mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
All this month I’ll be looking at some of the more popular audio signal processing effects out there, which I’m sure you’ll recognize from some of the most successful songs ever recorded. Impress your friends next time one of these babies comes on the radio by saying, “Wait, check out this part and listen to the ____!”
Today, let’s fill in that blank with flangers and phasers. Without getting overly technical with this post, I can say that while they’re not nearly the same exact thing, both effects produce a semi-similar effect by taking the original signal, let’s say a guitar, and splitting it in two. With a phaser, one part of the signal stays the same and the other part gets a phase shift of varying depth. The two signals are mixed back together at the output and the differences between the two create the legendary phaser effect heard in the excerpts below.
A flanger, on the other hand, takes the split signal, slows one part of it down anywhere from a few milliseconds to about 20 milliseconds, and then speeds it back up to meet the original signal. This alternating creates a sweeping effect that some people say sounds like a jet plane passing overhead. (You’ll definitely understand that reference when you hear the soundbites below).
The word flanger actually comes from the old days when studio engineers used to record the signal to two tape reels/decks and then play them both back simultaneously to a third deck. If the engineer put a little pressure on one of the original reel’s flanges, it would slow down a few milliseconds, thus producing the flanger effect.
Here are 7 of my favorite recordings using phasers and flangers (of course, there are tons more):
1. “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin - Through almost the entire song, the drums are run through a phaser, which is especially apparent on the cymbal crashes in the higher register. Listen for them:
2. “Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears - This is one of the truest, cleanest, most exciting flanger effects ever put on tape. Listen to the split signal slow down and the come back and actually pass through the original creating a millisecond-long musical black hole (technically this is called through-zero flanging). This song came out when I was in high school and I used to rewind the tape and listen to this drum fill over and over again dreaming of the day when I’d have enough money to buy a flanger that went “through zero.” To me, the sound of that flanger made life worth living:
3. “Listen to the Music” by the Doobie Brothers - Listen for the flanger sweeping in to take us to the bridge:
4. “Just The Way You Are” by Billy Joel – That’s a phaser on the famous Fender Rhodes intro. Pretty classic stuff:
5. “Barracuda” by Heart - Listen for the cycling flanger on the famous guitar riff:
6. “Life in the Fast Lane” by The Eagles - The bridge is coated in a gorgeous sweeping flanger:
7. “The Spirit of Radio” by Rush, Yes, that classic hollow-pipe sound on the main guitar riff is, as you can probably tell by now, a flanger:
Check out past On Music posts here >>
Always wondered what that awesomely cool effect was on the Doobie–loved that part of the song when I was a kid.
posted by Anne on 9-8-2008 at 9:26 am
You missed out Eddie Van Halen who was the king of the MXR pahser, so much so he has his own model.
posted by Liam on 9-8-2008 at 9:30 am
And this is why I love Mental_floss… because we learn things.
posted by Don on 9-8-2008 at 10:33 am
I got a mental flange any time I had a Doobie.
posted by BassMan on 9-8-2008 at 10:42 am
i 2nd what Liam said. a clip of “Unchained” would be a great example of EVH’s phase sound.
posted by jer on 9-8-2008 at 11:42 am
In a future post, will you be talking about my personal favorite effect, the Leslie speaker?
posted by Stewart on 9-8-2008 at 12:17 pm
thanks all you music tech nerds. i’m glad you like.
@stewart - no, i wasn’t planning on covering Leslie because it’s too narrow an effect field. sorry! though maybe i’ll include it someday in a post about unique innovations.
posted by David K. Israel on 9-8-2008 at 12:36 pm
Good article. I’ve done a bit of audio production, and until now, I would have called all of those “phasing.” I didn’t know the term “flanging.”
I hope you’re planning to cover one of the more annoying current trends that’s infected pop music and made it even more unlistenable. I don’t know what it’s called, but it makes the singer’s voice sound electronic from time to time. My term for it is “pinching the vocal.” It’s awful, and it’s everywhere.
posted by Randy Kindy on 9-8-2008 at 1:17 pm
John Lennon supposedly made up the word “flanging” to describe this effect to an engineer in the studio in 1966 during one of The Beatles’ sonic experiments, at least according to Mark Lewisohn (The Beatles: Recording Sessions, New York: Harmony Books, 1988, page 70).
As much as a huge John fan as myself would love for that to be true, I don’t think it is. After all, how did people at, say, the BBC Radiphonic Workshop describe it when they wanted it done on a recording?
posted by Brooklynperson on 9-8-2008 at 2:06 pm
If you refer to the Beatles Anthology book as well as Mark Lewisohn’s book “The Beatles: Recording Sessions,” this is discussed at length. This was initially called ADT or Artificial Double Tracking, invented by an Abbey Road engineer named Ken Townsend. The story goes that the Beatles hated having to double-track their voices (essentially sing harmonies of themselves). Townsend came up with a machine which takes the original signal is fed into a separate machine and then fed back to the first machine to cmbine with the original signal. The second machine has an oscillator on it that allows for the slowing up or speeding down of the signal.
Apparently, John Lennon asked how it worked and was told it used a “double vibrocated sploshing flange.” Lennon thought Townsend was joking, but forever after called it “Ken’s flanger.” The term “flanging” thereafter stuck.
posted by Tom on 9-8-2008 at 2:06 pm
Two great examples come to mind…
“Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love” -Van Halen is another prime example in addition to Robert Plant’s vocals in (Led Zeppelin’s) “What is What Should Never Be”
posted by ChinoBrown on 9-8-2008 at 2:52 pm
@Randy Kindy
I believe what you are referring to is a editing program called Pitch Perfect, or something like that. It allows the sound engineer to “correct” a singer’s voice if they hit a note off key. It’s most noticeable in that god-awful, ear assaulting Cher song, “Believe”.
And I agree, it’s awful.
posted by Mercade on 9-8-2008 at 3:34 pm
@Randy Kindy
The most popular of the pitch-correcting products is Antares Auto-Tune. The effect you describe is actually a “misuse” of the software, it’s original purpose was to bring slightly out of tune singing to the correct pitch. I find both the effect and the overuse of the software in most pop music offensive.
A similar technology but with different aims is a vocoder. Don’t know if that effect will be covered in a future post, but it would be interesting. Even more interesting would be to talk to Jeff Lynne how he got the vocoder effect on the piano in “Mr. Bluesky”. I read somewhere (liner notes, maybe?) that he did it before a vocoder was available, using the studio technology available at the time. Still scratching my head over how he pulled that off.
posted by John W on 9-8-2008 at 7:54 pm
Aren’t both of these in some way the offspring of Les Paul’s Paulverizer?
I second Stewart’s request for Leslie, but you have to include video because a leslie is fun to watch.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 9-8-2008 at 10:14 pm
interesting… not to mention that most of those songs are among my all-time favorites
posted by ann on 9-9-2008 at 2:02 am