UNIVIBE 101
In high school, I was in my first real band, Caliber, and we were covering Pearl Jam’s Alive. It was the ’90s and we were legends in our own minds. That was what you did.
But there was a sound in the guitar solo that haunted me. It was a moving texture, something I had never heard in a guitar effect before. I had to solve the puzzle, so I went to a local guitar shop and I asked the guy behind the counter, "Hey, what effect can I buy to sound like this?" He goes, "Yeah, it's just a chorus, so buy a chorus pedal."
Well, I did. Lots of chorus pedals, over and over, but it never sounded exactly like that epic solo. Something special, something magical was missing.
It turns out it wasn’t chorus; it was univibe. And in this article, I want to walk you through Univibe 101.
The History
In 1968, a company in Japan called Honey/Shin-Ei created the first Univibe Chorus Vibrato. This pedal is an iconic piece of guitar history, and its origin story is as trippy as the sound it created. Fumio Mieda, the univibe inventor, actually drew his inspiration from the stars. He wanted to recreate the sound of radio waves bouncing off the atmosphere as he heard them as a child in Japan. Russian signals would phase across the airwaves and cause a strange "washing" sound. He simply wanted to replicate the effect. The result is the swishing, swooshing, phase modulation vibrato effect that a lot of us love in the 2020s, but few understood back in ’68.
One of the first musicians to fully appreciate its odd sound was Jimi Hendrix. So much so that he used this exact unit, a late ’60s Univibe, on August 18, 1969 on stage at Woodstock.**
**Your guess is as good as mine as to why Snoopy’s bird friend was jamming with Hendrix. One of the biggest mysteries of rock’n’roll history, if I’m being honest.
As a result, guitar was never the same.
Let's talk about how this works. If I took apart one of my now discontinued JHS Warble-Tron Vibratos, I would see a light bulb smack in the center of the circuit board. It's surrounded by four sensors, kind of in a clover leaf arrangement. Here’s what happens: the LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) of the univibe -- Warble-tron, in this case -- is activated when the light goes bright to dim and the sensors detect it, pretty much the same principle as those movement-detecting porch lights. The univibe works in that way to create a very special rise and fall to the LFO, making it truly unique. It’s a soft, slow, and organic sound!
It’s also important to know that the univibe is actually more of a phaser than a chorus. I know. I just blew a few minds. It’s okay. Take a second. The univibe effect basically modulates the guitar by way of knocking your signal in and out of phase. But at the end of the day, it's not a phaser and it's not a chorus. It's univibe, which is its own separate thing.
There are a lot of times I'll hear people talk about tracks where someone is using a univibe and they go, "Oh, it's just an old Phase 90." No. It's a univibe. I’ll give credit where credit’s due here: the Phase 90 almost does it, but almost isn't good enough for me. Another example is the BOSS PH-1. I really love this pedal, and there's a couple of settings where it nails a univibe tone, but it still lacks some of the feel and the push and swell of that bulb inside.
All this said, the univibe is a super unique circuit; there's really nothing like it. I think the most important feature of a univibe that you need to look for is that it actually includes the light bulb. A univibe without that bulb inside is really just a fancy phaser, and let’s be real: you don't need a fancy phaser. You need a univibe.
On that note, I’m going to take you through my favorite modern univibes that replicate that original Shen-Ei pedal very, very well.
The Danelectro Chicken Salad Vibrato
The first ever univibe circuit that I actually plugged into and played for myself was the Danelectro Chicken Salad Vibrato. I can’t explain the name, and I don’t even want to try. I can say that talking about this makes me pretty hungry.
I bought it because I didn't really know what it was, and it was cheap. Classic beginner move. I just wanted more pedals. I wasn’t too discerning about which pedals. I liked it because it said ‘vibrato’, even though I wasn't really sure what that was. When I plugged it in, I realized this was something special. It wasn't a phaser and it wasn't a chorus.
It was that magic thing called univibe. And the rest is history.
The Voodoo Labs Micro Vibe
You probably know Voodoo Labs because they make the most awesome power supply ever, the Pedal Power 2+, but they also have some fantastic pedals. One of their classics is the Micro Vibe. This thing sounds like it should, and it's built like a tank. I don’t think you can ask for more from any pedal.
Plus the name of the company is Voodoo Labs. That’s pretty metal, right?
The Jam Pedals Retro Vibe
You might have seen the episode where I'm shopping for gear in the Guitar Sanctuary in McKinney, Texas. Well, that day I came home with a Jam Pedals Retro Vibe. I had met these guys before, played several of their other pedals, and did not realize they made a univibe. Needless to say, it was a very happy surprise.
This is an amazing univibe, but you could buy it for the paint job alone. If you don’t have time to do a quick google search, I’ll try to draw the best picture I can: the case looks more like a piece of gear that Jimi Hendrix would have used than any piece of gear that he actually used.
Does that help?
The Dunlop Rotovibe
The Dunlop Rotovibe is truly a classic. One of my employees here, a good friend John, brought one of these to my house about ten years ago. I plugged into it and it blew me away because it had speed control on an expression pedal. The whole story came full circle later on when I found out this is the exact univibe style pedal that Pearl Jam actually used on “Ten”!
Come on. M. Night Shymalan couldn’t have written a better twist than that.
Seriously, though, this thing sounds exceptional. You got vibrato and chorus mode here; I can't say enough about it. It's a great pedal. It's heavy. Heavy pedals are good.
The Electro-Harmonix Good Vibes Modulator
The Electro-Harmonix Good Vibes Modulator is a chorus and vibrato univibe. It has the bulb in it and they are selling this at a really great price point. Honestly, it kind of blew me away how good it sounded compared to what I paid for it (roughly $100).
Okay. I'll admit it: Electro-Harmonix made a really good univibe and the price point is amazing.
I’m jealous.
...Eh, kinda.
The Depths by EarthQuaker Devices
The Depths by my friends over at EarthQuaker Devices is a great option, and it’s unique. Let’s be honest. It’s not every day you can play a pedal that sounds like you’re describing a novel by Herman Melville.
If you like tweaking a pedal constantly, if you like more knobs than you actually need, this is the univibe for you. It's super adjustable, has all kinds of controls, and it does a lot more than the standard univibe, but at its heart, it has the bulb in it. It's fantastic, and it does what it should if you're looking for this sound.
Fulltone Deja Vibe & MDV-1
I could never talk about modern univibe pedals without talking about Mike Fuller's Fulltone company Deja Vibe mini and the MDV-1. He has consistently brought us amazing univibes over the years, and if you're looking for one, these are easy to find in most stores in the bigger cities.
Just go try one, plug in, and this is going to be a very faithful replication of the real thing.
Sweet Sound Ultra Vibe & Mojo Vibe
These Sweet Sound electronic univibes -- the Ultra Vibe and the Mojo Vibe -- are a little harder to find, but 100% worth the effort. Bob Sweet, the creator and builder of these, passed away years ago due to cancer, but his family continued to make these pedals. These original units can be found on eBay and you can find the newer units from time to time.
Honestly, I can't recommend these enough because the attention to detail with how they're made is just fantastic. Professional musicians have loved these for years and years, so if you find one you really can't go wrong.
I'm really excited because I know that a lot of you guys did not understand univibe. You know, it comes off a little fringy, maybe it's an effect you don't really think you need to have or really care about. Today, I hope I shed enough light on that to get you interested.
So go out there, get some univibes, put them in your rigs, and I promise you if you do you'll love your guitar a little bit more.