HomeBrew Electronics Arizona Psilocybe

The dials are pretty clearly labelled.
'Regen' is for sharpness/presence of the phased sound- all the way to the left with 'Shift 2' to the left will leave you with just a smooth pitch vibrato and very little 'jet sound'. All the way to the right is not as extreme a tone as you might think, just nice and present.
'Speed' is for the speed of modulation. This has a wide range in the slower speeds, but won't give you that EHX hi-speed craziness that some of us find fun/useful. I would have liked a little more hi-speed range, but not if it came at the expense of any other part of the unit, e.g. in faster settings there's this wonderful sucked-out tremelo effect remeniscent of a univibe type sound, it's really cool!

The toggle switches are great, but aren't as easilly deciphered.
The 'Shift 1' switch has a melow eq to the left, and a more cutting eq to the right- I'd leave it to the left in smaller arrangements, but you might want more cut from leaving it to the right if you play in a bigger band- left sounds best by itself, but may get lost in a busy mix.
The 'Shift 2' switch (to my ears) seems to be about how many stages of phaser you want- to the left and it sounds like a small number of phase stages, very warm and wah-like. To the right, and you get that cascaded, shimmering sound that comes with additional phasing stages.

I found it quite easy to get a number of useful sounds from this box, but agree that if the one-knob MXR gets the 10 in this category, we'll have to mark the Psilocybe an 8.

Fantastic- I run it in the 'buffered' section of my effect chain, between my sampler and delay, and it responds very well placed here.
I did try it directly after my custom treble booster, but I could hear the Psilocybe grunting in pain when it swept through the already boosted frequencies- I wouldn't have expected many phasers to have the amount of headroom needed to stay clean in this context, but I was interested in how much input level it could take before breaking up, and what it would sound like- so just so you know, not a good idea.
With a little overdrive from the amp, Shift 2 to the left, the Psilocybe could easilly conjur up some convincing Band Of Gypsies tones. I also found the 80's era Iron Maiden 'Remember Tomorrow' tone, and started reliving my teenage record collection... very watery and rich.
Sound-alikes aside, it's giving me everything I was looking for to add flavour to my own music, and it inspires me to play better. Lots of fun! It's got to get a 9 from me here.

My set-up: Gretsch Duo Jet w/Bigsby, Retroman Octavious, Coloursound Wah, Roger Mayer Classic Fuzz, Custom Treble Booster, Fender PT100 stage tuner, Digitech PDS2000 Digital Sampler, HBE Psilocybe, Guyatone TD-X Tube Echo, Radial Bigshot ABY, Modified Peavey Classic 20, Modified 60's Ampeg R12RB Reverberocket w/G12M.

Sturdy Hammond aluminium enclosure, quality mono phono input and output jacks, quality solid footswitch and flush fitted neon green LED are all hallmarks of a durable piece of kit- but the toggle switches are a little too close to the main stomp-switch for my liking. I'm not sure what layout could work better than this, except perhaps if they were mounted vertically between the Speed and Regen dials... but there's not a lot of spare room there either. Just watch where you put your foot.

N/A

It's a great phaser.
I play in three bands that cover anything from post-punk to experimental to nu-wave to indie rock. The 2nd guitarist in my main band uses a modified EHX Small Stone which I've always liked the sound of- he commented after rehearsal on how he's actually unhappy with the Small Stone at the moment and how cool he thought the Psilocybe sounded, so I suppose it had a good rehearsal ;-) Looking forward to gigging with it!
I'd definitely reccommend it to anyone considering a Univibe, Phase 90 or Small Stone- it seems to be able to cover a little of all those bases, and take you somewhere new as well- which is all you could ask, really.

Ease of use: uh..requires a little experimentation, not like the old MXR one knob unit..but it's a bitter-sweet thing. You'll discover many useful styles, depending on your tastes in this unit if you take the time..I the toggle switches get's you old school, new-school tones. I was looking for a phaser that could get me that old style Hendrix (think Castles made of Sand) vibe. Finally found that flavor. I can't comment on the EVH claims, since I don't try to cop that tone. But work with it a while, has a bunch of tweaking variables, so compared to a one knob unit I'd say ease of use would be about 8 out of 10.

Sound Quality: That's why I went buying and selling several, before purchasing this one. Covers any blues/blues rock style I look for, to my tastes. Even though Funk is not my thing, this would suit the Funk/Fuse player extremely well. If your a blues/jazz purist, and don't use pedals, you probably don't need to be reading this anyhow. True-Bypass is great. Fiddling around with before/after other effects makes tweaking even more interesting.
#1 Rig for Blues - One of Several Strats, Fulltone Deja 2 (leslie simulator - think Robin Trower) Modded Dunlop 535Q Wah, Analogman Beano - HBE UFO Fuzz/Octave - Two identically modded Maxon OD-808's (warmer bottom rounder sounding) - Carl Martin Red Repeater delay, MXR 10 band EQ/w boost to AMP. Fender Blues De'ville 4 x 10, w/ ISP Decimator (noise reduction) pedal on top in effects loop.

Never had a problem with it. Yes I'd gig without a back-up, because I don't have another one.

No experience with dealing with HomeBrew Electronics AZ. Never had to get repaired. No informed opinion.

Play Blues, Blues Rock, almost exclusively. Heck of a good match for (my style) this is a very subjective thing. Playing about 25 years, I guess, if you can call the first couple "playing". Other Gear: Various pedals rarely used. A rack with a Furman Power conditioner, Sabine rack Tuner, and Behringer Vintage Series Tubewarmer - Compressor. Yeah if lost or stolen, I'd get another.
Love it's sound, Hate the puke green color. Favorite feature is ability to get vintage sounding phase. Compared with a bunch of other phasers. Settled on this one. Anything I wish it had? Yeah, the ghost of SRV playing through my hands. Of course it helps me make music, if it were in my way, I'd put it in the box with the other pedals collecting dust in the closet. Anything else I'd like to share? Yes. You just can't plug and play this baby. You (if you're like me) need to play with it and your own rig, not just something in the store. Buy with a return if you don't like policy.
You can get some instant good tones, but you've really got to put this thing through the ringer to get a taste of how wide a range of sounds, from vintage to crazy "alien's are in my brain" sounds. If you just want a plain vanilla phaser, buy a one knob MXR. One knob, mediorce at best (except for vintage script models), no brainer - pedal. Take some TIME and exlore the HBE's possibilities.

2 knobs, 2 switches....pretty simple. yet it's takes a little tinkering to figure out the sound. but once you do.....

killer. can get super deep or as subtle as you need to be.

les paul standard -
analogman ts9-808 mod- fulltone deja- psilo - z vex johnny octave - z vex super hard on - 100 watt plexi re-issue - marshall 4-12 greenbacks.

cool trick... pull both toggles to 2, crank the regen, then turn the speed all the way down. cosmic.

had it for 4 months and haven't noticed anything bad about it. i run it off a voodoo labs pedal power 2 (a required power source by hbe themselves) and everything seems to always be in order.

one year warranty.... not bad. but then again, its no fulltone 5 year. heard round the grapevine that hbe is pretty supportive when it comes to these things. hope i never have to find out.

a perfect pedal for psychadelic blues. can get some wild tones, yet it nails the fairly common ones as well. would also reffer it to anyone that just wants a good sounding phaser as well. takes some tweaking....but pretty basic once played with for a bit. plus it looks cool...

Easy to use with tons of flexability. Regen & Depth controls and two interactive switches labled Phase 1 and Phase 2

This, like all the HomeBrew pedals I have is very quiet. I use a Turner Model 1 into a Carl Martin Compressor >HomeBrew Power Screamer >HomeBrew Germania >Psilocybe >Pigtronix EP1 >MXR Stereo Chorus > THD BiValve & THD 2 X 12 Cabinet. ThHis pedals absolutely nails the old MXR Phase 90 and EH Small Stone phaser depending on the settings. Very Nice. It can also get very psychedelic (man)

All of the H/B stuff has held up great so far.

They answe the phone and answer your questions. Every Time!

If lost or stolen I would have to get another one. It can go from mild to heavy. It's very very quiet and sounds great. Cool hand painted blue swirley finish.

Regen, Depth, and two Phase toggles. Some changes are subtle while others are not.

Rich, Rich, Rich phase sound.

American Strat or Tele, Tubescreamer, Germania, Psilocybe, Deluxe Reverb Reissue.

Not noisy. Recreates Classic phase sounds very well. I do not know about Van Halen because I do not go for the brown sound.

Axis Bold as Love, track two!

Rock

I have been playing for about 15 yrs. and have gone through a few "phases" of my own. Right now I am back into classic rock and jazz fusion. If you are in the same arena right now this pedal will inspire you to play more of it!