Where Can We Use A Phaser Unit Like This - Arturia Phaser BI-TRON User Manual

1.3. Where can we use a phaser unit like this?

The phaser effect is characterized by a sweeping and wavering effect (the flanger effect
may also be described with the same adjectives, but the phaser is usually more spacey).
This is caused by the comb-filtering. This kind of effect became more or less a trademark
for electric guitars.
Other instruments that took this effect with great prominence were the clavinet and the
electric pianos. As we already said about the flanger, flanger and phaser became to the
electric piano and clavinet what the rotary speaker is to the electric organ.
So, obviously any kind of electric guitar sounds are good candidates for the use of this
effect. Soloing is where it may shine the most, but also riffs, especially where the notes are
more sustained, can use it to enrich and give movement the sound. As we said, the phaser
effect sounds usually more "spacey" than flanger, but both effects are often combined.
Pianos (mostly electric, but also acoustic) are other good candidates to the use of flanger.
Some of you may remember the great electric piano accompaniment played by Dennis
DeYoung in the song Babe, from the Styx album Cornerstone.
Other good candidates for the phaser effect are synthesizers (of course) especially when
playing pad sounds, strings, brass, and polyphonic ensemble sounds in general. Everybody
may remember the great use of the phaser by Jean-Michel Jarre, applied to the string
sounds of the Eminent (especially in the Oxygen and Equinoxe albums). From then on, string
machines and phasers became a serious case of successful association.
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