The Flanger Circuit

[UberMetalDood]

I was talking to a renowned pedal maker recently and he said that an analog flanger is the hardest pedal circuit to make (and do right of course). Maxon is probably the best flanger I have ever heard, but I also really like the MXR EVH flanger which I think is digital. Anyway, why is it so hard to make a flanger? Isn't a flanger essentially like a modded chorus or something?

[PFDarkside]

Re: The Flanger Circuit

EVH is not digital, it's just a standard MXR plus a button for "Unchained" and a striped paint job.

BBDs take some work to incorporate into a circuit, but an analog flanger is just an analog chorus plus regeneration and a wider delay range. For a DIY project, anything like this is way more difficult than a fuzz or OD.

[XSSIVE]

Re: The Flanger Circuit

MXR, Way Huge and Dunlop (all the same company now) don't do any pedals that are digital FYI, all analog stuff. The EVH Flanger as PF said is just the grey box one and when you push the EVH button it bypasses the pots and replaces them with the corresponding resistors to equal the knob settings EVH used on the regular grey flanger.

I've had a few different flangers over the years, currently the EVH, but I miss my good old Boss BF-2, may have to pick one up in the future.

[jon the art guy]

Re: The Flanger Circuit

You need to have closely matched ICs feeding into a delay circuit. There's a lot of close-tolerance circuit building that is a real butt to do P2P. It's also just...FULL of parts.

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: The Flanger Circuit

The question I have is was he talking about a flanger pedal style flange...ala MXR, EH, ADA, etc or was he talking about Thru Zero Flanging in an analog pedal ala Foxrox TZF...

Those are 2 VERY different things.

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: The Flanger Circuit

Modded chorus it is not....a phaser is close to that description in sound, but not in build. All different beasts. With Flanger I think the most difficult part is like jon said... full of parts! You can make an OD with just a few components, a Flanger requires a handful. Which is kind of funny since the effect originated in such a simple manor...by touching/ pushing the tape as it spun.

My '79 Ibanez FL-301 has rocked my world since day 1....really lucked out on that one.