MXR Phase 90

One knob. 'Nuff said.

Sound quality initially was ok...but then I did the R28 Mod...and WOW!! Vintage Script tone.

Running Les Paul Standard / Am. St. Strat to Morley little alligator volume, Bad Horsie 2, TC electronics Chorus/Flanger, into the Phase 90, then into Mesa Boogie Road King Combo. Running an Alesis Midiverb 4 into the 2 effect loops on the Road King for Dig. reverbs and delays.

After the mod, this thing is great, subtle, cool vintage.

Built like a tank...all my mxr stuff in the past lasted for decades.

no opinion, never used 'em.

I play classic rock, steely dan fusion, southern rock and progressive (Rush). This pedal is a perfect match. I have been playing for about 26 years, and really value the vintage sounding stuff. Before the mod, the pedal was only about a 5 or 6 over all...but after removing the R28 resistor, I give it a solid 9. The only thing I can suggest is that you place it in your chain BEFORE your distortion/overdrive. If you don't, you will have an overbearing heavy effect. Placing it before the distortion will give you that elusive VanHalen sound. If this was ever stolen, I would replace it with a vintage script model (if I could find one) or another reissue that has the R28 mod.

Only One Knob Rattles my brain!

Its a little noisey without the R28 Removed, and the Mid sweep is a little too much. But when you take the R28 out it is worth 4 times the cost atleast. Ill give this rating with the R28 Removed. The highest speed setting is kind of useless though, just gets an irritating Bubble kind of sound to it.

Very Sturdy, easy to loose, but does eat up the battery after a while, its good to get a 9 Volt Adapter to hook it up to so it doesnt quit on you in mid gig.

Never used it personally, but for telling us how to take out the R28, Dunlop gets a 10!

I play mostly 80s style Van Halen metal and some shredding. I think this is great for having background, especially if your trying to play Van Halen stuff. I would take out the R28 ASAP when you get it, unless you are not sure what your doing, its not worth the wasting money.

Very Very Very easy. Its just one knob, and can easily be switched in between songs, or even (as i often do) in the middle of a song.

Well i run a Boss ODB-3 Overdrive, into a Digitech Bass Synth Wah, into an old Shinai Wah, and then into this. And it adds some of the craziest tones to it. Once you find the legnth of the part you are using it on, everything seems to sound smooth. The only thing is that i got mine used, and i believe it is one of the first ones and the input and output seem to be a bit smaller and hard to get the cables into it, but thats just in my opinion. And even the slightest touch to the cables will send a POP through your amp. But other than that its FANTASTIC!

I havnt used it for a show yet, i guess ill see tommorrow how well it works.

I dunno!!! Ummmmmmmmm, it was used!!! I bet the old customer support people are dead!!! So ill give them a 10!!

Its quite a fine and wonderful effect!

Please!
But the 2 things I don't like about this pedal is that the battery compartement is a bitch to open and the switch hurts your feet if you don't wear shoes.

AWESOME!!!!
I can get really cool sonds with this baby!
With a low tone distortion, and the speed knob at max, you can get a "Queens of the stone age" sound, or a Jimi Hendrix or Jane's Addiction sound.
I can even make it sound "kindov" like water.
It's the best sounding Phaser out there, it beats the boss pedals too. When bypassed, the signal isn't changed by the pedal, there's no hum or buz. The only thing I would wish for is that there would be more speed on the thing, but then I guess it would sound to digital, but that's OK with me.

This is a little tank, or a mini bomb shelter, the one you prefer, this thing is totally reliable, bring it to all my gigs, even dropped it a few times, the enclosure is thick, and only a coupple scratches.

Never delt with them

You put all my last comments together and you get the best Phaser made to today (the reissue), the one before was to subtle for me.

Wow. I just started experimenting with single effects. This was one of my first single effects pedals. This is easy. A little baby could operate this thing. All you do is just plug it in , plug it in. The only thing is that if you are at home stomping away, you need to put shoes on or else you will hurt your toes trying to stomp on that small switch.

As for the sound. It is a very good phaser considering it only has one option . And that is the speed. It serves its purpose adding that unique swooshing sound. I managed to achieve a similar sound that may be heard in "that lady" by the Isley Brothers with the solo done by Ernie Isley back in I think 1973. To do this you have to add some sort of distortion. It phase is very clean and doesn't sound digitized. I use this through a 10 watt amp and a 20 watt amp. either way sound is good. if the phase sound was able to go faster on the "speed" knob it would be even better.

Oh it is reliable . very. actually I only use it when doing certain songs but it is very reliable for those purposes. I have yet to gig because I am just trying to develop my skill right now but I am sure if I were to gig or something I would use it.

I never got into a situation where I had to contact the company so I couldn't tell you.

It suits me. I find I can use this for all styles of music. When adding the phase 90 to a wah wah, I get a funky sound = funk style. when adding it to distortion it works for rock . when playing it by itself it does smooth chorus and fill-ins when playing pop, r&b. I would definately buy another if I lost it. The only thing I don't like about this is that the max speed is not that fast, but I guess too fast would sound too digitized.

This is an update to a previous review. I really like the tone, but I noted in my review that the switch felt flimsy. Well, I was right. It pops now, all the time when engaged or disengaed. Cheap junk switch. Thanks Dunlop. As much as I love the Phase 90, I can tell you that I will def. think twice about purchasing MXR reissues. I mean, the tone is great, but what good is it if they use inferior switching components?

One knob adjusts the speed of the modulation...as easy as it gets.

1981 model. I believe the last year the original MXR Innovations made these, not to be confused with the new Jim Dunlop MXR reissue pedals. Anyway, it sounds great. I like some of the song suggestions below. One of the best examples I know to use this pedal on is Nazareth's version of Love Hurts. Pick out an open 'G' chord with the Phase 90 on and you nail the sound. Used on countless other classics as well. Mine sounds great and that sums it up.

Seems very solid. I bought it used, but I doubt I will have any problems. These MXR pedals are all metal casing and tough.

20 years playing and do classic rock, hard rock, oldies rock, surf rock, new/alternative rock, rock rock, blues rock, and compose songs. This works great for classic rock and some of my original tunes. I compared this to the new MXR (Jim Dunlop) Phase 90, which I like as well. I did not A>B them against each other to compare. IF lost/stolen, would definitely buy another.

One knob. Hard hard can it be? The "manual" is a Dunlop Crybaby Wah manual fer crying out loud. What's that all about?

This is a 4-stage phaser of the classic variety. I play Fender Guitars though Fender tube amps and this is a perfect fit for me. The effect can go from very subtle to extraterrestrial...

Well, I had one I ordered from Musician's Freind that worked for about a week. Then it just quit. I couldn't get them to send me out a replacement with any sort of expediency, so I returned it outright and got a replacement THAT DAY from Guitar Center. That was 3 weeks ago and so far so good. I don't expect further problems but...

Who knows?

If you like a phaser effect, you could hardly go wrong with this. Clean bypass as far as I can tell, but there is one thing that I consider a good thing that others may not. When you engage this effect, and it is turned up a bit, it does add distortion to the signal. As I said, this is a good thing to me, but something that some may not like. I also tried the EH Small Stone (which also wasn't bad -- different but not bad), Boss and Digitech Phasers, but this is the real deal for this one trick. If you need more than 4 stage phasing for your sound, skip this pedal (and the Small Stone), and head for the Boss/Digitech pedals because these have a wide variety of digitized phaser sounds. But for the class phasing effect, this is a good choice.

E-Z to use. One knob to tweak to your taste.

Phase is pronounced but not as transparent as the Maxon PT-999. My pedal has a noticeable signal boost when activated that I don't like. Was used with a 1996 Les Paul Studio through a Mesa/Boogie Studio Caliber.

Brand new unit had a flakey footswitch. It wouldn't engage reliably. Couldn't use it in a live situation because of that. Traded it with a friend for his Vox Wah pedal.

Never contacted customer support.

I play several styles of music. I know these pedals have done good deeds for others, but mine was a lemon. I would like to try a vintage one some day. Until then I'll stick with my Maxon PT-999.

I don't know how much easier it can get than this. At first I was a little disappointed, not having much control with just the one knob for speed. After an e-mail and a couple of quick mods (Details below) to the circuit, now I appreciate the simplicity of a one knob machine.

I play Strats and Tele's into Fender Tube amps. As I stated above, I e-mailed Dunlop and they gave me some suggestions for the following. After I removed R28 it became smoother and less pronounced on the slower speeds, but turning up the speed also increased the modulation, the higher speeds where simply to warbled to be of any use to me. After I received the e-mail back from Dunlop Tech support, they suggested a mod to attenuated (lessen) some of the modulation (phasing) at higher speeds. Change the value of C4 from .1mf to .22mf It works great! I was concerned that I would be losing something in the slower speed settings but I didn't. Now the higher speeds can do a decent Leslie simulation, not great, but a nice pleasing sound. I like this pedal's clean sound, but absolutely love this thing in FRONT of Distortion! Killer!

Owned about 6 months, not really long enough to judge.

Great!!! Jayson in Tech support was very helpful with my mod questions. He has made me a believer in MXR/Dunlop products, with his helpfullness and knowledge of the products.

I play Country, Classic Rock, Blues and what ever I happen to be stuck on that week. This pedal is very useful for Rock and has made its way into a lot more Country Tunes than I expected. I have been a Gigging Musician for 14 yrs and don't know why I didn't have one of these years ago, I would replace it without hesitation. It's not a must have pedal to get me through the gig, but it's the most fun I have had with a new effect in a long time, it inspires me to play, and thats worth the ticket price anyday.