Ok, I understand EQing, I even understand Compression, I understand filter, and I understand reverb. I pretty much understand what these devices are doing to the sounds. But Flanger and Phaser, what in the the world are these two actually doing, inside the device. I can easily send a sound through one and hear the result. I can even recognize when other producers use these. But, does anyone actually know what goes on inside a flanger or a phaser. I can't figure it out.

A Flanger plays the same sound with an offset I believe. You can get a flanging effect if you try and mix two of the same tracks together and just get the pitch off slightly.

Phaser... not too sure to be honest. I imagine its a similar sort of thing but with a modulation in the ammont of offset, hence why it sounds like its phasing in and out.

I'm sure theres someone else on here who can describe it better..

a flanger is a basically a chorus with a very short variable length delay time.

a chorus is quite simple. it basically plays the note again with a slight delay. you can make this chorus effect bigger by adding more voices in unison. real choral groups rarely keep pitch and perfect synchronicity so the aim of reproducing a chorus effect is to mimic this unison effect where multiple voices are playing, very slightly delayed and where the delay varies over time.

a flanger is a chorus where the variable part of that delay is very short. the delay is made variable using an LFO (most chorus effects have LFOs on them too but the delay time is alot shorter and the LFO rate is faster) - this is why you can hear a flanger audibly oscillating. sometimes the delay is fed back into the input to get really long spatialized kind of flange effect.

a phaser is a bit different. when you have an oscillating sound wave (for the sake of argument lets make this a sine wave) you see a series of peaks and trophs. the amplitude of the wave is determined by how high and low these peaks and trophes are. another property of this sound is its phase. phase is relative between 2 signals - lets say you have a sine wave oscillating from 0 point going up to a peak (+1) and then down to a troph (-1). and you have another sine wave starting at the lowest point of the troph (-1) going up to the zero point (0) and then to the peak (+1). both sounds played simulataneously have a phase difference - this one is easy since they are exactly 90 degrees out of phase. when the peak of 1 sine wave is perfectly aligned with the troph of the other, both sounds are said to be in antiphase (180 degrees out of phase) and they cancel out. moving sounds in and out of phase to various degrees is called phase shifting or phasing. you can make some elements of a sound move to the front or the rear or cut out completely using phase shifting.

alot of phasers are chorus type where an LFO modulates the frequency of the phasing voices. owing to the nature of phasing though the LFO behaves very weirdly. i cant really explain why it does. it just does. most of the time i use phasers im not really thinking of a specific sound i want to create since i havent got a fecking clue how its going to turn out.

Last edited by Derivative on Feb-10-2005 at 12:56

Thanks, I understand that

basically it plays a copy of the sound a millisecond later. the offset is constantly changed (first its .001 seconds then .002 seconds that back down) which creates the ups and downs of the whooshing sound

i think its how it works.

It's possible to get a flanger effect like 'Lolo - Why' with reason?