Phaser
A phaser produces a smooth, swirling "underwater" sweep — gentler and more psychedelic than a Flanger. Where chorus and flanger both work by modulating a short delay, a phaser is built differently: a chain of filter stages sweeping together, carving moving notches out of the frequency response rather than creating an audible echo.
Reach for it when:
- you want a smooth, swirling texture without the sharper, more metallic edge of a flanger;
- something dreamy, spacious or slightly psychedelic suits the moment.
FX inserts can be added and set up on Free, but they only affect the sound with Premium.
Adding it
On a channel's FX tab, click + Node ▾ → Modulation → Phaser. It drops into the chain just after the selected node. To edit it, pin one of the dock's two panels to it with ⇅, or set a panel to ⟳ Follow FX tab selection and click the node.
In Simple mode, add it from the Effects block's ⚙ instead — see Simple mode.
Where it sits in the chain matters: place it after tone-shaping and dynamics, near the end of the chain — it's a colour effect best applied to an already-shaped sound.
Reading the panel
Unlike Chorus and Flanger, this graph isn't a delay-time trace — it's a frequency-response curve, showing the notches a phaser actually carves into the sound at the two extremes of its sweep. That's the honest picture of what a phaser does: it's a genuine filter effect, not a modulated echo, so there's no delay-time-vs-time chart that would mean anything here. Six filter stages sweep together, and both channels move identically — a phaser has no left/right split the way Chorus and Flanger do.
RATE doesn't reshape this curve — it controls how fast the sweep moves between the two extremes shown, not their shape — so it gets its own readout next to the graph instead.
This panel is compact enough that it has no ⛶ maximize button; it always shares the dock.
Controls
| Knob | Range | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| MIX | 0…100 % | 50 | How much of the effect is blended in against the original. |
| RATE | 0.05…2 Hz | 0.4 | Speed of the swirl. |
| DEPTH | 0…100 % | 70 | How pronounced the swirl is — how far the notches sweep. |
| FEEDBACK | 0…95 % | 30 | Sharpens the effect into a more resonant, vocal-like sweep. |
A good starting point
- Add it near the end of the chain and start with MIX moderate (30–50%).
- Set RATE for how fast you want the swirl — slower for something gentle and ambient, faster for something more active.
- Raise FEEDBACK for a sharper, more resonant, almost vocal-sounding sweep; keep it lower for something smoother and more subtle.
If you're not sure which of the two you want, try both at similar settings — a phaser's swirl is smoother and more filter-like, while a flanger's is sharper and more metallic. The "right" one is a matter of taste for the specific sound.
Presets, bypass and reset
- PRESET ▾ in the panel header applies a saved setup, or saves the current one under a name. Once one is applied the header shows Preset: name — see Knowing what preset is applied. Ready-made setups can be found in the Workshop — Workshop ▸ Browse, filter chip Phaser.
- ON / OFF bypasses just this node — the quickest way to hear whether it's helping.
- RESET returns every knob to its default.
Related
- Flanger — a sharper, more metallic sweep built from a modulated delay rather than filter notches.
- Chorus — a subtler thickening effect, also built from a modulated delay.
- Effects Rack — adding, ordering and rewiring nodes.