Shepard's End

Mr. Black calls this "the world's first barber-pole through-zero flanger," and Jack Deville considers it one of his most significant designs—executing a process that had never been done in pedal format before. Where conventional flangers sweep up then back down, the Shepard's End goes up continually, or down continually, like the visual illusion of a barber pole. It can even pass through the zero-point continuously—the sweet spot where that massive jet-engine whoosh lives on so many records.

Three controls: Wave (direction of the barber-pole sweep—up or down, with the zero-point at center), Regen (positive for swishy, phaser-like shimmer; negative for hollow, tubular, sucking-into-itself sounds), and Speed (from draggingly slow to space-ray-gun fast). Without regeneration, you get raw through-zero flanging—the pure tape-machine effect.

True bypass. 9VDC center-negative, <60mA. Handmade in Portland, Oregon.