How To Get 6 Modulation Effects From a Basic Flanger Pedal Like The Boss BF-2

for a long time i thought that flanger pedals were kind of a one-trick pony where i'd use them for that jet plane swoosh type sound and that'll be about it but i'm starting to come around to the idea that actually basic analog flanger pedals like the boss bf2 and the mxr m117 are actually some of the most versatile types of modulation effect that you can use with just a bit of a deeper understanding of the controls you can get chorus phaser rotary speaker univibe vibrato even some auto wire type sounds all from one simple analog pedal and while i know there are multi effects pedals that will do all these effects in one box there's a certain beauty about taking just an old school analog flanger pedal and seeing how creative and resourceful you can be just with that one effect so before we dive right into all the examples to get the most out of this you do need a decent understanding of all the controls on a flange pedal and what they do because that is what generally stops people from finding all these settings and being able to fine-tune them to exactly what you want it's not quite as easy as chorus pedals and phaser pedals where they're a bit more intuitive sometimes don't have as many controls a flanger pedal takes a bit more skill i think so just stay with me for a minute i won't go deep into the history of the flander effect here i'll try and keep it short and sweet but just know that the flander effect comes from when in the studio two tape machines will be playing the same music ever so slightly out of sync um and you've got an effect right there already you've got the effect of delay between the two tape machines just a very short delay uh but that's worth remembering and what would happen next is that um some clever clogs will put their finger on the flange of one of the tape machines and that causes it to slow down and more importantly drop in pitch and the harder they press with their finger the deeper the pitch drops as they release the pressure with their finger then it speeds back up and you've got this uh speeding up of pitch um back to you know standard speed uh more in sync with the other tape machine so it's that pressing on and off of the flange of one of the tape machines that causes the traditional flanger sound the manual control is delay time longer to the left and shorter to the right this is basically how in or out of sync those two tape machines would be depth or width some pedals call it width is how wide the sweep is so that's how hard the finger would be pressed on the flange of one of those tape machines rate or speed is how fast the modulation happens so that's how fast or how often the finger will be pressed on the flange of that tape machine the resonance feedback or regeneration different flanger pedals call it different things but that control feeds the delayed signal back to the input which it just intensifies the flanging effect as you turn it up okay let's get the standard flanger swooshing sound out of the way all controls at about noon apart from maybe the resonance control which can crank up a little bit [Music] [Music] [Music] for chorus sounds set the resonance really low so you get away from that really intense flanging sound and the manual control which remember is the delay time uh set all the way down so it's a really long delay uh we want to move away from the typical flanger sound of fast delays where you get that kind of comb filter type sound we want to move away from that and more towards the longer delays that chorus pedals have where it sounds more like two signals just laid over the top of each other the depths should be set fairly low flanges can get really wide and kind of wild we want more of that subtle smooth sweep of a chorus pedal so set the depth fairly low for this the rate control can be set to taste but on this bf2 there's loads of range in the lower settings um all the kind of what i call medium sort of speed settings are all in that sort of top end range of the control on this one [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] for more of a rotary speaker type sound you can use a lot of the same settings that we used for the chorus sounds uh but just increase the depth a little bit so you're getting that wider sweep and that tends to get you probably more of the sound of a chorus pedal emulating the sound of a rotary speaker so um just to be clear we're using a flanger pedal to emulate a chorus pedal emulating a rotary speaker so just kind of manage your expectations but it's quite a fun setting uh quite nice sort of organ type sounds as well as like john scofield type stuff things like that [Music] [Music] so [Music] uh [Music] now if you raise the manual control to shorten the delay you start to get more of a phasing type sound that's kind of similar to a uni vibe i'll try and use it here in a similar way to kind of hendrix and robin trowerwood those sort of classic rock vibe users where i've got the od3 set to a mild overdrive that's trying to emulate a kind of martial plexi type sound i've got fuzz pedal going into it and in between them i've got the bf2 doing what i think is a pretty acceptable univibe impression [Music] great so if you crank both depth and rate controls you can get pretty good vibrato paddle type sound and i like using this sort of setting for a momentary effect just to highlight certain notes you can take the rate and depth down a little bit if you want but the sound of the original signal starts to blend in a bit more with the modulated signal so it it starts to sound a bit more like a chorus again on those settings i think on the more extreme settings the original signal is less prominent so to me it sounds more like a vibrato paddle should [Music] [Music] so [Music] if you raise the manual control so there's only a really short delay you get a sound similar to a phaser and what's happening is on the longer delay settings it's more like two signals laid over each other on the shorter delay settings um you're getting that more shimmery sound of phase cancellation that has reduced bass um i'll just sweep through the manual control and see if you can hear that reduction in bass and that increase in shimmery effect that sort of thinning of the sound as i go from the longer delay sound to the shorter delay setting [Music] i'll do some chord playing with a slow phaser type sound and then i'll raise the rate a little for a faster phaser type sound that i quite like for kind of funk lead riffs and stuff [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] i might be pushing my luck with this one but if you like that funky phaser sound but want it to sound more like a wire pedal you can move away from the phasing type sound and get more of an auto warp type sound by backing off the manual and depth controls and raising the resonance a little bit and what you're after is trying to get a fluctuation in tone rather than pitch um or at least the effect of a fluctuation in tone so tweak the settings a little bit to find what works best for you the more you raise the resonance control the more it's going to blend with a more traditional flanger type sound [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] of course it wouldn't be right not to include an example with a flander on its more extreme settings some of that weird 80s sci-fi simply madness for this just crank all the controls apart from maybe the rate control just set that to taste [Music] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] i hope that's helped you understand flanger pedals a little bit better remember that um all these settings aren't just applicable to the bf2 you can use them with any flanger pedal that just has these four main controls i hope you found this useful if you did think about liking the video and subscribing to the channel and thanks for watching

Channel: Michael Banfield

Views: 82,227

Keywords: flanger, flanger pedal, flanger effect, flanger vs phaser, flanger vs chorus, flanger guitar pedal, flanger sound effect, guitar pedals, guitar effects, boss flanger, boss bf2, boss bf-2, boss bf-2 flanger, boss bf2 vs bf3, bossbf3, boss bf-3, mxr m117, mxr m117r, mxr m117 flanger, versatile guitar effect, chorus pedal, phaser pedal, univibe pedal, multi effects pedal, analogue flanger, analog flanger, best flanger pedal, how to use flanger pedal, understanding flanger

Id: YDNccE_-Zn8

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 28 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/tybenz]

This is why I love my BF-2 so much. It really is like a utility modulation pedal. One setting I wish he would've covered: You can get ring-mod type sounds if you zero-out rate/depth and mess with manual and resonance/regen.

What are some other flangers that y'all like to use and they can do crazier stuff than the BF-2?

[u/staybroke69]

I really love this guys effects videos. the best

[u/Stevie_Clicks]

I watched this earlier this week, great video for explaining the effect in depth. I love the pseudo-chorus sound from a flanger, especially after dirt to thicken up my sound. The TC Thunderstorm is supposed to be a BF2 clone I think, I love mine and keep it on my mono board. Very versatile and lush.

[u/Catharsis_Cat]

I find a flanger with negative feedback does the faux filter/wah sounds more accurately. The secret to those is that the manual controls the frequency your are set on, keep the depth low and you can center on some vowel like sounds easily and turn up the resonance to increase their prominence. It works with positive feedback flangers like the BF-2 as well, but they have a different tonality to them.

If your flanger has a mix knob that goes fully wet, you can get straight up pitch vibrato sounds as well

For faux-Leslie sounds, I actually prefer to not max the manual and put in just a little resonance because Leslie's seem to have a bit of filtering to my ears as well.

But big picture I feel like the real great thing about flangers isn't so much the direct emulation of the other effects (which is also cool) so much as the interesting hybrids you can get between those other effects.

Infodumping aside, it's a really great informative video.

[u/major_seventh]

I can get a pretty convincing CE-1 with my Mooer E-Lady.