Lovetone Doppelganger

The Lovetone Doppelganger is a four-stage optical phaser first released in 1995, designed by Dan Coggins of Lovetone. It doubles as a vibrato, and MusicRadar has described it as "a much-feted phaser/vibrato from the 1990s, and a Coggins original"¹². RockBoard lists it as a rare pedal³. Players known to have used it include The Edge, Johnny Marr, and Ed O'Brien, among others².

The sound

GuitarPlayer's reviewer described the Doppelganger as having "a sound very similar to that of the classic Uni-Vibe"⁶. Because it is an optical phaser that also runs as a vibrato, it sits in the same territory as the vibe-style pedals players reach for when they want that swirling, rotating-speaker character. For more on that family of effects, see Vibrato Pedals.

Controls and features

JHS Pedals, in its history of Lovetone, notes the pedal's waveform control among its front-panel features⁵. Aion FX also points out a visual detail that sets the Doppelganger apart: each pair of phaser stages has its own rate/depth LED, so in every mode there is always a visual representation of how the signal is being modulated².

The pedal also features expression pedal inputs, according to JHS Pedals, letting a player sweep the effect by foot⁵.

The 1999 update

The Doppelganger was updated in 1999 with three new features²:

• A Dry Out jack, allowing for stereo operation when combined with the pedal's other output
• A Square Wave toggle
• A Slow toggle

The ThorpyFX Pulse Doppler connection

The Doppelganger's circuit has a direct descendant. Guitar.com reviewed the ThorpyFX Pulse Doppler as "the Lovetone Doppelganger reimagined," the third in ThorpyFX's Lovetone MkII series, created with original Lovetone designer Dan Coggins and redesigned from the ground up⁴. It is a modern redesign rather than a copy of the original pedal.

Videos

Click to load

Click to load

Click to load