New Non-BOSS Pedals

[laurie]

Nice!!

[Pepe]

Wow! At 19 Euro, that is a lottery win!

Yes, I could hardly believe my luck when I won the auction! Before that I thought that 30 EUR for the broken one - without original knobs - was cheap already.

[Pepe]

This Aria APH-1 Phaser has been sleeping on some shelf in a music shop for several decades. It was almost untouched and the seller said that it was completely unused.

That's how a new old stock Aria pedal from the "Bigfoot Series" (they called it like that in the catalogues) looks like. So they came in a clear plastic bag and without a dedicated manual, which explains why the OEM versions, like the Monarch units in Germany*, featured a typewritten manual. But the detailed brochure with the functions and specifications of the nine available pedal models at that time (1987 as it says in the lower right - in the end there were 21 units) is really nice. Apparently they had no battery installed. I am glad about that, because this way there was no risk of battery leakage.



The Aria Phaser is a strange beast. It doesn't sound bad at all. But it works "the other way round" than we're used to. In minimum Depth position it doesn't produce the murmuring sounds in the lower frequencies, like a BOSS PH-1 does for example. Instead it starts at the top. The more you increase Depth, the more it expands its range towards the lower region. This way it produces the classic four-stage phaser sound with Depth in maximum position only. It has quite a lot of feedback at demand, so it can produce some very funky sounds.

It won't become my favourite phaser, but for 40 EUR including shipping I wasn't able to say no. And I really like this pedal series!


*last year I bought a Monarch MFL-22 Stereo Flanger for fuzzbuzzfuzz, which came with two folded sheets in A4 format with manuals typewritten in German and French

[bigtone23]

Picked up a Wampler Tweed '57 for cheap. I really like MIAB pedals, and this is Marshall adjacent. It has more of that tweed/JTM45 sort of loose, gurgly thing vs a Plexi/JTM/JCM tight, upper mid cut.

[Pepe]

Thanks to fuzzbuzzfuzz I was able to purchase yet another vintage German Schaller pedal, even with the original box and the manual*.

The Schaller Fuzz-Sustainer** is a silicon fuzz and it sounds very much like the classic late-'60s and '70s pedals, but with the treadle control this is a special beast. Without the fuzz enganged it is a pure volume pedal, but with fuzz on it blends between clean sound in heel position and fuzz in toe position. This allows for very interesting sound sweeps.

It sounds really nice, with much longer sustain than my Schaller Tonverzerrer with Germanium transistors. But it alters the original signal a lot, also in volume pedal mode. Putting a buffered pedal in front of it helps retaining the guitar sound, but it makes the fuzz behave a little bit differently - gladly not too much. Turning down the volume knob of the guitar does in no way clean up the sound. In fact, if used without a buffered pedal in front of it, there is an annoying sag for half a second or so, supposedly because of the more complex circuitry. With a buffered pedal in front of it the fuzz can be controlled via the guitar's volume knob in a much better way.

The Intensity knob doesn't work as a gain knob. Instead it sets the overall volume of the pedal in both modes. The maximum volume levels of clean signal and fuzz sound are really well-balanced, without a volume drop or boost, just as it says in the original '70s catalogues. It is very pleasing doing sweeps between these two. Apart from the tone suck without the use of a buffered pedal it is a superbly designed circuit. German craftsmanship!











*I don't know if this is original - it could be a modern print, but the paper smells old.
**It simply says "Fuzz" on my pedal and "Fuzz-Sustainer" in the manual, but there are also pedals that bear the name "Fuzz-Sustain". The "Fuzz" versions with hammer finish paint seem to be the first version and they are introduced in the Schaller product catalogue from 1973, while the "Fuzz-Sustain" in the black enclosure is featured in the catalogue from 1976.

[laurie]

Wow. That is A score.

[Pepe]

Yes, it's marvellous! Sadly the previous owner removed the rubber feet, maybe they have disintegrated like all the other rubber feet that I had in my other Schaller units. I have to order replacement feet. Much worse: the original screws were replaced by suboptimal and thicker screws which resulted in slightly ripped threads inside the plastic pedal enclosure as you can see in the lower left of the fourth picture.

I forgot to mention that these '70s Schaller pedals are made of plastic, unlike my early "Bow-Wow Yoy-Yoy" wah pedal or my early Tonverzerrer. But they have a thick metal bottom plate, making them quite heavy. The hammer finish paint makes these units before 1975/76 look like being made of metal.

[BearBoy]

Oh, wow. It definitely looks like metal in the photos.

Cool looking, and I suspect sounding, pedal.

Although the layout of the on/off switch and control labelling seems a bit awkward? It’s confusing me being back to front

[Pepe]

It's a set-and-forget knob, so no problem or confusing at all.

[Franzoni]

This Aria APH-1 Phaser has been sleeping on some shelf in a music shop for several decades. It was almost untouched and the seller said that it was completely unused.

That's how a new old stock Aria pedal from the "Bigfoot Series" (they called it like that in the catalogues) looks like. So they came in a clear plastic bag and without a dedicated manual, which explains why the OEM versions, like the Monarch units in Germany*, featured a typewritten manual. But the detailed brochure with the functions and specifications of the nine available pedal models at that time (1987 as it says in the lower right - in the end there were 21 units) is really nice. Apparently they had no battery installed. I am glad about that, because this way there was no risk of battery leakage.



The Aria Phaser is a strange beast. It doesn't sound bad at all. But it works "the other way round" than we're used to. In minimum Depth position it doesn't produce the murmuring sounds in the lower frequencies, like a BOSS PH-1 does for example. Instead it starts at the top. The more you increase Depth, the more it expands its range towards the lower region. This way it produces the classic four-stage phaser sound with Depth in maximum position only. It has quite a lot of feedback at demand, so it can produce some very funky sounds.

It won't become my favourite phaser, but for 40 EUR including shipping I wasn't able to say no. And I really like this pedal series!


*last year I bought a Monarch MFL-22 Stereo Flanger for fuzzbuzzfuzz, which came with two folded sheets in A4 format with manuals typewritten in German and French

The first time I ever used a compressor back in the 80s was the Aria one in the catalogue …..I have good memories of it as well being decent sounding …..