Play Mate Phaser PH-2B???

[Chankgeez]

Does anyone have one of these?

Have access to a schematic of one?

Know anything about 'em?

By all accounts (and "by all accounts" I mean the only account I've read, Dirk Hendrik's) this is supposed to be a very bass heavy phaser.

I'm interested in hearing how this circuit sounds.

Anyone else?

[eatyourguitar]

Dirk Hendrik knows his rare phasers inside and out. I just repaired a ibanez phase tone II using the schematic from Dirk. the ibanez had this EVH sound almost. very trebly. I repaired a mutron phaser and it had this really warm vintage sound even with the phaser set to 0 depth and 0 speed. I have been wanting to try a maestro phaser to see if I like it better than the mutron for that warm vintage sound. I checked out the play mate on Dirk's site and it looks rare as shit. you could ask dirk to trace it but I don't know if that will actually happen.

[Chankgeez]

Thanks for replying, eatyourguitar.

I think I might've mis-titled this thread and've been thinking about changing the title to "Bass Phaser?" Perhaps I'd get more of a response?

I love phasers too. I've got a Mu-Tron, but've never had a Maestro. They're supposed to be very nice sounding.

I guess I could ask Dirk Hendrik about the Play Mate, but since his initial posting about it is at least a few years old and he stated 'When finding the time I'll write an "engineering special" on this one.' and nothing's come of it, I thought I'd ask about it here.

[eatyourguitar]

well if he is anything like me. we have lots of ideas and very little time to execute. sometimes an email is all it needs to get bumped to the top of the to-do list. someone of his skill level probably gets a lot of work doing repairs. IMO reversing vintage gear is > than reversing new gear. the old stuff is almost gone into the sands of time. if you reverse it you are actually preserving history through vintage correct clones. the new stuff is so common that I think people will still open them up even if half the world is busy tracing rare old stuff. look at the J Mascis fuzz munchkin. If this pedal builder actually gave a shit about vintage gear and preserving history, he would post his findings. but instead, the Mascis muff will only be preserved in history as a clone of a clone. a very sad story of being so close and yet so far.

[Chankgeez]

True. True.

You're right. Sometimes all it takes to rekindle someone's interest in something is to ask them a simple question about it.

Maybe I'll e-mail him a little bit later if I can find some time.

[Chankgeez]

eatyourguitar, you wouldn't happen to have Dirk Hendrik's contact info?

I just tried to e-mail him through the link on his website. It didn't work.

[moose23]

Maybe PM him on freestompboxes.org.

[Chankgeez]

Maybe PM him on freestompboxes.org.

Thanks, moose23, good idea. That would mean I'd have to sign up on freestompboxes.org. Maybe I will?

[eatyourguitar]

If you sign up you can see where they are hiding the good shit. Its invisible to outsiders.

[moose23]

Yeah well worth signing up there, it's a wealth of knowledge and treasure.

[Chankgeez]

Yeah, I look at freestompboxes.org from time to time, but I've never signed up (until now) because I'm not all that technically minded.

So, I did end up signing up and messaged Dirk Hendrik. Here's what he had to say about the phaser in question:

"The Playmate is by far the most crappy phaser I have. The only reason to reverse engineer it is because the PCB suggests a Boss origin. Other than that it's just a standard phaser with 4 FET's controlling the phase shift stages. What I mean to say is that this will not be the sudden phase shifter discovery of the century. On the contrary.

The engineering special I was referring to would be in the perpective of what is not good in the pedal design. That's electrically as well as mechanically.

Summing up, I wouldn't have a clue why one would pick this one for cloning."

(He's kindly granted his permission to repost this response here. Thank you, Dirk.)

Turns out it's just a bass heavy garden variety phaser. Oh, well.

[eatyourguitar]

buy a behringer UP300 and put a bigger input cap. cheap fun

[Chankgeez]

Thanks, eatyourguitar.

I don't actually even really need any more phasers. Even cheap crappy fun ones. I have some really great sounding phasers and also some good phasers which are in need of repair that I should probably have fixed first before I acquire anything new. The fun never ends, it just moves from pedal to pedal.