Among the plethora of weird and wonderful effects pedals, few have such humble DIY roots as the Flanger. This simple effect has the ability to bring life to your guitar tone!
Ultimate Guide to
Flanger Pedals
What is a flanger pedal?
Widely considered to have been discovered by the one and only Les Paul way back in the 1940s, a flanger creates a whooshing, jet plane-like sound that rushes through your guitar tone. A flanger pedal achieves its unique characteristics by copying your signal and delaying its playback by varying amounts. This variation is created by a low frequency oscillator (LFO) with the speed, depth and amount of altered signal adjusted to taste.
The flanger effect has been replicated countless times over the years by mix engineers, audio manufacturers and experimentalists. It’s instantly recognisable qualities can be heard across numerous genres, on early records from The Beatles to modern metal riffage. In this guide, I'll explore the flange effects, the big brand names in the category, and how you can incorporate this sound into your own music and push it in unique directions, taking you one step closer to finding the pedal that’s right for you.
What Does a Flanger Sound Like??
For a great example of the quintessential flanger sound, listen out for the shimmering oscillation of the galloping guitar riff that plays throughout Barracuda by the band, Heart.
Listen carefully for the shimmering oscillation of the galloping guitar riff that runs throughout the track. Although this iconic tone summarises the effect rather nicely, flange can be tweaked to attain many weird and wonderful sounds.
Flanger Pedals
The varying spaces between the dry and wet signals weave in and out of one another, causing these harmonics to sweep up and down the frequency spectrum. That 'sucking' or 'whooshing' is the most common flanger sound, but it's quite a flexible effect that you can use to emulate types of chorus, phaser, rotary speaker, uni-vibe and even tremolo from a standard analogue flanger.
In some cases, the output can also be partially fed back into the input, generating feedback that adds another dimension to the sound. Here's a nice diagram that'll do a way better job of explaining:
How to use a flanger pedal
Flanger isn't the most subtle effect as it'll alter your tone in a big way. In order to make the most of its boldness, you'll need a little bit about its common controls.
Rate: also known as ‘speed’, it controls the speed of the variations in signal delay. A slow rate gives you that chunky jet engine sound. When you increase it, you'll get much faster rushes of sound.
Depth: sometimes called ‘mix’ or ‘wet/dry’, it controls the amount of the effect applied vs. the dry input signal. With the depth set to minimum, you’ll only get a faint suggestion of modulation, but set it to full and your tone will sway like sailors in a storm.
Sweep: this sets the frequencies in which your flanger operates. Set low for a subtle side-to-side chorus tone and crank for a prominent whoosh.
Feedback: the amount of output signal that’s fed back into the input. Similar to when you hold a microphone next to a speaker, the signal snowballs into a wash of noisy overtones. This can be used to create an otherworldly distorted quality.
Popular Flanger Pedals
This selection is made up of just a few of the most iconic flangers ever made, and some of our bestselling flanger pedals across a range of prices, containing both vintage and abstract sounds to fit neatly into your guitar pedalboard.
Electro-Harmonic Deluxe Electric Mistress?
Based on a truly classic design, EHX streamlined their enormous Electric Mistress unit into a die-cast stompbox enclosure. This stereo beauty uses the same vintage circuity as the original that defined the flanger effect, so you'll be able to attain the same iconic '70s sounds for maximum psychedelia. As well as the usual flanger controls, this pedal features a 'filter matrix' switch to freeze the flanger, taking the rate control out of the equation and creating unique filtered overtones. If you're lacking pedalboard space, the Neo Mistress delivers a similar sound but drops the depth control for a smaller footprint.
Boss BF-3
This deceptively compact pedal is stuffed to the brim with features for a really versatile experience. The awesome BF-3 unit has guitar and bass inputs, so will work perfectly with either instrument. With several modes to choose from, you can tap into classic flanger sounds as well as futuristic choppy tones, extra-chunky swirling and even a momentary effect. Plus it's built like a tank!
MXR Micro Flanger
Based on the classic M-117, the straightforward Micro Flanger analogue pedal has two controls: 'rate' and 'regen'. These control the speed and overall intensity respectively. The 'regen' control essentially controls depth and feedback at the same time, meaning you can go from killer sweeping sounds to intense wobbling with minimum effort! This pedal is also true bypass, so it won't affect your tone when switched off.
TC-Electronic Thunderstorm Flanger
Crazy flanger madness to sweeping choruses on a budget, the Thunderstorm is a super simple classic pedal packing tape-like sweeps and lush tones. For something from TC Electronic with a little more customisation at a great price, then the SCF Gold stereo chorus and flanger is the pick. It's faithful to the original brought out in 1976, so you can expect glorious vintage sounds.
Multi-FX Pedals with Flanger
Many multi-FX pedals feature a wide range of sounds to cover all basses, while some specialise particularly in modulation including flanger.
The Poly Effects Beebo is the innovative boutique effects workstation geared towards modulation. This relies on impulse responses (IRs) to create its sounds. There's an extraordinary amount of customisation to be had here. The MD-200 is the Boss take on a modulation workstation, with a wide array of flange, phaser, chorus and tremolo to select, and four onboard slots to save and recall your presets. The Meris Enzo X is another highly creative and customisable pedal with a gorgeously interactive touchscreen and impressive sound quality.
Multi-FX Pedals
FAQs
How does a flanger pedal work?
The flange sound is achieved by mixing two identical signals together, with one of the signals delayed by small and varying periods determined by a low frequency oscillator (LFO). This creates a swirling harmonic effect, like a moving comb filter.
Where Does a Flanger Pedal Go In Your SIgnal Chain?
As with most modulation effects, flanger will feel most at home towards the back end of your pedal chain. You'll be best off putting it after everything except ambient effects like reverb and delay. This means the effect will apply to everything in your chain so far, including distortion, EQ, filters and more. Play around with this order to create more abstract sounds.
What are the best guitar flanger settings?
The use of effects is entirely subjective but here are a few notable examples of great flanger settings in popular music:
• Give spotlight moments some attitude with a cool Van Halen-esque edge. Rate: 3.5, Depth: 3.5, Feedback: 3.5
• For a slow-burning psychedelic trip, combine with a clean sound and add a bit of spacey delay for added effect. Rate: 2, Depth: 3.5, Feedback: 5
• Extra wobbly cleans for a grungy tone. This dazed but frantic clean sound is perfect for arpeggiated chord parts. Rate: 8, Depth: 6, Feedback: 3
• Molten-hot leads. Add a subtle shimmer to your lead tone that'll set it apart from the mix. The secret ingredient is plenty of distortion! Rate: 3.5, Depth: 2, Feedback: 2
What's the difference between a flanger, phaser and chorus?
These three modulation effects work in similar ways: they all mix your dry signal with a filtered/detuned signal to create an abstract sound. Each one creates a modulated effect using an LFO, but tweaked slightly differently.
• A flanger mixes the dry signal with a delayed signal swaying between 5-25 milliseconds. The delayed signal is then fed back into the chain creating harmonic feedback.
• A phaser splits the guitar signal into multiple stages, shifts them out of phase and then recombines them. The out-of-phase frequencies cause a warped, wavy sound.
• A chorus combines the dry signal with a slightly detuned and delayed signal. The LFO controls the pitch of the delayed signal, and the further you push the pitch, the more wobbly the effect gets.
Jargon Buster
• Modulation: the process of altering an input signal waveform resulting in unique sounds.
• Oscillation: the movement back and forth of a sound wave, increasing and decreasing in amplitude. A low frequency oscillator is one that moves slowly enough for us to hear.
• Comb filter: when two slightly delayed signals are played on top of eachother, the visual waveform created has several evenly spaced notches, giving the appearance of a comb.
• Harmonic: each note or musical tone that you hear is comprised of multiple, almost infinite notes. Some of these notes can be highlighted either by different playing techniques or using effects such as filters and EQ. Modulation effects tend to cycle through highlighted harmonics.
• Phase: the position of a point on a waveform cycle. When two identical signals are combined but one is delayed slightly, they're called 'out of phase'. This, in part, is what you hear when you use modulation effects.
Want to learn more?
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