ADA Final Phase

Got the Final Phase without a manual. Anyone willing to spend a little time with it should be OK. Not obvious at first though. But who cares? Just spin the knobs this way and that. The multitude of jacks could be a bit confusing for a moment though.

Nothing, I mean, NOTHING sounds like this pedal. This is some mad-scientist's version of a Phase Shifter that was allowed to escape. They pushed the limits right off the scale with this. Want tame normal phaser sounds? It'll do it. Want sounds of your guitar throwing up? It'll do that too. Flying Saucer attacks? Easy. One of the coolest effects of the pedal is the ability to modulate the modulation, creating wobbly assymetrical sweeps. Also, the Feedback control can be set so that the sweep will overtake whatever notes one is playing, breaking or "morphing" the sound into insane jet dives and swoops. This thing will do all this and more. The utter last word in phase shifting.

My example does have a dodgey Overdrive footswitch. I don't know if it's possible to find one that will replace it exactly as the footswitch mounts directly to the circuit card.

Not applicable.

My example is from the late '70s. Nothing like it, for sure. In an era in which every stupid and lame thing is advertised as "extreme," this is as truly extreme as a phaser can get. If you ever have a chance at one of these, snap it up. You'll love it. Fun for days. And your family and neighbors will HATE you! I can't stop recommending it!

The Final Phase is sort of hard to dial in to a specific sound, mainly because of the number of controls in comparison with other phasers. I have an original Final Phase that was produced sometime between 1978 through the early '80's and unfortunately did not come with a manual. There is a sweep modulation knob which controls the delay time of the unit, sweep rate which controls the speed, range control which goes from control to auto and automaticly sweeps the phasing. Intensity controls the depth of the effect and overdrive controls the gain of the unit. There are two footswitches one of which turns the unit on and off and the other turns the overdrive on and off. The overdrive can only be active when the phasing is on. There is also a jack next to the out jack for a control pedal like the ADA Flanger.

I use the Final Phase through any number of different guitars and amps, the mainstays being a 1988 American Standard Strat and a silverface Twin Reverb. The unit is very quiet and I cannot hear any effect when it is bypassed. There is an Overdrive built into the Final Phase the sounds great but cannot be used independantly of the Phasing.

When I bought the Final Phase I thought the unit was broken, hence the cut rate price. I bought a new 9 volt power supply which is adjustable for voltage and polarity of the plug and it worked fine.

I have never dealt with the company.

I love the pedal. It is unique in comparision with other phasers and you don't see many of them around and the ones you do see are going for $ 350 and up.