If you’re like us, you’ve probably tried out a ton of phasers in your guitar lifetime. But you’ve definitely never tried a phaser quite like Strymon’s Zelzah Multidimensional Phaser.
For starters, the Zelzah gives you not one, but two, different phasers side-by-side in a single enclosure. There’s a four-stage phaser on the left-hand side, offering up an array of classic-style tones, and a six-stage phaser on the right, providing phasing, flanging, chorus and even sounds you've never imagined. You can dial up singular sounds on each side and use them independently or together in a variety of configurations.
The result is that, effectively, with the Zelzah you have two distinct pedals in one enclosure. Dial in a chorus on one side and a barber-pole phaser on the other, or a phaser on one side and a tremolo on the other, and you'll be accessing a variety of modulation sounds with extreme ease.
And that's not all: you can also run the pedal in mono or stereo, run the six-stage phaser run into the four-stage phaser or run them parallel or split, use an expression pedal to control sound parameters, and much more.
As for the phasers themselves, the four-stage phaser is built around three distinct sweep patterns: “Classic,” via a single LFO with a warped triangle shape, “Barber,” which seeks to sonically emulate the continuously rising visual effect of a barber's pole, and “Envelope,” which dynamically responds to the player's input like an envelope filter would. These sweep patterns are accessed by a toggle switch, and controlled via Speed, Depth and Mix knobs.
The six-stage phaser, meanwhile, features a resonance circuit with a toggle to choose between Off, Mild and Strong. This resonance circuit enables intense frequency notches and peaks, allowing for dramatic phasing and flanging that will cut through any mix with lush swirls, wide warbles and all manner of chorus, vibrato, harmonic tremolo and other desired modulation effects. Combined with the Speed, Depth and Voice knobs, you have control over 30 different parameters for groundbreaking new phase sounds.
Other features on the Strymon Zelzah Multidimensional Phaser include full stereo in/out capability with independently adjustable stereo spread on each phaser, selectable buffered or true bypass functionality and full-featured MIDI implementation.
The result is a super-flexible and creative phaser that offers a truly, yes, multidimensional experience.
To get one for yourself, head over to Strymon.
