No doubt you’ve heard of the old pedal company Ross, who are probably most famous for what many consider to be the finest compressor pedal ever made, the ever-cloned Grey Compressor. In addition to this expensive and much sought-after grey box, Ross made a slew of other awesome (and extremely underrated) pedals in the 70s and 80s, and we’ve got one for today’s featured pedal. Simple to use but great-sounding and vintage, here is the original version of the Ross Phaser.
Boasting only 2 control knobs, this is not a Phaser pedal that’s going to take much of a learning curve to figure out. Rate controls the phaser’s overall Speed, while Intensity is your basic Depth control, mixing in as much or as little phase effect with your instrument’s Dry signal as you desire. Being that this is the Original version of the pedal from 1978, it’s the only one where this knob is labeled “Intensity”, as it was changed to “Recycle” in later models.
Speaking of first edition pedals, this one features 4x P1087E JFETs soldered to 14-pin DIP plug, with serial number 21446. This and the following version from 1979 are the only two JFET models, with the last 3 being LM13600N-based, and those apparently had some high sweep warble problems, making this original version the most sought-after of the five, and preferred by players and collectors alike.
For some reason, half of the pedals produced by Ross became big deals that are still hard to get and expensive today, while the other half sort of got pushed to the wayside, and can luckily be picked up now for really cheap prices if you hunt a little bit. This classic Phaser is one of those pedals, though I’m not sure why, as it sounds just fantastic, and would be a marvelous addition to practically any pedalboard that welcomed it. If you stumble across one of these, or just want to seek it out and see how it sounds, do it – you won’t be disappointed.
Submitted by Mike B, Website
Demo Rock pedalboard by West Coast Pedalboard
