BBE Soul Vibe

[Tone2TheBone]

Does anyone have any experience with this pedal? I'm wanting this one or the Voodoo Labs Microvibe. The sound clips off the BBE website and youtube sound pretty cool. I like how the blue LED lights up to show the speed of the modulation.

 

[Robert]

I listened to the demos on their site. Didn't impress me that much. I think the Microvibe is da way to go.

 

[Tone2TheBone]

Yeah I really like the Microvibe too. Only $20 more.

 

[Tone2TheBone]

Followup. Well I don't need a vibe anymore. I have this now.

View attachment 1208

At 80-90% it does a good vibe sound. A little faster and it does a rotating leslie. Not bad for a phase pedal.

 

[Robert]

Wow, you gotta record some Van Halen stuff for us now! "Running With The Devil" maybe?

 

[Tone2TheBone]

Wow, you gotta record some Van Halen stuff for us now! "Running With The Devil" maybe?

I wonder how that would sound on a Tele? LOL :R

 

[duhvoodooman]

Followup. Well I don't need a vibe anymore. I have this now.

View attachment 1208

At 80-90% it does a good vibe sound. A little faster and it does a rotating leslie. Not bad for a phase pedal.

W-A-A-A-A-Y-Y too few knobs & toggles! What you really need is one of these:

More knobs!! More toggles!! It doesn't have the fancy striped paint job, though I'm skeptical that that influences the tone very much!

Seriously, I've read excellent things about that EVH Phase 90. I'm sure you two will be very happy together....

 

[Tone2TheBone]

I think you're onto something with that pedal. What are the technical comparisons between phasing and vibing there Cliffy?

 

[duhvoodooman]

I think you're onto something with that pedal. What are the technical comparisons between phasing and vibing there Cliffy?

Well, it's a little-known fact that....

The MXR Phase 90 upon which this modified build is based has four phase-shift stages; each pair of stages generates one cancellation "notch". The stock stage configuration uses a capacitor of the same rating in each stage, in this case 0.05uf. To give the more uneven warbling sound of a Univibe, the best approach would be to use four different caps over a fairly broad range of capacitance ratings. However, to implement that modification is very difficult; you'd need a 4PDT switch (I've heard they exist, but have never seen one) and it would make the other mods much more complicated to do. Consequently, the mod I used changes just two of the four caps, which can be handled with an on/on DPDT switch. So flipping from P to V changes the caps in two of the stages from the stock 0.05uf to 0.0022uf for one stage and 1.0uf for the other. Candidly, the change in sound is still pretty subtle. While it makes the output a bit "vibier" in character, nobody is going to remotely mistake it for a true Univibe.

As far as the 90/45 switch goes, that one is very straightforward. The Phase 45 uses only two phase-shift stages to generate a single cancellation notch and thus has a more subtle sound than the Phase 90. The toggle merely allows you to bypass two of the phase stages with the signal when flipped to the 45 position.

 

[oldguy]

W-A-A-A-A-Y-Y too few knobs & toggles! What you really need is one of these:

More knobs!! More toggles!! It doesn't have the fancy striped paint job, though I'm skeptical that that influences the tone very much!

Seriously, I've read excellent things about that EVH Phase 90. I'm sure you two will be very happy together....

WOW! Hey, I'm working so much, I hardly ever get home to check in with you guys... are you building these to sell, Vood, or are you just teasing us?
Seriously.... I need one... :R R

 

[duhvoodooman]

WOW! Hey, I'm working so much, I hardly ever get home to check in with you guys... are you building these to sell, Vood, or are you just teasing us?
Seriously.... I need one...

I really haven't decided yet whether I'll offer the Phaze Craze for sale or not. The pedal works GREAT--the additional controls really let you shape the character of the phasing to a much greater degree than the one-knob MXR Phase 90 upon which it's based. This clever multi-feature modification was developed and posted by one of the resident geniuses (genii?) over at the BYOC forums. It has one minor design issue, though. For some unknown reason, the "Mix" pot makes a staticky noise when turned, even though it's completely quiet at rest. At first, I thought it was just a bad pot, but another guy built the same pedal modification and reported exactly the same behavior. So it's quite clearly something in the circuit itself.

Anyway, OG, at this point I have to answer your question with a quotation by the legendary Sam Goldwyn: "All I can give you is a definite maybe!"

BTW, if you're interested, I posted links to a couple of clips of the pedal played in combination with the "Rabid Rodent" modified ProCo Rat clone I built recently. This combo produces a pretty convincing Hendrix/Trower sound. You can check 'em out in THIS THREAD.