Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter

Quite a few settings, all of which are fairly easy to use. This is the best part about the pedal. On the other hand, sometimes I run into some problems with the tap tempo feature.

I use this through a Hotrod Deville and either a Highway One Strat or an Epiphone Les Paul. The first thing that I noticed when I plugged this in is that I get a huge volume drop from it. Aside from that, the sound quality isn't that great. I like the fact that I have several settings to choose from, but they are all kind of cold and digital sounding. Also, it doesn't really sound that great with any kind of distortion or overdrive. I think it deserves a 7 because although it doesn't sound that great, you can get a lot of different sounds out of it and it can add a little something to recordings.

Built pretty well. I've had it for 2 years without a problem.

N/A

In all, it's just a mediocre phaser. I prefer a Ross phaser or a Phase 90. I've actually been trying to sell it on craigslist for $50, but no one is buying it. I definitely could have done without spending $100 on this thing. The only reason that it's getting an OK rating is because of all the different modes to choose from.

It's FAIRLY easy to use but if you don't have the manual to explain what some of the settings are then you're going to spend a long time spinning dials trying to hear what the subtle changes are. I bought mine new so I have the manual. Can't give this one a 10 because it's NOT nearly as easy as some other pedals to figure out.

Holy smoke! I saw someone on here gave this thing a 10 for sound quality! WHATEVER! That person just wants a phase EFFECT and quality isn't their priority. This is such a SUCKING monster that I'm pretty sure that if you turned this pedal on and left it unattended, it would vacuum your carpets.
For the set up: I have a '93 American Standard (Fender Strat) with some hot Seymour Duncan pick ups. I play through a Marshall amp. Guitar volume at 10, clean tone, no EQ or effects, pedal off...to start.
Kicked the pedal on and instantly had a MASSIVE volume DROP! Side by side comparison with the pedal OFF and ON revealed that turning the pedal ON is equivalent to turning my guitar volume down to 6 (from 10). A FOUR (4) level drop!
I had this SAME volume drop when running the pedal directly between my guitar and the amp (not using the effects loop) too.
But wait! That's not all...
With NO other pedals or effects running (including no EQ), this pedal removed my MID range...scooped it and tossed it out the window!
So this pedal will steals volume AND mid range EQ frequencies...and all it's supposed to do is provide a phase shifting effect! I had this same problem whether using the effects loop or running direct in!
Can you get cool sounds with it? Sure.
Can you get the classic rock phase sounds (think "Barracuda" by Heart)? Sure!
Do you want to give up nearly 1/2 your volume and a sudden change in your EQ settings for that?!
I'll give it a 4 because it does have some cool options and can make some cool sounds; otherwise, I'd give it a 1.

These Boss pedals aren't "tanks" or "bricks" or "weapons" or all that silly crap that the kids like to repeat over and over again. They are electronic pedals. The housing is sturdy; the insides are fragile. I've had Boss pedals fall apart before. The PCB board and the jacks are the weak link. Overall, Boss pedals are pretty sturdy.

Never dealt with them.

I have to really kick it in the balls overall because who wants an effect pedal that's NOT a volume pedal OR an EQ pedal and yet changes both your volume and your EQ?
There has to be better choices on the market. I don't use the effect much (who does? it's a phase shifter for crying out loud!) but I know that I would not want to gig with this thing in any case.

Very easy to use. Make sure you check out the tap tempo, very fun to make a lengthy wave as well as a short one. No need for any help in using. Just take time to play with it to find the sound you like.

I gave sound quality a 6 for one single reason. While I like the PH-3 I think that the PH-2 is so much better. The wave lengths you get from the PH-2 are much clearer and without feedback. And I would recomend a PH-2 rather than a PH-3. That being said, I still had much entertainment from the awesome tones I got from it.

As someone said "It's a boss pedal"

Never had to deal with them

Its a good pedal, I can't deny that. I had hours of tweaking it and getting great tones out of it. But like I said... I much prefer the PH-2

its not terribly diffucult to get a good tone out of it but to find "your" tone it can be slightly challenging

i use it on my board in this order fender telecaster mim w/lindy fralin pickups, boss tu2, dunlop jimi hendrix fuzz, fulltone fulldrive 2 mosfet, danelectro fab chorus, boss ph3, 2 digitech digidelays, dunlop crybaby wah, into a 1973 twin reverb and it fits perfectly for my ambient/prog rock sound i use it mainly for adding some extra texture to lead lines and such

its a boss

havent had to deal with em yet and hope never to have to

not a phase 90 which i want to get for its own thing but for neat sounds it does a great job

im gonna keep this short cause it should be.

the controls are easy. this section really shouldnt pertain to half the pedals out there. if you cant figure out most pedals how the hell can you play a guitar?

Ok so lets break it down. i also own a small stone and now i have to let one go because i refuse to have two phasers. so honestly its all in taste. can the boss do a small stone? nope cant. can it do alot of other old vintage phasers, yupe sure can. it can do alot of different phasers and is the best one on the market right now i know of(i am however waiting to see line 6 do a tonecore phaser, when that happens my opinion will change im sure.) it cannot do the subtle analog phase tone. and if that is all you want get a nano stone, or phase 90. that would be your best bet. but if you want a lil bit of everything and are willing to sacrifice a lil bit of tone when pedals engaged then go with this one. its not much. but yes when a/b'd with a analog yes this is a lil noticable. i give it a ten, because it never claimed to be analog. so shuta yo face wit da analog!

boss have made some horrid pedals. but fragile is not a word ive aver heard used with boss.

well when you break it down it goes like this. you want a phaser capable of a lil bit of everything. yes get it why dont you own it. dont buy a pedal and bitch because it doesnt sound like a phase 90. why didnt you just get a phase 90 in the first place idiot? if you want a lil bit of everything yes. if your that specific then go for your specific thing. and yes im cutting loose the small stone. not cause its not as good. but because as much of a bad rap that digital gets. its 100% more reliable and when you can find a digital substitute. you should stick with it.

Note; this is a DIGITAL phase shifter. If you understand signal path you won't have any problem with any perceived volume drop, either. It is easy to get a good sound, in fact I would be surprised by anyone getting a 'bad' sound as this pedal is IMHO an excellent product. Just plug it in and fiddle about; it does Mutron, it does Morley, it does MXR and vintage Ibanez, and it also does its own thing. FYI I bought it mail-order, without auditioning it either.

I tend to use a customised Strat going to a Fender Twin mk II or a modded Vibro-Champ. The unit is not noisy at all and the different phaser stages enable the user to cover nearly all the different types of phasing. An exp to manual control and a mix control would have turned this into the best phaser ever; however the expression pedal input controls the rate, not quite as useful so I won't be chucking my old Morley vol/phase out yet! The Boss also excels at slow, subtle phase sweeps - it's very versatile. There is probably a better phaser out there but it would have to be custom-made by someone like 4ms, for instance. So I'm going for a '9' on this one.

Usual solid Boss construction, 100% proof. Haven't gigged it yet though I don't anticipate any problems.

No comment - Boss are a multi-national so you're not going to get the personal attention that you would from a small firm. If I had a problem I'd call the retailer.

I play rock and jazz and this will be at the front of my fx chain, followed by MXR re-issue flanger and Stereo Chorus; the only niggle for a guitar purist is that this is digital but - see my comments above - if you understand signal path you will realise that there's nothing wrong with digital phasing, in fact it makes an awful lot of sense providing the D/A converter maintains the integrity of your tone when the effect is disengaged. So there.

This pedal has mor options than your usual Phase 90, so it's a bit mor complicated to get good sounds out of it. But it's no rocket science either, so I'll give it a solid 7.

I sometimes wonder how comes that people write so much garbage here?

Ok, so let me clear a few things up:

This pedal is NOT noisy,in facht it's one of the silent ones, though not dead quiet. But a Phase 90 hisses a lt more.

The sound ist good, but different than some other Phasers. It is a digital pedal and maybe they didn't know exactly how to model a Phaser as in certain settings it has some qualities of a Flanger, also. So it is more "chorussy" than some other purer Phasers, but that is a matter of taste and no point for criticism.

As it is digital, you can't use the whole range of the "Rate" knob. In the highest settings it makes an ugly digital "rrrrrr" sound. Whereas with analog phasers you can mostly use the highest settings for Leslie/Rotating Speaker simulations.

When you switch between 4,8, 10 and 12 step phasing, the amount of the low an high frequenzies changes (e.g. 10 step phasing cuts bass frequenzies). You can compensate this to a certain amount with the "Depth" knob (the higher the setting, the more bass and vice versa). So you have to get used to ths thing...

This unit defenitely has some design flaws and odds, but I can live with it. If you need a plug and play pedal, forget it. But if you work with it, it'll reward you with excellent sounds.

To sum it up: Sound quality is as good (or better) than any other Phaser (analog or digital) around. Because these sounds are a bit hard to find, I'll give it 8 points.

Great pedal, I use it as the only modulation effect on my board right now. And believe me, I've tested everything in an A/B comparison against it. This is not the perfect Phaser, but I haven't found a better one at this price, yet. I'm looking for a Phaser that is dead silent (t.c. electronics, maybe?) and has a real pure phasing sound across the wohle range. The PH-3 fails, but every other one I checked so far was worse!

very easy to use. 4 knobs, each clearly labled. if your not used to these types of products just have a play and it will become clear. one minor thing is thate the rate knob is Exponential meaning as the knob is turned the rate or acceleration increases. this can make it fiddly to get the right speed at higher speeds. the manual does show some good settings. i dont use these cos i mainly use it for experimental prog ect. manual also shows clearly how to connect and use exp pedal with it. quite a usefull thing really.

the sound quality is well... interesting. make sure you try before you buy cos this pedal is anything but subtle. if your after some modist, easygoing phase this may be difficalt to tame. i find it a little dry on its own but wnen combined with reverb/delay/wah/chorus ect it can make some fantastic watery sounds. I am a big fan of mike einziger from incubus and i have an ongoing persuit for his tone. this pedal has certainly taken me closer to this goal. when ran with distortion or many other pedals you do get static phase through your amp but i find its not really a problem. you just have to think about what your doing and turn it off when yr not playing. some of the step, rise and fall effects are extreemly good fun. some say they are just novelty but i manage to find uses for them in what i play. There is only one major issue i have with this pedel and that is the volume drop when it is on. it is very noticable and quite annoying.

its a boss!!! if money was no object i would build my house with them.

never had to deal with them.

i have been playing 3/4 years and i am in a band with frequent gigs and we are doing studio work in between. this pedal is great for ambiant/experamental music as well as rock/funk. it can be annoying live due to the volume drop but you just have to think about what your doin. i get round it by usin it with a louder distortion or turnin my guitar down in the rest of the song and up when the unit is on. its slightly annioying but not the end of the world. on slow settings the top of the phase is louder than the dip. this is also quite annoying but can be sort of interesting in a sort of swelling volume kinda way. This has certainly helped me make music. it is endlessly usefull in the studio for layering different wierd sounds and speeds. there are some things wrong with it which i have talked about but overall it is fairly epic. i would probs buy it if i lost it but i would look for it cheeper. second hand or sumthin.

how easy is it to get a good sound? impossible. however, its easy to dial in the sounds that this thing is capable of.

this is why im writing this. to warn you all. this pedal is garbage! i do not own one myself, my brother has one that his girlfriend bought him..obvisouly she is not a musician.. this pedal does not sound like a phase. does not even sound CLOSE to usefull! i play mostly funk and jazz (i am a bass player, however i do play guitar) and this thing is useless. i would recommend something more like the MXR phase (i think those go for like $100 these days?) if your looking for an affordable phase. if your looking for a top quality phase..well..then i'd recommend either a Red Witch moon phase or a vintage mutron. really, anything but this. it honestly is the worst phase i've ever heard.

well, now that i've said how bad i think it sounds, atleast its a boss pedal. next to indestructible. very reliable.

have delt with them before..slow responce but overall helpfull.

specifics of my playing and what i like are irrelivant. the sound of this pedal is very low quality, and i'm very dissapointed with Boss on this one. i am a HUGE fan of a lot of their other pedals (all the chorus pedals, the octave, delays, ext.) and i think those all produce very high quality sounds at a low price. i borrowed this pedal for a gig because my Mutron was being modified and not working at the time. unfourtunately, i did not test it before the gig..i thoguht, hey, its boss, ill be fine. wrong. guess i learned my lesson. only reason i did not give it a 1 is because of how reliable they are.

Personally, I thought figuring this pedal out was kind of fun. I just plugged in my guitar and started messing around with it. I wouldn't say that it's really all that hard to use--it just requires some time and some tinkering to get the sound you want out of it. I can't comment on the manual becuase I bought the pedal used and didn't get one, but I don't know that I would've used it if I had one.

Here's my setup:

Epiphone Les Paul Standard/Ovation CU247 > Boss CS-3 Compression/Sustainer > Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter > Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion > Boss EQ-20 Advanced EQ > Boss CH-1 Super Chorus > Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor > Marshall AVT50H and AVT412 cab/House system

Outside of maxing out all the settings (which sounds absolutely horrible), I don't think I've ever gotten a bad sound out of this pedal. The 4-, 8-, 10-, and 12-stage settings all sound excellent, and you can get some cool sounds out of the rise and fall settings. My favorite is probably the step setting, which creates some very, very cool synth sounds. You'd almost have to hear it to understand.

If you combo it with a chorus, it gives the phase a little bit more depth and fullness, especially if the chorus is set to a nice, full vibrato. Overdrive or distortion probably goes best with the step setting, but it doesn't sound terrible on the other settings either.

It doesn't bother me because I use an NS-2 at the end of my pedal chain, but the PH-3 is a VERY noisy pedal. It'll phase even when you're not playing anything, so you'll get a noisy, phased static. I would definitely recommend a noise suppressor if you plan on buying one of these.

I use all Boss pedals, and all of them were bought used. Not once has one of them ever failed on me. I stomp on 'em and they work, no questions asked. I gig all of my pedals without backups--Boss makes tough stuff.

I've never had to deal with Boss, and I don't ever plan on it.

An excellent pedal. It's definitely not a very subtle effect, so if you want something that isn't too noticeable, don't buy a PH-3. I like the boldness of it, though. Very thick and very noticeable--something that'll definitely cut through in any mix.

If this got stolen, I'd have to get another one ASAP because I love the effects this thing puts out. No real complaints with this pedal. Another quality pedal from the guys over at Boss.

Too many modes, the 4 stage settings are all different, yet none attain the richness of the older PH-2. The rise and fall settings are an interesting twist and redeem this pedal somewhat, and the external pedal controls sweep speed. Theoretically this could simulate a leslie, but for reasons below, doesn't convince. I would have preferred selecting a static position, like a wah wah, rather than speed. But it's a pedal and is still reasonably simple to use.

I found 4 stages the most phaser-like. However, even in this setting, the comb filter is more flanger than phaser. Another disappointment is that the sweep is not symmetrical, at least not subjectively. It sweeps in, goes "woyong", then goes out into orbit again for a while before coming back in. No "Manual" position control to help center the sweep. Reducing Depth also doesn't help. Again, the PH-2 is better. I think the designers are not aware that a phaser and a flanger have different comb filter characteristics.

I kept this PH-3 for the rise/fall settings; else I might have returned it. My PH-2 will remain my main device, tho' for that moving reggae guitar sound. PH-3 just doesn't cut it. Am mostly disappointed. If I lost it, I wouldn't care.

This takes a looooong time to find the sound you're looking for, but that's only because there are so many modes, which I guess is a good thing.

Signal chain: Cort G290 (EMG SAs and 89)>TU-2>Whammy>Cry Baby>NS-2>OD-20>Zoom PD-01>CH-1>PH-3>BF-3>DD-6
I hated this pedal at first, as it coloured my sound so much with distortion. Then I realised that I shouldn't use it in a transparent fashion, I have my BF-3 for that. Now I just use it in clean and for weird riffs. THere is a volume drop on certain settings but I've found that the resolution seems to control the volume as well, which is rather unhelpful.

It's a Boss.

N/A

I bought this mainly to play Incubus and Audioslave style things, but I use most of my pedals in my own compositions. I love the sound of this thing, you can get almost any phaser sound from it, and although it sounds a bit digital and very thick, it never sounds cheesy. For the price it's excellent.

Getting a good sound (say...one you've heard on a professional recording), isn't quick. Out of the box, it'll make your guitar sound like a dying robot. It takes a little while of fiddling with it to get what I consider a usable effect. The manual is pretty vague concerning what the differences between the Stages are. You CAN hear a difference between the Stages...but that doesn't mean you'll understand WHY they're different. Knowledge is power and I would've liked a better explaination of what the different stages are so that I can aim for a specific tone instead of having to wonder around on the knobs trying to dial one in. Resonance is another dial vaguely described. It's sort of an intensity control. Rate and Depth knobs...well, if you used an effect pedal of ANY kind, you've probably run into Rate and Depth knobs before.
You need to put this pedal between your guitar and your amp. If you put it in your effects loop, it gets noisy...and VERY metallic/robotic sounding. In the effects loop, you'll likely end up fighting with the RES knob and it doesn't get along with distortion too well there either...unless you're into some really far out sounds.
Put before the amp, it is quiet and you can dial a good effect in without fighting with the Resolution knob...sounds good with OD or distortion if you put this pedal BEFORE your OD/distortion and before the amp.
DON'T GET ME WRONG...this pedal doesn't sound bad. It just takes a little more to control it than some other effects (e.g. a chorus or tremolo or something)

I'm using this with an American Std Fender Strat w/Seymour Duncan pickups (HotRails, CoolRails, JB Jr.) into a Marshall Valvestate combo.
Again...run this BEFORE your amp. When using it in your Effects Send/Return loop, it drops your volume when you kick it on. Running it before the amp, I haven't noticed a volume drop.

Typical Boss pedal, it tries to suck your tone and replace it with a digital/robotic Boss tone. But typical of a Boss pedal, it can be controlled and it doesn't sound bad. Just watch out for the RES dial...it can get weird in a hurry. Otherwise, it sounds pretty cool! While it's not something I'll use on every song, it's definitely a keeper!

I really like the options and variety available on this pedal. With so many stages to choose from, you can really get this pedal to go from a vintage '70s phase shift (e.g. 'Barracuda' by Heart) to some unique--almost experimental sounding--effects.

I'm glad Boss pedals are tough as nails--'cause their Customer Service sucks!

Of course I would gig without a backup...I don't have enough money to get a back up.

I would NOT gig without the AC adapter!
Batteries are for smoke detectors...not effects pedals!

Their Cust. Svc Dept. seems to be manned by Attorneys with broom handles up their asses rather than helpful SERVICE people. Keep your paperwork (orginal receipt, boys & girls) for the whole 5 years of the warranty period. They cover their asses, not their pedals.

If it were lost or stolen, I MIGHT buy another one. The BOSS PH-3 is NOT a cheap pedal...even on eBay (where I bought mine). I would certainly buy some other effects first because this isn't something I use often. I have not tried other brands of phase shifters so before I bought another one, I would try some others out. I'd probably shoot for an analog pedal since I don't like the robotic sound of the digital pedals (that damned RES knob again! Watch out it's a tone killer!).

I can't say it really helps ME make music. I mostly toy around with it. I've used it with one of my guitar students because it inspired him a little and helped HIM make music. Hey, if it makes you want to play...then it's a good pedal for you!

My recommendation: Shop around, listen, and compare this pedal to other phase shifter pedals before you lay out the money. Boss pedals are overpriced, in my opinion.

This is the first boss pedal where I have been unable to get a good sound out of it just by reading the manual. Even the presets that boss suggests sound pretty crappy too me . . . they're all super thick and suck the tone out of your guitar. After a couple of evenings playing around with it, I did discover that all those classic phasing sounds that you and I know and love are still here in the pedal, you just have to work the knobs right. Put the rate at 12:00, the depth at 10:00 or 11:00, the resonance completely off, and select either mode 1 or mode 2. Boom, there is the pink floyd/eddie van halen/everything I love about vintage phasers! I have ended up turning the resonance off or nearly off for every setting that I use this phaser on, and it sounds great now. The tap tempo thing is a great idea, and really the only reason that I'll give any points at all in this category.

Currently using a Gibson 335 with some seymour duncan pickups ('59 neck and Seth Lover bridge) into two old handwired tube amps hooked up in stereo. I am running my guitar-> ph-3-> boss BD-2 (Keeley)-> Dunlop 535Q Wah -> Marshall ED-1 Comp-> Marshall VT-1 Vibratrem-> Boss PS-3 Pitch Shifter/Delay-> Boss PSM-5 (used to split the signal to the amps). This is a very silent effect as far as noise goes, as I've come to expect from Boss. While the effect is a little overpowering with the resonance up, overall I'd say it sounds great. No problems getting nice funk/reggae tones, easy to nail Pink Floyd stuff, and I can do the whole distorted phaser thing pretty well too.

I trust my boss pedals.

N/A

I like to play a little of everything, tons of covers, which is why I like to have a broad pallette of sounds with my guitar. If stolen I would get another one with no hesitation. Before buying this pedal I had no idea how often I like to hear a little phasing . . . now I'm screwed if I ever lose it.

Pretty simple, 4 knobs, you just have to spend alot of time finding the sound you like. The manual has everything you need to know, plus some sample settings.

I run a Epiphone Les Paul Standard through a Volume Pedal, TU-2, DS-1, this and a DD-20, and it sounds great. You can do some cool swells with delay, Phase and the volume pedal, i play it alot in my sets.

Its boss, if some where down the road, effects pedals get replaced by something futuristic, Boss can go into the tank building buisness.

Never delt with them, only had it for a month though

I play lead, i use alot of delay and volume swells, this addition with the Phaser has made my setup sound so much more mystic, i love it. One thing you might want to think about is a tap pedal for it to change the rate, instead of having to bend down and change it by the knob, but other than that it is amazing.

Four knobs: rate, depth, resonance, mode. Manual a bit jargony, needed quite a lot of time tweaking and playing around before this pedal made any sense. But it paid off eventually.

Hated the pedal at first. It's definitely not one you can just pull out of the box and get great sounds instantly. But the rewards of patient tweaking for what you want are there to be had. You just need the time, you can get damn near any phase shifted guitar sound you like.
I wanted it specifically for a fast rate, deep phase as used by shoegazer bands like Slowdive, Moose, mid period Cocteau twins. It took a long time to get there but I nailed it in the end, i.e 10 step phase mode, rate at 2 o'c, depth at 4 o'c, no res. The 4 step mode will give you a passable MXR 90 for you Van Halen impersonation, if you like that sort of thing. Also very good for shoegaze/wafty/aethereal sounds are the rise and fall modes. With Hi rate and depth, low res. and a long reverse reverb (Digitech digiverb) you can send your strummed/picked chords into orbit! I haven't had the Ph3 for long, I'm still experimenting with it and I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of the possibilities.
I use a squier strat into Boss od1- proco rat-PH3-digiverb-2x dano PB and J delay-Boss Rv5 reverb, the latter usually on the modulated setting. All into a cheapo Soundking 30W combo amp.

Built like a cross between a brick and a tank, as in all Boss pedals. But eats batteries like nothing else on this earth. Even a Duracell lasts no more than 30 mins before the led begins to fade. A PSU is a must.

Never dealt with Boss. Never had to.

See above. Good for what I like to play, e.g Neil halstead/ Robin Guthrie/ Kitchens of Distinction shoegaze ethereal. Probably good for lots more too. Just spend some tweaking time and all will doubtless be revealed.

This pedal rocks! You can dial in most any sound in just minutes. The manual is very simple and the website offers up to date info too!

Gibson Les Paul Studio - Epiphone Explorer - Gibson Flying "V"
Peavey Half Stack / Spider Speakers & Marshall Valvestate 150 1 x 12 Cabinet. Pedal works well with top quality cables. If you use cheap Sam Ash bargain cables expect some noise. I have managed to recreate some pink floyd, frampton, and even the Ramones with this pedal. I spent a few hours and was able to find many cool sounds!

This peadal is just as solid as any boss pedal. Screw the extended warranties, you will never need it unless you treat your gear like a siamese whore in Bangkok.

Never had to because they make an awesome product!

I play rock, jazz, and blues. I have used this pedal for rock & roll with incredible results. I have been playing for 16 years and I gig regularly. I would replace right away as I have all my gear insured whic is the right thing to do. I make money with my music so I insure it. Many bands do not. Want a cool phaser, get this one. You want to Make Eddie Van Halen even richer, buy the phase 90 EVH model.
It is worth the extra money to have a cool paint job and an extra button that does nothing! Yes I am being sarcastic!

Very easy to use - its a pedal for goodness sakes.
The manual helps & the Boss corparate website (the japan one) lends some good reference points as well. Turn the knobs and go.

This is always a tough one cause sound is so subjective. That being said, I like this phaser. It has a lot of versatility - you can go from chewey to a more subtle phase. The real perk is the Real-time control you can get with an expresson pedal like i do. i never realy mess with the tap tempo. its a little digital sounding but hey - it is digital, i am not worried cause i have good tube amps and that definitly helps.

Duh

never had to deal with

I play Rock/Blues/Fusion for 20 years now. Its a good phaser and thats all ther is to it. You just need to spend a little time with it to get what you like out of it. Dont think that it will immeadiatly sound like a Phase 90, cause it wont. Boss never tries to sound like anything but Boss. I have an old Ibanez 9-series Phaser that is very nice but lacks the versatility of the PH-3, so it wins out and remains on my board.

Very easy to get a great phaser sound of the unit.
Editing the pedal is very easy and clear, good manual (Englisch)

I use this pedal with : PRS Custom 24, Ibanez TS-808 RI, Fulltone OCD (!!), Boss PW-10 Wah pedal, Boss Pedal Tuner, Xotic RC Booster,
Boss PH-3, and finaly into an old Electroharmonix SmallClone Chorus - to my Boogie F-30 Combo.
The pedal is a bit noisy when in "on" mode, but that's typical for a phaser effect. The effect is not weak, and it doesn't give you a volume boost. (that's the way I like it)
I can get a very cool "Saturday-Night" (Herman Brood - Danny Lademacher)- sound of it ! (Set to the "10" stage mode)
In the "off" mode, the pedal do not sucks tone. (not in my case, because I use the Xotic RC-Booster for extra dynamics an to compensate "bad-tone" comming from the amount of pedals I use)

Boss quality, you can always be sure, that it's working !
I use it for rehearsals and live set-up.

Fine, no comments.

I play in a Cover-band (pop, rock, soul, funk, blues, R&B,...)
an I play also in a Blues Band. (I use the pedal only for the cover-band) The phaser-effect is not usefull to play the blues..
I have also a Electro Harmonix Small Stone Phaser (vintage from the 70's) but that unit sound not as good as my new Boss...

It is relatively straight forward to use (though the tap tempo is a pain, so get an external footswitch). Anything that seems confusing is spelled out in the manual. Experimentation is way more fun though.

setup: Ibanez SZ540qm, 536q wha, boss super chorus, boss phase shifter, boss dd5 digital delay, Ibanez LF7 filter, Crate blue voodo.
Sadly, this pedal falls into the trap of offering alot without doing alot of things particularly well. MY biggest complaint is the way it colors the tone of the guitar, and alters my carefully set EQ. However, it does do alot of things you wont find on many other phasers (rise, fall, it's random, bubbly setting). I have dubbed this my "strange noises" phaser, because it does unique phasing better than classic phasing. But that is not really a selling point to the average guitar gear consumer.

It is BOSS, do they ever die?

never delt with them.

Though it can do some unique and entertaining things, this pedal really doesn't do an acceptable regular phase, dispite the brand name and large collection of available options. Plus the coloring of my tone makes me angry. I like BOSS, but this just isn't a particularly good phaser.

Pretty easy to switch through the different stages. The best one IMO is the 10-stage, sounds the most like most traditional phasers. The Step Stage is what sets this apart from other phasers.
It may take a bit to find your particular favorite stage and settings.

After A-B'ing this with the PH-2 Super Phaser, in terms of normal phasing, i would give the edge to the PH-2. The PH-3 sounds a tad bit too digital for my taste. Mode I on the PH-2 corresponds to the 10-stage on the PH-3. The best feature on the PH-3 for me is the Step Phaser Stage, which i have used on a few songs in my originals band.
My pedalboard has a bunch of Boss pedals, including both the PH-2 and PH-3. The PH-3 is used soley in the Step Stage. I use the PH-2 for all other phasing. (I use Mode I on the PH-2)

Boss pedals are like roaches....they'll be the only things left after a nuclear holocaust.

Never needed.

If you want to add some weird effects to your songs, the Step stage may be helpful to you. I actually used the step stage from a GT-6 on one of my songs, but when i got rid of it, i bought the PH-3 to play that effect live.
If you just want a more traditional sounding phaser, i would go with the PH-2. It sounds more organic and less digital. The best sounding phaser i've heard is the Small Stone, but i do not have one myself since i'm basically a Boss fanatic. I'll give it a 6 for the Step effect.....and if you can only afford 1 phaser, go with 10-stage setting for other phaser effects.

Very easy to figure out, some people have stated that the tap tempo function was confusing but I found it was simple and effective, no problems here.

I really like the sounds it produces. With each added stage (4,8,10,12) your tone becomes more "chewey". Not as warm sounding as a MXR Phase 90 but the Phase 90 only does one sound and you can simulate the Phase 45, 90 and 100 with the Boss. You can get mild to wild phase sounds with this unit. I'm using an early 80's Tokai Goldtop into a Dunlop 535 Wah - Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive - Boss Super Overdrive- DOD Yngwie Pedal - Boss Octave Pedal - Boss Phase Shifter PH-3 - Pearl FG-01 Flanger - Voodoo Lab Analog Chorus - Ibanez Delay - Boss Chorus Ensemble - Yamaha FX500 (mostly for tap tempo delay) into a home made tube amp (EL84 - Class A - Single Ended).

It's a Boss. I've had my Boss Super Overdrive for twenty years, most of it's paint has been knocked off along with a couple of the knobs and I've used it to keep my apartment window open for some time but it works as good as the day I bought it. I wouldn't bother with a backup, when it comes down to it I could live without all the effects and just plug directly into my amp.

Never had to.

I've been playing for over 20 years, I play mostly Rock and it's nice for that. If it went missing I would replace it with another. I've owned a few phasers over the years, it's my fav modulation effect. If you want an MXR Phase 90 buy one of those instead, if you want a versatile phaser with cool sounds buy a Boss PH-3 and if your a Phase Freak buy both. As I said it's not as warm as the MXR Phase 90 but it's a phaser, it's designed to produce cool swirling sounds and this does just that.

Pretty easy adjust knobs as needed. Tap tempo is kind of neat once you get the hang of it.

my setup: Gibson SG Standard->DynaComp->Teese Pic Wah->TS808reissue->PH-3->Marshall JCM 2000 DSL 401. This pedal does seem to be noisy, if there is any line noise comming thru my amp it picks it up and you can hear the noise being phased, its really annoying. The sound does get distorted easily and I think the pedal itself adds compression to the sound. This pedal eats batteries like a friggin monster. I got a cheap battery at the dollar store and the battery was dead within 15mins!! But I used a Duracell and that lasted about 2 months. The rise feature is my favorite feature and the step is cool when you set it to a slower speed you can get some pretty trippy sounds.

Yeah i'm sure i could but i would buy the power supply so you dont have to worry about the battery dying. Once that battery starts to die your sound gets distorted as hell and not a usable distortion its like your speaker is broken type distortion.

never dealt with boss

I play classic rock and jam band music. I honestly dont really use this pedal that much. I owned a boss DS-1 (returned it, because my amp had OD on it and bought it because of sales pressure), the DD-6 (returned it, because i couldnt get it to loop without a pause in the loop), i will probably trade in this PH-3 and go with the MXR Phase 100. To be honest with you I really dont care for much of Boss's pedals. I think their Distortiona and OD pedals are probably ok but for other things I would most likely look else where. My advice to anyone looking to buy this pedal or any other pedal is go to a place like Guitar Center where they have pedals from all different brands out and you can try them. I didnt have that luxury and got to try out the PH-3 in Maine and tried the MXR in New York. The sound clips on the website dont do a whole lot to help you either. I hope this helps!

It's very hard to get a good sound out of this pedal. It's not that the controls are counter-inituitive. Not at all. The knobs make perfect sense, and understanding them is fairly straightforward. It's just that the sound is awful.

I am using this (or I will-have-been using this, since I plan to get rid of it as soon as I can....) with a Schecter C1+ (including Duncan Distortion bridge) and a Crate VFX5112. Real tubes in that. The sound in the PH-3 is poor. My DigiTech rp-50 headphone amp has a better phase sound! This is obviously digital. My problem is that my guitar puts out so much output that it overloads a lot of cool phasers. I can't use a Phase 90 or PT-9 because my guitar overloads it. While this unit is versatile, IT SUCKS ALL THE LIFE OUT OF YOUR GUITAR SOUND!!! I'm not against BOSS at all. I've got a CE-5, MT-2, DD-3 and I love them all. But this is one where they've failed me.
The 10-stage sound and the rise mode are probably the best.

Here's the problem: either the effect is too weak to make a difference, or it's too over-the-top. There's no balance, no way to get the perfect combination of phase and distortion. I HATE this pedal, but I'm giving it a 4 because it does offer some cool noise-making modes, and it does have enough headroom not to distort when hit with the Duncan Distortion. CAVEAT: I haven't used it in my effects loop, only in front of the amp. But a lot of other phasers work fine there (MXR Phase 100, Maxon PT999, Ibanez PT-9).

Seems very reliable, and yes (sigh) "It's a Boss...."

Haven't dealt with them. Well one thing that sucks is that if you want to fill out your warranty online, you are REQUIRED to take a cheesy one-free issue magazine offer. No thanks, I'll send in the card instead.

I'm going to get rid of this. It would have been nice if it hadn't eaten all my hard-earned tone when engaged. But that's what it does. I may try the BF-3, or just go back to my MXR Phase 100. When you engage the PH-3, it make you want to stop playing and see why it sounds terrible. All the rest of my gear sounds great. This pedal is a problem. I hate it. It's a particularly ugly shade of green, too, worse than the Maxon SD-9 I used to own. That was cool looking....

Very easy to use, and if you have never worked a stompbox before it comes with the manual that will teach you all about it and give you some cool presets. :)

I have only heard 2 or 3 phasers before so I cant really tell you how it compares to others but I really like the sound. You get so many features out of it, it will never leave you bored. I really like the 4,8, and 10 stage phaser, Im not so big on the 12. The step,rise, and fall modes are cool but the step mode seems a little cheesy at times. I use this along with my wah in my effects chain and I do not get any noise out of it at all. This doesnt boost my signal at all and it isnt trebbly either. Some people might put this pedal down like guys who believe analog effects rule all because of certain reasons, but there isnt really that big of a difference. Sounds Great to me and my friends.

Let me spell this out for you. B-O-S-S .
Even if this thing did happen to break on you it has a 5 year warranty.

Do I need to spell it again?

If you are looking for a phaser and cant make up your mind then I reccoment this. Sounds good and I have no complaints at all. Great buy.

This unit is extremely easy to use. It can take a little while to dial in the exact sound that you want.

I resisted buying this pedal for a long time, because I'm somewhat biased against digital effects. Also I have several great analog phasers in my collection including a script logo Phase 90.

So why bother with the Boss. Well I needed a unit that could offer versatility and reliability. I was looking for a do it all Phase Shifter, and I think I found it in the PH-3.

In the 4 stage mode with the regeneration turned all the way down, you can get a sound quite like the MXR Phase 90. You need to make sure the depth is set to 12:00 o'clock or a little less. Turn up the depth a little bit and it puts you into Univibe country.

If you turn the regeneration knob up to about 3:00 o'clock, this puts you into the category of the EH Small Stone with the color switch set to thick. It also sounds a bit like the Maestro Stage Phaser with the depth turned up.

I didn't find much use for the 8 stage mode, but the 10 stage setting sounds somewhat like a MXR Phase 100, if you tweak the depth and regeneration controls.

The 12 stage mode sounded pretty artificial. I should mention that in the 8, 10, and 12 stage modes, there is a noticeable mid-range boost if the regeneration knob is set too high. I felt that this adversely affects the guitar tone.

As for the infinite rise, infinite fall, and step modes. I found them to be somewhat useful when playing arpegiated chords, but all in all somewhat gimicky.

I have complete confidence in Boss's reliability. Never has a problem

Never called for customer support

Outstanding! I think that Boss really did a good job on this one.
I was really suprised how good it sounded in the 4 stage mode. It is one of the best phase shifters I've heard, and almost sounds analog.

This ease of use category is rediculous. If a pedal is easy to use, it probably dosen't have many different sounds. It's easy enough, OK?

First of all, I'll start by saying that the vast majority of Boss pedals sound terrible. The Dimension C is a great pedal, but what have you done for me lately? I guess the PH-3. Really, I don't like the sterile sound that just about every Boss pedal produces.Fortunately the PH-3 is an amazing little pedal. The 4, 8, and 12 stage modes are the worst phase sounds I have ever heard, and I've heard all the great ones. Nowhere near a Script Phase 90 or a Small Stone. The 10 stage is acceptable, but not great.

The big plus of this unit is its expression, momentary input which allows speed adjustments in real time. If you're not using this jack, you're missing the boat. I use an expression pedal for recording, and a momentary switch for live work. It allows for synching the phase to the tempo of the song, it's really amazing. When you hook up an expression pedal, you can get some amazing tripped out sounds, incredible.

Where this pedal really shines is in the Rise, Fall, and Step modes. The rise and fall have a lot of personality and sound great. The Step function is amazing, I've tried the Digitech X Phaser, and their Step mode sucks in comparison, big surprise, Digitech sucks across the board. The Step mode on the Boss PH-3 is incredible, different from any other effect ever produced. Actually, I believe Boss introdoced the Step Phaser on their SE70 rack unit, which is about the only great sounding rack unit ever made for guitar. The se-70 offere stereo step phasing which is incredible, while the PH-3 is only mono. Nevertheless, the PH-3s step mode is incredible.

Like I said, I'm not a Boss fan, I use Fulltone, Z Vex, Nine Volt Nirvana and Atomic pedals, but the PH-3 has earned a permanent place on my pedalboard due to its unique sounds, and controllability. If you're into trippy effects, this is a must!

Contrary to popular belief, Boss pedals do break down. I've been playing for over 20 years, and I've had at least 5 Boss pedals fail during gigs. when they do fail, generally they will produce no sound at all in either bypass or effect mode. Still way better than Electro Harminix build quality, but nowhere near Fulltone or NVN.

Also, how about designing a true bypass switch for these things, c'mon guys, if Maxon can do it, why can't you?????

Absolutely the worst, Boss couldn't care less if you're having a problem with their products. I've been waiting 3 months for an input gain knob for my studio's GX-700 processor. Shame on you Boss/Roland!

This is an incredible, original effect. I've also tried Zoom's Step effect in the 9030, and it can't compare. This is an incredible deal, lots of great possibilities if you use your imagination!!!

Four knobs, easily adjustable to change the speed, depth, resolution, and type of phase effect you want. Very simple.

My current setup is: Shecter Diamond Series guitar >> Boss AC-2 Acoustic Simulator >> Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter >> MXR Flanger >> Spider II Line 6 120-watt amp. Good bypass. Doesn't effect sound when off, and the phasing sounds great when on. Many different styles of phasing can be used, like a 4-stage, 8-stage, 10-stage, 12-stage, Fall effect, Rise effect, and Step effect.

Boss makes the best pedals money can buy. Period.

I play lots of different styles of music, but my two favorite bands are Incubus and Pink Floyd, which are both heavy on the Phasers. With this pedal, I could produce any phasing sound I've needed and be completely happy with it. If you are looking for a high quality phaser, look no further.

If you can't figure it out you're a moron.

I'm going to give this an 8. i think the phasing sounds great and there are many sonic possibilities. however i've never used another phaser. the only reason i take off 2 points is because it sucks your tone a bit. i think that when you turn all the knobs to zero your tone should sound virtually the same with the pedal on or off. but you can tell it colors your tone a decent amount.

i'm running this pedal between a gibson explorer and a mesa triple rectifier. i tried putting it in the effects loop but when used after the preamp it sucks all the nice warmth of my tubes. so i use it before the preamp so that the pedal only sucks a little bit of my guitars tone, but the amp still has a chance to warm it back up.

i think the pedal really shines when used with the clean channel and the neck pickup. the sweeps are so smooth and thick.

i've never had a boss pedal go down on me yet.

n/a

you can mimic any kind of song that has a phaser in it to a reasonalbe degree. its not gonna replicate your favorite classics but its a darn good pedal and worth looking into.

Firsty, get a damn FS-5U or whatever it is that plugs into it, this makes the whole thing much much easier. Without this the tap tempo is a mission and a half. The dials are all nice and easy to use. if your confused read the manual, thats what its for!

my setup goes Epiphone SG----> boss sd1----> marshall gv2----> boss oc2----> PHASE SHIFTER (with attatched tempo thing)----> boss ch1----> amp rig whateva ive got at the time. It makes sum lush phasing effect, slight volume drop which is a bit annoying but can be worked around. it has some nice novel effects, rise, fall and step which are funky to play with, the normal phase settings are nice, i like 8 the most i think, duno, theyre all gd. i like it, sounds nice. is nice for playing little riffs that arent too violent, play some shadows through it, should sound nice.

can widthstand a direct hit from a 500 mega-ton nuclear warhead. i would/will gig without a backup, never will it fail me.

no idea

i play a wide range of music, i use this mainly for chilled out things or nice open chords. i seriously have to recommend buyng the foot switch thingy with this, its not vital but i think its a lush bonus. i get nice tones out of this badboy, i think its a gd all round phaser.

I toyed around with it for a while and it was easy to understand. Though I still don't understand what the tap tempo does...

This won't give you the best phaser sound out there, but it will give you a lot of great options. If you just want a great phaser sound with nothing unique about it, go get MXR M101 Phase 90 Phaser or Maxon PT999 Phase Tone Pedal. If you're looking for a pedal that can give you different phaser sounds and speed, depth, and resonance. Than this is it. Levels, 4,8,10,12 will attempt to copy other phaser sounds. Their good, and very useful, but I've heard better. The rise,fall, and especially the step is very unique and fun. Because of all the options with the pedal, I'd say that it is the best one out there, that is of course unless you like to be limited in your sound.

it's boss... need I say more?

don't use it

ONE OF THE BEST PHASER PEDALS OUT THERE. EVERY GUITARISTS INTERESTED IN PHASERS SHOULD AT LEAST CHECK THIS ONE OUT, MANDATORY.

Easy enough to use - simple controls. The tap tempo is a nice feature but as stated in other reviews it is not practical to be used live.

My setup live is as follows: Gibson Hawk --> boss hr-2 harmonist --> boss ph-3 phase shifter --> moogerfooger ring modulator --> boss dd-6 digital delay --> marshall jcm2000 dsl 50.


The 4, 8, and 10 stage all sound quite good. My personal favorite is the 4 stage - has a very classic feel to it. The 12 stage in my opinion sounds like junk. It sounds way too overproduced and unnatural. The rise and fall settings are a cool idea but i get alot of feedback with them. They do make some strange sounds with the rate cranked up though. And finally, the step is also a really good idea, and you can some great sounds out of it but, as in the 12 stage, it sounds very overproduced. Another complaint with this unit I have is the quick break in the sound when switching it on and off. This can sound very cheesy when trying to get a professional sound.

Some nice settings that i've found are:
on the 4 stage setting - rate 10 o'clock - depth 1 o'clock - res 2 o'clock..
on the step setting - rate and depth all the way down and res all the way up..
also try cranking the rate up on the rise, fall, and step settings to get some crazy sounds. other than that its a typical phaser.

This unit stopped actually stopped working for me for about 2 hours once but then it started again. Odd seeing as how it's a boss. Also I sometimes have problems with the input jack - nothing major it just comes unscrewed easily. Other than that its a tank.

I play in a hard rock band but I personally play many styles of music. This is a great pedal if you're not too worried about having a phenomenal phaser but still want a good phaser sound. If you're looking for a top of the line phaser this obviously is not your unit - but be prepared to drop some serious cash. Overall I like this pedal, I dont love it but I like it, and it gots the job done well.

This pedal is pretty easy to use. It has four controls: rate, depth, resonance, and the fourth knob has various modes for you to dial in including the new "rise," "fall", and "step" modes. Playing around with a pedal and testing your imagination with it is pretty instinctual, even if you're window-shopping.

I do not on one of these myself, but I have a friend who does and he let me borrow it before. At first, I was very enthusiastic about the pedal. What I was really excited about was the depth in the phase (similar to the depth of the PH-2, which I really like). Also, new options always seem to lure me right in unless they sound totally ridiculous. However, when I finally got to mess around with it, I began to grow more and more disappointed in the sound with every passing minute. For some reason, this pedal's sound has almost no identity. I know a lot of you are going to think that's a ridiculous thing to say, but it doesn't. It just seemed real lifeless and bland. I tried every setting (including the step, which was a bit over the top) and nothing seemed to work.

Actually, even though Boss pedals are known for their reliability and their durability, this pedal one day just decided to burn inside when my friend turned it on.

Boss didn't seem to be too helpful. It was sent to the company for repair or replacement, but was sent back claiming that my friend had let liquid in it. That can't happen unless you play with this thing in a puddle or open it up and our stuff into it. Now my friend has a nice looking dead pedal.

It's an ok pedal, but I personally suggest the Boss PH-2 phaser over this one. It sounds better and isn't such a hassle when it comes to batteries (the PH-3 eats them up because it's all digital). As far as the pedal burning out, I seriously hope that this was one of the duds, because I'd like to keep the notion that Boss pedals are comletely reliable.

Latest BOSS phaser with the usual Rate/Depth/Resonance controls, plus a seven position mode switch for 4/8/10/12 stage phasing plus rise/fall/step modes. Has a tap tempo function which, as others have noted, is rather clunky to use especially with all the distractions of playing a gig. Also has an expression pedal input.

This pedal, unlike previous BOSS phasers, is all digital. Batteries only last a few hours with this one.

Not too hard to use in general, if you start with the suggested settings in the user manual.

I've previously owned two phasers (MXR Phase 45 and reissue Phase 90) and I have played through an original Small Stone. My gear is high quality (Anderson, Mesa, George L's, boutique pedals etc).

Positive: Very flexible and versatile. Fairly quiet. The step mode is a bit gimmicky, but the rise/fall modes (rise being my favourite) can sound quite beautiful and ethereal if dialed in properly. The pedal produces a few cool weird sounds as well for you Radiohead disciples.

Negative: Not quite as 'chewy' as some analog phasers. Displays some zipper noise, mainly when adjusting the Depth control. Awkward tap tempo function. Playing with the band, on some settings I noticed the guitar dropped out of the mix (particularly using 4 or 8 stage phasing and/or using high resonance levels). There is a very slight (milliseconds) signal dropout when changing modes or bypassing the pedal.

Don't forsee any problems here. BOSS is usually bulletproof.

Don't need it.

No the best, not the worst. Certainly good enough to play out with. I've never had anyone come up to me at a gig and say "your phaser sucks!" so it must be OK. Make sure you have a good power supply though (the Godlyke Powerall is great and 1/4 the price of a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power).

A good choice if you want versatility. If you need analog, get a PH-1/PH-2 or buy another brand. I really wanted a Lovetone Doppelganger, but for the amount of phasing I use (a few times a set) I couldn't justify the stupid price they're selling for.

Ummm...duh, genius! 4 knobs. How hard could it possibly be? Tap tempo was a neat feature (that and the expression pedal input jack may be the only 2 features I miss)

Current Setup: Fender Squier Strat (stock single-coil pups) > "modded" Proel Wah (see review of that one for the "mod") > the PH-3 > Boss DS-1 Distortion > Peavey Rage 158...I owned it for a full day. There is a good reason for this. I could not stand what it did to my tone! Maybe I was picky, but I don't care. A person's tone is sacred to them, whatever the preference may be. I may not have my dream Fender ProTube Pro Reverb yet, but hey...I can manage some respectable tones out of my amp & guitar duo (just not with this pedal in the chain).

Seemed reliable. I mean c'mon, don't expect too much from the fragile little thing...it's only a BOSS lol! (obvious sarcasm)

Never dealt with 'em, but keep reading to find out why I think Billy at Ontario Music in Ontario, California kicks arse.

I had the CE-5 Chorus Ensemble, but wanted something a bit more 'rotational', so I tried this. Seemed okay in the store, but just wasn't what I wanted after all, so the next day, went back and got my beautiful and lush chorus back (still don't know WHAT the hell I was thinking). And why is Billy such a good sales guy? I traded a Boss OD-3 Overdrive for the chorus. He was totally cool with all the trading, and indeed made me a happy customer! *kisses his CE-5* (and yes I reviewed it here, too)

I'm giving this thing's ease of use a 1 only for the tap-tempo function, and it's usefulness (or lackthereof) onstage.

I assure you, you will look like a geek attempting to tap out tempos in front of a crowd-- accidentally turning it on and off, stomping on your pedalboard like a moron (a horse counting with its hoof is more like it), and generally blowing your vibe. The function is screwed up in two major ways:

1. Engaging it takes too long. You have to stand and hold it for what... 3 seconds? Tap in your tempo. If you're very good, you're done in 2 measures. There's another 5 seconds. Then hold it another 3 seconds to lock it. That's 11 seconds. Onstage, it's more like forever. Even if you skip the lock-in part, it's still close to 10 seconds. And this is also assuming that you've done everything ecactly right, applying the right pressure and timing to not turn it on and off while attempting to set the tempo.

2. This is the really annoying part-- it seems to me like each tap equals an eighth note, so the speed is FAST and seriously spasticated. I'm probably exaggerating, and each tap equals a quarter note, but if you're playing a fast song the results of such wacky speed are musically useless. Soooo... if you tap out the tempo on the first and third note, or on the 1 only, guess what: You're time tapping out the tempo baloons out to 15 seconds or more. Forget it.

BOSS: please improve this!

It sounds okay. It is very different from the PH-2 (a pedal I really like, by the way), so kudos to BOSS for not selling us the same product a second time with added features. Still there's something about the sounds that lack identity. You can always spot a Phase 90 or a PH-2 on a recording when you hear one... there's nothing that unique about any of the PH-3's sounds, though there's plenty of them, and they're all of good quality. The 10-Stage Mode is my fave-- I think it really stands above the others on this box. The 6 rating I gave is a bit harsh (6.5 better reflects my feelings), but I need and depend on a phaser for some of my tones, and I'm a picky SOB. That, and there seems to be a lag when you disengage the effect-- like it turns off a second *after* you stomp it. That's no good.

By the way, anybody know if this sucker is analog or digital?

Hah! The best, toughest pedal design yet devised.

Never talked to 'em, probably will never have to.

S'okay. Don't use the tap tempo in front of anybody who paid to see you.

easy enough... you just have to memorize knob positions as optimum settings are not global when switching modes-if you don't use more than one it's even easier.

my favorites are the modern settings-the regular staged modes are pretty good also but i prefer other things(like an ultravibe)for slower swooshy sounds. if it weren't for the rise/fall/step modes or TT i'd have not bought this-it was just something to try for more interesting/contemporary textures...

...boss

...

it would have been nice to compare to something else but as far as i know there isn't anything else(except the digitech pedal but it seems like a bit of a copy of this one)...i wanted to try something different and like all boss modulation pedals this is no nonsense and useable for at least something no matter what the style-i usually use an old bassman head or deluxe reverb with gibson,g&l or hamer guitars.

It was pretty easy to get started with this thing. Experimenting with it taught me a lot about this pedal quite quickly. It wasn't hard to get a good sound, but (guitarists like me anyway) you should keep in mind that it's easy to overdo the effect, but I guess that's personal. I glanced at the manual, because I'm too impatient to read a manual anyway. It had (among other things) eight examples for the patches, not that much I think.

I don't know why some people think it messes up your sound. First of all, it's supposed to do that. Second, on my setup (Ibanez guitar, Fender Deluxe 112 amp) it sounded just great. On some occasions, escpecially when much depth was applied, it filtered out too much of the high frequencies. But that's easy to avoid by reducing the depth and or reducing the resonance.
I noticed that when you put the ph-3 before a distortion/overdrive, the effect diminishes. If you first distort/overdrive your guitar signal and then put it through the phaser, you can produce over-the-top synth-like sounds.
The range of the type of sounds you can create with this effect is very wide. From subtile phaser-like sounds to deep phaser-stuff. You can add a slight tremelo or create a underwater sound. It sure is versatile.

It's a Boss. It's 'got five years of guarantee, but probably will last longer than I will.

It's moderately easy...just fiddle around with them realy you gotta love the options on this thing;

Rate (speed of phasing)...depth (the frequency range being
affected)...res (changes how obvious or transparent the actual phasing is)...and phasing modes...*deep breath*

4 - 'vintage' (less high end)
8 - bright (less low end)
10 - MXR-like phase (to me anyway)
12 - drastic phase
fall - only falling waves
rise - only rising waves
step - phasing happens in steps

teh tap tempo featrue is a bit tricky...stomp on the pedal and hold for two seconds and the LED turns green, then just tap one measure (1, 2, 3, 4...) in the tempo you like and the phasing goes according to that tempo.

My setup is an Ibanez RG170 or Godin SDXT, through this pedal, into the input of a Fender Princeton 65 DSP (thats got the echos, flangers, tremelo, chorus, etc).

THere are alot of potentially good sounds on this thing, you gotta love the options it has. The best ones in my opinion are the 4-step and the rise/fall. Step is cool for just screwing around on with sounds, and most of the other phases (8 10 and 12) alter the tone quite a bit.

I wanna set the record straight about the differences between the MXR Phase 100 and the Boss. At long and mcquade I directly compared them, using the same guitar and amp.

The MXR, while limited in options, doesn't affect your tone at all. I wouldn't say it's 'true bypass', but I'd say overall the tone is intact still. Particularily the high-end. Once you stomp on the pedal the only range that seems to be affected is the mids, the high end and low end are pretty much unaffected.

On The boss pedal I noticed a little bit of a loss in treble...especially on the 4-stage setting. However, my Fender has tons of treble, so it's a godsend that the boss phaser gets rid of some of those extreme highs. So it works well for me, but I'd understand why those guys with the huge stacks behind them opt for the MXR, because it retains 'clarity' a little more.

The Boss really shines when its BEHIND the amps distortion (or a distortion pedal). The sound you get when playing this through distortion is awesome, in fact it's remarkably WAH like, particularily when using the 4-stage mode. I didn't really like the 8-stage mode...a ton of bottom end gets lost.

In front of distortion (throuh the effects loop) it's a different sound entirely, and I slightly liked the MXR better when used like this. However I went with the boss because I liked its features, tonal options, and how awesome it sounds through distortion.

er umm.. Boss pedal here

Great great value for $140...the MXR Phase90 was the same and it only had one knob...the Boss gets the job done its an awesome pedal!

Fairly straight-forward and simple controls. Easy to figure out what control does what to the sound. You can spend lots of time tweaking this thing, and you can find alot of usable settings.

Sound quality on this thing is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE!! This is the phaser's HUGE downfall. On every setting, it sounds like there is some sort of tone filtation going on that totally degrades and ruins the sound of the instrument. Bottom line is, it doesn't matter how many features an effects unit has or how flexible it is, if using it ruins the tone of the instrument and makes it suck!! And that's exactly what this thing does!

It's a Boss, so it's built like a brick s**thouse.

N/A

If you want an expensive noisemaker, use this thing on some of its' extreme settings and you can get some weird, whacked sounds out of it. (The "step" mode is very cool-sounding). But if you want great PHASER tones, forget this unit completely. Go with the MXR PHASE 90, which is nowhere near as flexible, but which sounds 1000% better.

Very easy to get a sound out of. The manual didn't tell me anything a moron wouldn't know about a phaser. its got some really innovative possibilities, like the step function. whenever i turn that on people are in awe cause they have no idea what effect that is. basically since no other company that i know of has that option. great pedal

I use this with my les paul custom. it sounds amazing and is never noisy for me. i can get any phase sound with this thing. i was considering the phase 90 also when buying this. but the boss has way more possibilties, i mean with a phase 90, you get a speed knob and thats it. with this thing you get speed, depth, resonanse, and then you can choose between a 4,8, 10, and 12 stage phasers. or you can do rise or fall where that sound is always continuosly rising or falling,. and then the step funtion. amazing.

all boss's are built well. i would gig without a backup, mainly since i dont have another one or the money to buy one.

haven't dealt with them

I play all styles of rock from beatles to zeppelin to metallica and incubus. it sounds great no matter what. i would definately replace it if stolen. i have yet to play a better phaser.

Very intuitive knobs, the only problem is you can obtain so many different sounds that you?ll always spend a lot of time experimenting, and I think that?s very good.

It?s not a 10 because of the TAP tempo, that?s not so good: if you old the switch down for more than 2 seconds the led becomes green, with the red glittering at the end of every phase, and you can use the switch to set the tempo, but the effect will be always on! That?s awful, but you can connect into the unit an easy home made switch, so you can use the switch to turn on and off the effect, and whenever you want you can change the tempo (even when the unit is bypassed).
Now the only problem is that you wont be able to move your foot so fast to obtain very high frequencies, and the slower set you can reach is about 6 seconds, while the rate knob gives you every rate you want. It would be better if it worked like this: while you old the TAP down it keep the rate, instead of needing the to impulse, that can?t be so near.
I?ve to say that you can also buy a Boss EXP pedal, I think it can make you change the Stage to, it would be great.

RATE increaseS the rate of the wave from 0 (yes, and it will work like a sound filter without wave!) to a very high frequency, the higher I ever heard in a phaser. It keeps the depth the wave was when you turn it down to 0, but if you turn it off and on, it will start from the middle of the wave (hope you understood, it?s not easy for me to explane it in english!).

DEPHT sets the depth of the wave, nothing easiest. MIN means no wave at all (except for the FALL and RISE stages), and this is very good.

RES is the amount of the effect on the tone of your guitar, MIN is for softer FX, MAX is for space sounding.

STAGE is very interesting: you ans select 7 different wave type:

4 is caracterized by a very frying low end.

8 is quite a normal phaser, very liquid and slim.

10 is a worm fat phaser, very similar to a flanger if you keep low DEPTH and high RES and put a good overdrive in front of it.

12 looks like two waves together, one very very fat, the other very space.

FALL produces an always-going-down wave.

RISE produces an always-going-up wave. (try it with all the knobs at max?)

STEP is one of that silly things that make me love a pedal, it produce a cool step wave.

This is not the best phaser I?ve ever heard, but it?s absolutely one of the best noise machine ever made, and I love it.
Like a lot of Boss stuff, it colors up your sound a lot, if you don?t keep depth and res low, you can forget your guitar original sound.
This is one of that pedal that change a lot if putted before or after the fuzz and the overdrive.
If you connect it before it?s much more sweet, less dominant.
If it?s after, it can make every noisy-hears-grinding sound you desire.
I choose the second, basically to have better results using it as a filter, with 0 RATE.
I didn?t give a 10 because of a pair of problem.

The main is that when you turn it on, it take a very little second fraction to start producing his sound, something that can be heard only if you use it overdriven. I don?t know if it?s only a problem of mine, anyway, you can learn to press it in the right moment to avoid this problem.

A little problem is that between a stage and an other there is something like 0,1 second of mute, but it doesn?t really care, because you?ll probably don?t have to change it while playing.

Something more I?d like the PH-3 had is a general level knob (every effect should have one), because some setting can cut off some frequencies, or overload others, changing a bit your volume, mainly if overdriven.

To be perfect it would be nice a wha-like swich, you know, like the george dennis one, so that you can turn it on and off softly, but it would be much bigger.

This unit isn?t truly bypassed, but it doesn?t sucks tones or hisses when turned off.
It produces a little hiss when turn on, but absolutely nothing annoying, you?ll hardly hear it, may be it would disappear without other 6 pedal before it (se my setup below)

Here it is some of the sounds you can get:

RATE 3 o?clock;
DEPTH 3 o?c;
RES 9/12 o?c;
STAGE 12
for thin space treble over fat mellow phasing bass frequencies.

R.max;
D.max;
R.min;
S.step
and your guitar will sound like a sitar with a bad neck that makes the strings fry on the frets.

R.max;
D.max;
R.max;
S.rise
do you know the Melvins, the song Soup on Stag? Water world! It?s like bubble explosion (while in the other stages it?s like different laser guns!)

R.min;
D.4 o?c.;
R.8 o?c.;
S. 4
after fuzz or overdrive, my guitar sounds like a distorted bass.

R.4 o?c.;
D.2o?c.;
R.2 o?c.;
S.8
With a stupid octave before it, like the sintetic sounding BOSS OC-2, you?ll get something like an Hammond sound (may be not a very good Hammond, anyway something interesting)


My setup is:

?97 Gibson Les Paul Special DC TV Yellow (P90 pick ups, 0.13-0.56 strings, CGCFAD tuned)
Boss OC-2 Octave
Dunlop Cry Baby GCB95 wha wha
Ibanez TK999 Tube King overdrive
Electro Harmonix Big Muff PI fuzz (the N.Y.C. one, NOT THE RUSSIAN!)
Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter
Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man analogic delay
Sovtek MIG 50 all tube head
Home made bass cabinet with two 12? cones

I don?t use battery, anything is connected to a strong enough ac 9v adapter.

It has a good hard metal box, the only critical point is the rubber ring around the hole where the little screw keep the battery case closed. Mine was broken, and the switch had a too wide excursion. I repaired it easely with some rubber.

I never dealt with them, but the site bossus.com is very good, and gives you any information and semples.

It?s not a 10 because of the problem listed above. Nothing is perfect, but this is perfect in what do well, and it?s enough (as the things it do well are really a lot). If you are a purist you?ll probably hate the way it absorbs your original tone, so, buy an mxr or something like that: a beautiful sound, but only that one.
I prefer the very slow or very fast vibrato-like wave, on the middle rate it sounds a bit to? robotic, it?s digital, so a bit cold, but not in every stage, 10 is worm, 8 is wet, 4 is crispy, 12 is a good digital. Fall and rise need very low res, step is so lovely silly?
You can have some not bad traditional phasing, and a thousands of strange sounds. The best feature is the rate control, the widest you can desire. The TAP is nice to, but with his limits.
I think this unit costs a lot, but it?s not too much for what it gives.

Quite a few knobs/settings avail. for a pedal. Easy to use & to find useable sounds nevertheless. 4, 8, 10 or 12 stage phasing plus Fall, Rise, & Step.

When i used it thru the fx loop (Mesa-Boogie 50 Caliber circa '86) it robbed most of my tone. Perhaps thru the loop of a more modern amp this wouldn't happen. Found the best configuration is to place it first in line from the guitar. After the PH-3 I have: Boogie V-Twin preamp-> Vox wah. In the fx loop I currently have: Morley Crystal Chorus->Danelectro Pepperoni Phaser->Danelectro Hash Browns Flanger->Ibanez DE-7 Delay/Echo.

Played thru the instrument input its not as pronounced as thru the loop. Beats losing tone though. Doesn't sound as lush & rich as my friend's PH-1R or PH-2 back in the early 80s. Maybe that was just the weed and being 18.

Have never had problems with Boss pedals.

I play mostly heavy progressive & alternative rock. Also a bit of jazz. Been playing since '81.
I'd probably buy it again if I couldn't find a used PH-1R or PH-2. Either that or an Electric Mistress.

it very easy to use.
the temple feature is pure genious.
just hold down for two seconds and tap the tempo.

sounds great with a clean tone.
also with a little distorion.
the fall and rise features are my favorite.
when im playing some rythym i just tap the tempo and away i go.
sounds great.

seems pretty solid.
but i just got it.

great pedal and its versatile.
glad i bought it.
i like it a lot better than boss's phaser pedal.

Simple modes.
Simple customization
Hold for 2 sec
tap
Hold for 2 sec
rock like no tomorrow

As usual with Boss effects you can have the effect hide you, or you can turn the effect into ambience.
I've played with the PH-2 and the PH-3 has HUGE improvements over it.
More modes with 3 unique (hard to play something to) styles.
Fade up and up and up
Fade down and down and down
Step up Step down
you dont often hear those 3 in modern songs... at least, you dont now... just wait untill my band gets big :)

If you know anything about Boss, it's that their effects are built like tanks.

never had to use it

i would prefer no other.
I'm that way about all Boss effects, i use nothing but.
all of my Boss pedals are of all outstandingness.
(BF-3, DD-5, TR-2, TU-2, MT-2, CH-1, RV-2, PS-5.. and more and more to come)

easy?...yeah, turn the knobs, get sounds, jam

setup: washburn somethingorother, mexi-strat, hamer duotone--zoom505, ph-3, boss tremolo, q-tron, boss blues driver, boss dd-5--trace elliot tramp--fender princeton chorus

it's a little noisy but it could be cuz my cables suck or cuz the zoom is kind of cheesy. I can hear the effect when nothings being played, ya know??

the effects are great. I keep pretty mild most the time, but, if you cramk up the rate and keep the depth pretty low, that's some good shit.

It sounds good with a little delay and a deep phase: strum a chord with the volume down, and swell the volume up and you get a cool incubus type sound.
I thin it sounds best with a bit of overdrive/distortion

no problems here..I've had it for a year or so and use it a lot and it's been great.

N/A

I make a lot of noise and this pedal encourages that. Not to say you can't use it for more tradtional stuff.
I love everything about it.

Pretty easy to figure out. Mine didn't have a book but then again its phaser not hard to figure out. I love the versatility of the different stages. I previously owned a danelectro phaser (crap) so this is a major upgrade. If you're used to 1 knob phasers it may take a while to figure the extra features. The tap tempo needs some work though. I don't care about the 2 seconds it takes to cut it on cause I work the time change into the song but you can't tap it enough. 4 taps makes it go its fastest yet it isn't nearly as fast as the dial goes. What's the deal??? So I suggest getting an expression pedal. You can get the $30 FS-5U if you want and the tap tempo doesn't have to be held for 2 seconds so that works fine. I just wish I didn't have to buy an expression pedal for it. I haven't actually used the boss one but i plan to look into it. I just played around with my amps footswitch. I'm thinking though getting a keyboard expression pedal will be your best bet cause you just push in for fast and roll back for slow so then you don't have to tap at all but you have to remember where you want which is also a minus, because its like having the dial but it is easier than reaching down mid song to fix. I really hope to fix the tap tempo problem. It screwed me up live so I was agitated. It was playing too fast on a slow song. Its hard to bring the tempo back down properly is the problem. Maybe if i had a book i wouldn't have made the mistake but too late now. Fix the tap though and I'll love it more than I do.

Overall its fine for what I do. It does drop the volume when in the 4 stage which ticks me off cause I like it the best. When distorted it fattens your sound so for that I love it. The rise and fall modes are kinda stupid to me, but Step is freakin awesome. People freak out when they hear it live so I'm well pleased. Minus 1 for the loss of volume though

Its a Boss duh. Don't screw with batteries. Get a GOOD power supply and you won't have any problems.

Never had to deal with them. Hope I never do. I bought a pedalboard to protect and power my pedals. SKB makes em for $120 and up. Look into it.

Overall I give this bad boy a 9. As I said I was naive enough to buy the Danelectro one before so I do know the difference between utter crap and something good. I've learned to save up and buy good gear. As a refrence I'm running a Gibson Les Paul trough a Fender Tube Amp. Other pedals are my Crybaby, Boss DS-1 (used as volume boost, tube amp dist is best hands down), Boss PS-3, Danelectro Hash Browns Flanger (I actually like this one but im looking at a boss one next time i go to the store just for tap tempo) and the retarted Danelectro French Toast octave if you have one use sparingly. Anyways for a great classic sound use phaser and get the boss. If not buy something else. Don't be an idiot try stuff out in the store. Sure its cheaper online but play it in the store first then order it. Overall I give it a nine based on the minor gripes I had about it. ie slight volume cut and the tap tempo needs refining. As far as my style its blues, rock, and i'm getting into spacey tasteful guitar sounds. For some samples go to www.sojourneronline.com

it is fairly simple to get a good sound out of it but to get a great sound out of it is a different story it is difficult to get a signature sound but with a about and hours werth of tweakin i found mine and it rox.The manual does its job not that u really need one and the tap tempo is simple

i have a charvel cx 291 runing through a dunlop gcb-95 wah then through the ds-2 turbo distortion(awesome pedal)into the ph-3 into my peavey delta blues 210 (great amp) this pedal fits perfectly into my setup.as i sad earlier it always sounds good but not perfect until u really tweak with it then it sounds great the 4 stage is a nice vintage sound that i really enjoy the 8 stage is a very deep phase sort of like a creed style phase and it is my personal favorite the 10 stage wit the depth and resonance maxed u get a sweet flanger sound its awesome very unchained van halen sounding 12 stage is 2 six stage phasers connected in series and fall is a great sounding effect that just continues to fall and fall very good for rytyhm sound and rise is a funky sound that is very nice and the step function is kool but in my opinion it is useless even though its fun to play with in my opinions this is one of the best boss sounding pedals around

unfortuantly i droped it once and now the rate knob is bent but other then that really reliable

never dealt with them hopefully never will have to

this pedal rox. I play blues all the way to heavy rock and this pedal can pretty much do it all. if it were stolen or lost i would beat the shitte out of the guy who took it from me but ya i would buy it again . I luv all of it it is just awesome. I compared this to the digitech phaser and this one took it because of the tap tempo feature but basically the same pedal . it is a great effect it helps me wit my creativity very nice

This pedal IS easy to use but no phaser is very easy to use because the rate at which the whole sweep is completed will change depending on the depth, although tap tempo is harder.
4 knobs Rate, Depth, Resonance, Stage [4,8,10,12,Fall,Rise,Step] (thickness/type)

This pedal is probably the most versatile phaser on the market, you can switch between 4 different "levels" of phase (4,8,10,12) each of which have their own destinct sound. As well this there are new Rise, Fall and Step modes the name says all, continual rising or falling effect or a swoop which goes up in steps/stages, very interesting sound. At subtle settings the pedal is great for soft textures and VERY VERY LONG swoops and when set to manic levels I've had this box sounding like dripping water, a dog barking, and a hyper-active monkey!!

The reason this gains an 8 is because the basic pedal sound when it is not mixed with other effects is poor in my opinion far inferior to the older Ph-2. Where the Ph-2 sounds organic and full of life the Ph-3 leaves you feeling empty with a very average tone.

The pedal is moved up a mark because it comes into its own when mixed with other pedals, it adds great swoops to fuzz and distortion and is great for subtle textures with chorus' etc. If you own a TSA pedal get one o'these as well!!

Boss, enough said!

never had to use them hopefully never will.

I've been useing phasers for a long time now and use 3 in my live rig a MXR Phase 90 and Boss Ph-2 and Ph-3 Phasers. This pedal is good and I still use it everyday for adding subtle over tones to my sound for this reason i give it a 9. Decide what you want, if you are buying a phaser for pure tone try and get a discontinued Ph-2 but if you are going to use it to "swoop" other effects then buy the Ph-3 for its unbeatable versatility.

Very easy to use.

I don't get the reviews where people complain of the pedal sounding weak, or dry, or feedback occuring with the pedal's use, or tone alteration with the effect in line.
I get none of those things. I get an awesome phaser pedal - better than the MXR Phase 100 I owned for a while. And it does stuff no other phaser does. The pedal has a knob to dial in how strong you want the effect to be, and with 4, 8, 10, and 12 stage phasers you can get every phaser sound period. No bypass problems, no thinning of the sound, just great phasing. Ignore the naysayers 'cause they don't mean a thing.

I base this rating on my other 3 boss pedals I own, and several others I used to own.

I play almost every style of music. This pedal is great for funk or making weird sound or for soloing - it has lots of uses. Great pedal.