I am thinking mainly of overall tone then functionallity then price. Are the new toys any good or do you have to invest in a vintage pedal for a good unit?
Any easy flanger DIY builds out there?
Thanks,
BigT
Eventide Instant Flanger is great, but not an easy build. A/DA clone capable of being quite extreme. Find myself liking the Boss BF-1 quite a bit as a general-use unit, more restrained than the A/DA but in a good way. Uses an SAD1024 and capable of fairly wide swooshes and short delays when operated on 12V supply (rather than the 9V supply suggested by the manufacturer).
Cheers, Mike
Dlx elec mistress over at ggg would be a great diy build also the PAIA PHlanger......There is an ibanez flanger over at tonepad based on the MN3007.
Dont buy the BF-2, not even worth the pittence it costs.
Or, if you wait a while I will have project documents written up to build an echoflanger, that does flange, slapback delay, chorus and filter matrix. All based around 2 SAD1024's.
I personally would go for the Dlx elec mistress purely for versatility.
There's also the Ibanez 301 flanger clone project which sounds pretty good.
http://www.tonepad.com/project.asp?id=26
Fp
Quote from: nelson..There is an ibanez flanger over at tonepad based on the MN3007
.... :?
Sorry, I must have been typing my msg when you replied!! it wasn't there :shock:
Fp
I miss my old A/DA flanger desperately - I loved the thing.
Has anyone here used an A/DA STD-1 before? Comments?
Tanks,
Scott
I have an original EHX Electric Mistress (9V version, non-deluxe) and I love it. It has a very unique sound and can get from subtle flanging into extreme flanging.
I got mine modded by EHX for free; they fixed the huge volume drop I had.
Hi Mike, you have taken the words right out of my mouth! I still intend to have a go at the Eventide - when I have a lot of time!!!
Stephen
I love my old "pearl" flanger, though its a bit noisey !
A friend has a couple of Arion Flangers and I must say that they sound
fantastic !
I "dream" of an ADA though ........ :?
Marty.
I just etched a PCB for Hollis' Ultra/Ultimate Flanger. I liked the variety of controls (liked the idea of more than just rate/depth controls) and I think it runs on the MN3008, IIRC.
I'm not building it any time soon, but it's on my list.
For bog simple gutsy flanging I like the Standard Electric Mistress in a band situation because it's entire range is useable, and there is less chance of being accused of buggering around with the beast between numbers.
Stephen
I'm glad you specified tone over functionality, since that tells me what you're looking for. On the other hand, what some call "tone" may refer to specific types of sounds. For instance, some folks think "jet plane" when they think flanger. Others think highly resonant metallic sounds, while others think mostly in terms of emulating a slow Leslie. Not every flanger can go all of those things equally well, so the question is "What type of need/use do you foresee?".
Though it's not my absolute favourite flanger from among what is, has been, or will be, the Electric Mistress is a pretty dependable unit that nails many of the "classic" tones people think of when they think flanger. If tinkering with the controls is not something you plan on doing much of, it's probably a very safe bet.
Certainly, the A/DA Flanger has a well-deserved respect and admiration from people for the width of its sweep. It won't/can't do through-zero flanging, but comes about as close as most single-BBD units ever have.
Though not quite as emotional or raw-sounding, the PAiA Phlanger has as much external voltage control as can be found in low-end flangers, having both LFO speed and initial delay-time set-able by external control voltages.
Personally, I would recommend scoring any of the cheap commercial analog flangers (i.e., any of the various units that mail-order houses sell for <$30) and making those changes that bring it closer to what you want. First off, you have to pay for the chips and pots anyways, and if a pre-made unit saves you the debugging, it's money well spent.
Hi Mark - good morning, I see you are checking in after breakfast just as I do!
Stephen
Well, after breakfast, but just befrore I dashed off to do grocery shopping, so a belated g'morning to you, Steve. For your patience, you get a good afternoon included freefor the same price! :wink:
Has anyone tried Jurgen Haible's Storm Tide flanger? It's supposed to be similar to the Eventide unit, but has some additions. The schematic is, well, huge.
http://home.debitel.net/user/jhaible/jh_storm_tide_flanger.html
Iv'e got a Next Flanger. It's analog, with a 3007 I think. Has a large but useable range I think, but the cool thing about it, is it has a "manual" knob.
If you set the rate at zero, you can do manual flanging with this knob, instead of having the lfo doing sweeps. Very cool! For instance, plug in a piezo-mic, dial up a good deal of feedback, and you have a sort of tunable synth drum!
Million laughs! :D
Anyway, don't know if they're hard to find, but they were made under the Next name, and Fender(!!!), possibly more, and I think the manual mode makes them worth the money (mine was rather cheap too). Of course, it's a good mod to do to any other flanger. 8)
Link to pictures and sounds of the Fender version:
http://www.modezero.com/fender-flanger.htm
C
You know, if I had the $369, I'd have a Paradox TZF in my grubby little hands right now:
http://www.foxroxelectronics.com/TZF1.html
Thanks everyone for your input. I think I'll try and build one. Maybe John Hollis one. Any comments on his Ultra Flanger?
Thanks again - what a great bunch of people in this forum!
I'm rather fond of Ibanez Flangers. I have both the FL-301 (Got it for £5, the previous owner thought it was broken. It had been rewired with 1 battery snap and he wondered why it wasn't working. 8) ) and an FL-9. Both are nice sounding flangers, quite subtle and chorusy but can get some pretty insane sounds.
Just one last comment from my end. Many flangers are what I like to call 3-knobbers. That is, they have speed, width, and regen controls and no more. Personally, I like at least 5 controls, with an added one for dry/wet balance, and another for manual delay tuning. That second one is pretty important in determining the character of the flanger in question. Often, what people like about a given flanger, tone-wise, is the feel and width of the sweep, but often what they zero in on, without even realizing it, is the actual delay range, and where the sweep starts from or ends up. The manual/initial control is generally used to set the max clock rate (i.e., minimum delay time). If it is chassis mounted, great. Sometimes it comes in the form of a trimpot on the board which can be "relocated" to a chassis-mount pot, while other times it is simply a fixed resistor and no more.
Ideally, for maximum tonal flexibility, you want something with a manual delay control.
Quote from: Joe ViauHas anyone tried Jurgen Haible's Storm Tide flanger? It's supposed to be similar to the Eventide unit, but has some additions. The schematic is, well, huge.
http://home.debitel.net/user/jhaible/jh_storm_tide_flanger.html
Joe I built one, here's some pics... the last 2 photos http://www.freewebs.com/elroy2/
Also the ibanez from Francisco's Tonepad sound real smooth, not over the top wild, but smoooth
Thanks for the little tour, Bill, now THAT'S a flanger!!!!
:twisted:
Man, Bill, that is some really nice work.
Mark nailed it on the head with his comments on controls. I'm currently enraptured by the delay modulation section of the STD-1.
On the STD-1, there are four controls. One control is for setting the delay manually for initial delay, one is for setting the frequency of the primary LFO, another controls a secondary LFO which modulates the amplitude of the primary LFO, and one control determines the ratio of fixed delay to modulated delay. Moreover, the LFO signal is damped increasingly as the rate of change of the LFO increases.
I initially was taken with the multi-tap apsect of the STD-1, and only gave the modulation control a cursory glance when I undertook the project, but - man alive, A/DA hit upon such a musically useful and intuitive arrangement with these controls! I think it is as much a part of the magic as the taps themselves. Having the second LFO modulating the amplitude of the primary LFO lends to some really lush chorusing, flanging with vibrato, and random sweeps. Imagine fast, shallow (or deep) vibrato and deep, slow flanging together, for example - really, really nice. The amplitude damping with frequency makes it really easy to dial in some very good settings along these lines, yet there's plenty of room for really crazy, bent effects as well.
Right now I've just got an MN3007 hooked up to the LFO, clock, and BBD filters - that by itself would make a really nice little flanger/chorus. Actually this will be (along with a separate compandor system and regeneration) the basis for my added 'Delay 2' line. I haven't even gotten to the fun part yet, and I'm already excited. :D
One more thing that is required for any flanger I'll have - a selection between 'negative' (inverted) and positive regeneration. Without a selection between positive and negative regeneration, it's only half a flanger, IMO. That's one thing that A/DA didn't have in the STD-1, which totally mystifies me. I've added it to what I have on breadboard, and it sounds freaking awesome.
Cheers,
Scott
I'm surprised no one mentioned the old grey MXR Flanger yet.
I'm very pleased with mine. Very smooth tone and gets all the flang sounds I'm looking for.
since I hadn`t found one on the market that I could fully dig,
somebody needed to come up with
THIS ONE: (http://www.musik-produktiv.de/bilder2/10/00/24/100024237xl.jpg)
:wink:
Looks like that would do the job :wink:
Where does the Paia Hyperflange fit into all this? In a previous life I bought all the chips needed to build the thing, but I'd be interested to know if they'd be better off used somewhere else.
One of the great shames of my life is that I have the board for that thing (Hyperflange) all populated (even scored a CEM3340!) and never managed to wire it up and fire it up in the past 13 years. :oops: :? :roll:
With the exception of some things I've seen in Japanese project books, and the thing Ton/Puretube just posted, the Hyperflange - on paper anyways - promised to be one of the great flangers. Never heard a soundclip from one though.
Holy cow, Mark. Talk about procrastination at it's finest... :lol: Well, seeing your pile of unfinished projects, maybe procrastination isn't the word, or is it? :D
I miss my old MXR Flanger but it's been so long since I sold it that I'm pretty much over it. I really like my BOSS BF-2B Bass Flanger (the brown one). It sounds very very warm and has that vintage flanger type tone to it. Anyone with a BF-2 can make their sound just like it with a few part swaps (caps and I think one IC difference).
Quote from: puretubesince I hadn`t found one on the market that I could fully dig,
somebody needed to come up with
THIS ONE: (http://www.musik-produktiv.de/bilder2/10/00/24/100024237xl.jpg)
:wink:
you can't tell me that this actually DOESN'T EXIST... oh man it's too god to be true... :shock:
Quote from: puretubesince I hadn`t found one on the market that I could fully dig,
somebody needed to come up with
THIS ONE: (http://www.musik-produktiv.de/bilder2/10/00/24/100024237xl.jpg)
:wink:
Any chance you could get me a discount puretube :oops:
The sacrifices I make for education.... :roll:
The Flanger Hoax does exist and IIRC should be out sometime in September. :)
Quote from: travisskThe Flanger Hoax does exist and IIRC should be out sometime in September. :)
Looks like a completely refurbished Mutron Bi-phase!!!! way cool!!
I'm almost ashamed for saying this but I'll buy that Hoax just for it's looks!!! :oops: :wink:
I don't have many Flangers and even when I did, for some reason I wasn't too picky.
I used to like my old MXR black plastic flanger - cheap thing on keyboards.
Now I have the Ibanez Tone-lok flanger, an old Boss Flanger and probably some I forgot. For the new stuff I'll just use the new Liqua-Flange.
I never ever owned a delux mistress although I always wanted one.
I like the Ibanez DFL best, an old (80ies) Digital Flanger. It's no so extrem but sounds much better than my others (Boss HF2, Ibanez sf10 and ffl) and the EH EM, i've tried.
I don't like limited 3 knobbers my self because when it comes to flangers there capable of so much that Id hate the thought of only having 3 parameters. I always craved a paia hyperflange and now te cem3340s are available for 15.00 and abundant it seems possible as long as the sad 1024 section can be reconfigured for a newer bbd like a mn3007. I don't know a whole lot yet so im unsure. or maybe even pcbs for the dynachord tam 19 would be awesome if possible