Little Blue Pedal

Hello there,

This is a tribute to a little pedal, not a distortion one, that I once owned between 2002 to 2004. If I remember correctly, the pedal died on me somewhere in late 2004 and I bought another pedal of the same type to replace it. The pedal I’m referring to is the Danelectro Pepperoni Phaser.

By now, you may have already known me as a distortion guy. So you might ask why the phaser ? Well, it had to do with distortion. Hey, I’m a distortion guy. To be specific, it had to do with one song that was a big influence on me moving forward from 1999. That song was From This Day by US metal band Machine Head.

From This Day featured an intro that at one listen sounds like a wah coloured distortion riff. Over the next three years from 1999, I got to know that the band used a phaser pedal, to record that intro riff, more specifically the MXR Phase-90. Yup, the same pedal used by the late Eddie Van Halen on Aint Talkin’ About Love and/or the intro to Nazareth’s Love Hurts.

Back in 2002, at the time I bought the pedal, I was just months into my day job. I was saving up for my marriage and also my then band second EP. So I could not exactly afford the MXR Phase-90. I was looking for a more affordable alternative.

So, when I saw the Danelectro Pepperoni Phaser, and it was less than $70 SGD, I wasted no time in acquiring it, together with the PB and J Graphic Equalizer. As per the picture, it has only one knob just like the Phase-90, and that knob controls the speed of the wave. Since I was quite the noob at using a phaser with distortion, I was quite satisfied with the pedal.

The Pepperoni Phaser was used in my former band’s recordings in 2003 and 2004, as well as several live shows. When it died in late 2004, I was rather sad but I learnt quite a lot about what a phase pedal can do. In around December of 2004, I bought the grey coloured Ibanez Phaser PM-7. That too has died and maybe I should buy the MXR Phase-90 in the distant or near future.

Some videos :

You Won’t Believe How This Sounds :

Machine Head From This Day music video :

Listen to the Pepperoni Phaser at 2:24 and 2:34 :