I just got my MF-103 Phaser yesterday, and started playing with it today. I discovered that the LFO doesn’t start modulating the sweep until the LFO amount knob is turned to 3 on the scale, and it just starts to be noticeable at that point if you listen closely. And when the LFO amount is set to full, it just doesn’t sound as deep as it should, even with the Drive set into the red zone. Don’t get me wrong, the cancellations get fairly deep at that point, but it seems that they should be really, really deep. And this is without resonance.
Is this normal? Especially the LFO not modulating until the amount hits 3?
Yes, the LFO is set to sweep at a rate of about twice per second, so this isn’t a case of the LFO being really slow. It happens regardless of how fast or slow it’s going.
“The LFO in your MF-103 is an extremely wide-range voltage-controlled oscillator which modulates the phaser’s Sweep parameter. This enables you to vary the Sweep automatically at speeds from one cycle every 100 seconds (0.01 Hz), to 250 times a second (250 Hz). At the slowest speeds, the change is so subtle and gradual that it is barely perceptible.”
So the sweep is controlled by your LFO rate. The Amount knob tells the pedal how much the LFO affects it. The “3” setting is probably just too slow to notice like mentioned earlier.
The Resonance knob will make the effect more obvious or pronounced.
Also: In playing around yesterday, I noticed how you can change the sound entirely just by using the drive and output knobs. At higher drive/output levels in your chain, the effect gets lost within the warm distortion. At low drive levels, you hear more of the effect.
Eric was saying the same thing, however the LFO speed is turned up to about 2 cycles per second. So, when I increase the amount that the LFO modulates the sweep by turning up the amount knob, I don’t notice the LFO until that knob hits 3 on the scale.
I also plugged my control pedal into the amount input on the MF-103, thinking that maybe that would increase the control voltage past what the knob was providing by itself, however even with the pedal and the knob maxed out, the nulls don’t go any deeper.
And since mine is a “stereo” setup, I really shy away from using the resonance control as it only effects the signal in the main audio out, but not the Aux out. (Too bad they couldn’t tweak the design so that resonance would be heard in the Aux out as well.)
Perhaps someone can recommend a YouTube demonstration of the MF-103 that will show exactly what the pedal can do.
Thanks, Eric. I’m kind of hoping there might be a trimmer on the circuit board that I might be able to adjust the zero point with. I mentioned to Bryan in my previous post that I tried using the control pedal in the amount input to see if increasing the C/V would make the nulls deeper, but even that didn’t help. I was hoping that it would, because then I would be able to adjust the comb filter and leave it without the LFO moving it over time, but still be able to get deep nulls out of it by using the control pedal in the amount input. The best of both worlds!
In the end, it may be that I just don’t know what the MF-103 is supposed to capable of doing, since I’ve never played with one before. It may be acting axactly as it’s supposed to, but because I’m expecting more, I think there’s a problem. At the very least the zero setting on the amount knob seems too high.
I REALLY recommend the 103 as a phaser. Awesome phaser when it works. Mine works, and works well, so good luck mayidunk! Hopefully everything will get straightened out. I’m sure it will. After all, this IS Moog we’re talking about.
I just got done playing with the phaser some more, along with the ring mod. The Phaser is nowhere near as strong as I believe it should be. The phasing is noticeable, however it just isn’t strong. It’s as if theres a wet/dry mix adjustment that’s been set to around 25-30% wet! You can hear it, but it ain’t much.
On the other hand, I can get much stronger phaser like effects out of the ring mod, if you can believe that! I was playing around with getting the LFO and the carrier frequency (set to low range) to interact with each other. It was kind of cool! Ring mod sounds are pretty nice, but I didn’t even notice the carrier frequency range switch until after I was done playing, so it was set to the low range the entire time. I can’t wait to play with it using the high range, that should be excellent!
Of course, it’ll be mad scientist time now, as I continue to build towards the world’s first AI drone, with sonic interactions so complex, so varied, so non-repeating, that you’d swear it was…
I have long since believed that theres a patch on the Moog 55 that will cause immediate world peace, and I vow never to bathe or shave until I find it.
THen Id find it of corse and die of some type of infection like hepatitis or something.
And then I don’t have a Moog 55 so…oh well, Ill just protest the conformist paradygm of soap.
EricK, I could tell you the routings for the world peace patch, but with my carpal tunnel it would take about 3 years and a whole forum page to walk you through.
The Aux out of the MF-103 doesn’t make a true stereo phaser, rather it is is the direct signal minus the phased signal, where the Audio out is the direct signal plus the phased signal.
This means if they are panned in the center of a stereo setup, the phased signal is canceled out. Where the Aux output shines is when the audio out and aux out are sent to two separate speakers (i.e. panned hard right and left if plugged into two mixer channels). The time difference between the two speakers creates a swirling sound (really awesome on drums, BTW). Note this swirling effect is much more prominent with the resonance turned down - the audio out tends to become the more prominent signal as the resonance is turned up.
Note that if you monitor just the aux out - the effect is basically useless - the aux out is ONLY useful for when the two outputs are sent to separate speakers.
Finally, keep in mind that the LFO adds and subtracts to the position of the Sweep control so if you have the Sweep control set to some frequency outside of the range of the input signal’s harmonic spectrum, the effect will be weak - the phaser is a filter and like all filters needs relevant frequencies for the effect to be prominent. The place to start is always w/ Sweep in the center position and tune from there…
I’ve never noticed the phaser to be weak - it’s purely a matter of what you’re running into it and where you have the controls set.
I agree completely with Steve here, you might look at your settings to see why it is happening. I would only add this observation:
The resonance set at zero is the least pronounced level of phasing effect you have. It is a filter–after all–and the more resonance you have, the more you hear the edge of the cufoff frequency that’s being swept.
The reason why the ring modulator is more pronounced is because it isn’t technically a filter at all. It is one oscillator wave being added and subtracted to another oscillator wave, or carrier wave. That results in subtle or extreme changes in the wave-form and/or frequency of the input audio source.
I recently picked up an MF 103 used and have certainly noticed this. Seems like the lfo amount thing is just off a little on mine.
However, I have def. noticed that the phaser seems somewhat weak, if not at extremely wacky settings. A buddy of mine has a Big Briar model, and it sounds quite a bit different than mine. Mine is more bassy and almost muddy at times, while his can really get this nice shimmering sound with the resonance at high settings. Mine does not achieve this. I compared them side by side using the same synth patch and the difference is quite noticeable.
Also, there is a difference in the lfo rates between the two that is quite noticeable. Similar when cranked all the way down or all the way up, but settings in between are very different. Blinking lights at totally different speeds too.
Now, I understand that there will be subtle differences in these modules, as this is the nature of analog, but I’m concerned I may have to send this thing in to get looked at. I’ve already spent all my money on all sorts of other moog stuff. soooooo…I’m hoping it’s just different…
Any help and or experience would be appreciated. Thanks.
Also, remembering it’s a filter, to really hear the effect, the input signal needs to have enough harmonic content. If the frequencies being filtered by the phaser don’t exist in the input signal, you won’t hear an effect.
To those saying the effect isn’t pronounced, if you are using your phaser with a guitar and you are using your amp’s distortion, make sure the phaser is not between the guitar and the amp. You want it in the amp’s effects loop. That way the signal going through the Phaser is the one coming from the pre-amp stage which will have distortion. This distortion adds harmonic content to the signal. When the phaser filters out some of these added frequencies, you will hear the effect.
If you have a distortion pedal, make sure to put it before the phaser in the signal chain.
If you are using your Phaser with a synth, pick a patch with plenty of harmonics. Square and sawtooth waves come to mind.
