintage tone-monsters of the 1970's...then again they still won't sound this good nor will they have the incredible features. Enjoy friends!
NEWS FOR AUGUST 2010
NEW COLORS! We have been building and shipping these custom color Keeley Phasers to dealers and customers for a while but haven't stopped to get some pro pictures taken. So these three pics on the Nord keyboard will have to do until the next batch is ready in a week or so. Check back!
Sorry for the simple iPhone pics! ;-)
Check out the sound clip at the top of this page as well as the one below by our friend Mr. Blue Tone!
www.soundclick.com/mrbluetone More clips soon!
