The best flanger?

[David]

  Definitely not the Boss BF-2

Now, wait a minute!  The BF-2 isn't bad at all...     as a chorus.

[Mark Hammer]

Not having one of these in my possession, maybe someone could answer me this question:  Is there room in the BF-2 for inserting a retrofit board that would permit buffering of the clock lines and use of a higher clock speed?

I know it takes a real drubbing from folks, but the fact of the matter is that the BF-2 is a generally decent design with a respectable sound, and it exists in very large quantities out there, often at low prices.  All that really limits it from being a keeper is the limited sweep range imposed by the use of unbuffered clock lines.  If one could add some buffering between the MN3102 and MN3207, that would permit dropping the clock-range cap value and getting it to sweep to below 1msec.  That change, and removing some of the low end in the regen path via a cap value change there, would improve the sound for many.  A little SMT board with a 4049 or 4041 would do the job amply, I suspect.

Finally, I've mentioned it before and will mention it again.  If one had a pair of FAB Flangers (a $40 total in many places), and identified/lifted the dry connection on each, you could make yourself one humdinger of a TZF.  Just split the input and feed half to each flanger, then take their outputs and mix 'em back together. 

[JOHNO]

i just pulled my BF2 out of the shoe box under my bed. And it seems you could fit a small board about 3.5cm by 4cm but the componants wouldnt want to sit too high on the board as there isnt much height.

HHHHMMMM theres a couple of jrc 4558's in there might trash this piece of junk and throw one in my tube screamer reissue.

[Mark Hammer]

Thanks for that info.  I guess the more critical question is whether there would be room immediately above the spot where the 3102 and 3207 chips sit.  Ideally, you'd want to have any leads connecting the 3102, 3207 and a buffer chip sitting between them to be as short as possible.

[majormono]

My favourite is still the first stompbox I ever aquired - an Ibanez FLL (Master Series, TS10 size), though there is nothing special to it. Bought used in the late 80s. Maybe I just got used to it, or it is the fact that it lacks any mojo, voodoo or other must-have tokens... plain-vanilla does the job when I need it.

[Gila_Crisis]

i have a BF2 and i heavily modded it! now it sounds really wired! look here:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=66283.0

btw this thing about the buffer to have an higher clock rate really interest me. where can i read more about it? and what kind of buffer could be used (schems?)?

[any]

What?! No one mentioned the Yamaha FL-01 yet?!
Hands down my favorite of the 10 or so flangers i've played...
I remember we had a thread about it as well a while back...

found it:
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=38024.0

[JOHNO]

In reply to marks question. Sure theres room if you only wanted to solder in one chip above the 3102 and 3207 chips. And in reply to Gila's post there seems to be alot of components missing in your BF2. In the one I have every single hole on the board has components in it. Weird.

[StephenGiles]

i just pulled my BF2 out of the shoe box under my bed. And it seems you could fit a small board about 3.5cm by 4cm but the componants wouldnt want to sit too high on the board as there isnt much height.

HHHHMMMM theres a couple of jrc 4558's in there might trash this piece of junk and throw one in my tube screamer reissue.

Nothing wrong with 4558s at 9v. You can put in the quietest opamp around and there will be no difference at 9v. At dual 15v yes but at 9v no. Don't be hoodwinked.

[Gila_Crisis]

In reply to marks question. Sure theres room if you only wanted to solder in one chip above the 3102 and 3207 chips. And in reply to Gila's post there seems to be alot of components missing in your BF2. In the one I have every single hole on the board has components in it. Weird.

in my BF2 some components are missing because i made it true bypass, so i removed all the flip-flop components which were then useless

[JOHNO]

yep ok i thuoght that might have been the case. thanks.