Great basic flanger that can handle some chorus duties!

Sometimes I really miss my Boss BF-2 Flanger pedal. I bought it for $20 in highschool from a kid named Frank who was really into the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I think we made the deal on a school bus.... so it must have been about 18 years ago! I used it sparingly, but devotedly for a decade and now I can't remember what I did with it. I wonder if its in a box somewhere with my Boss SD-1 overdrive....

update, found it

Anyway, the boss has a passable buffer and their usually sturdy build quality. Featuring controls for Manual (LFO sweep center point), rate, depth and resonance (regeneration), this little analog flanger sounds exactly like you would expect. At low resonance and depth settings it can do cool chorus sounds like the Cure's use of flanging. Get extreme and slow the rate down to achieve some cheesey Heart sounds for covering "Baracuda". Lots of great sounds inbetween. This pedal will not get as extreme and filtery as an electric mistress, nor does it sound as smooth and good as an A/DA or Mutron Flanger (oh to have that rare Mutron foot-flanger back from the junky who loaned it to me... I hope he didn't sell it for less than a grand). The BF-2 is capable of pretty solid Ibanez Jet Flanger tones with the Res knob cranked.

My biggest caveat with the BF-2 is the fact that if you want to run a distortion effect like a TS9 or Tonebender Fuzz into it (instead of after it, 2 VERY different sounds), it is very easy to clip the input stage of Boss's internal buffer wether the flanger is engaged or not. Also, this flanger is NOT stereo, but frankly none of the best sounding flangers ever were as I recall from my youth when they were hella popular. This is a good meat and potatoes modulation effect that does a good job of well, everything flange!

Great and versatile

Great and versatile. Does anything from hollow chorus to rocket flange. Real good.

The original BOSS stompbox flanger

Yes! I finally found one in Liverpool's Curly Music for about £50. I typed the serial number into Google and apparently this one's from about 1990, Taiwanese. This is the one to get if you want those classic 80s tones - Robert Smith, Prince, Siouxie, Billy Duffy ('She Sells Sanctuary'), Cocteaus, Psychedelic Furs...Not saying the BF-3 is a bad pedal, but it's a modern digital flanger which just doesn't have the mojo of this one. The BBD chips make all the difference, especially in the feedback control - it's a flange that seems to sit with and become part of the guitar sound, rather than sitting on the top of it.

Flanger for a classic tones

So, here we have something what Boss decided to discontinue. Why? That is a million dollar question, because that flanger is absolutely great. It can give you delicate chorus, little detune, classic flanging or extreme sweeps for EVH stuff. Very tweakable; analog circuit sounds warm, lush, natural and deep. On the other hand I find BF-2 a little metallic when compared to HF-2. Nevertheless it is definately worth the money and yes - it can be found cheap. I have the MiJ version with silver screw - got it for 20$. Fav settings: Manual: minimum, Depth 2:00, Rate 2:00, Res: minimum.

OK/meh

This flanger is OK, but compared to my vingate MXR Flanger it sounds too lo fi and midrangy. It sounds like a small toy heard from the old telephone or radio.

The King of Flangers

My favourite pedal of all time. 4 really brilliant knobs (Manual, Depth, Rate, Resonance) and a pretty affordable price. I personally use it on bass (because who said you can't use guitar pedals for bass?) and it sounds brilliant, especially when you crank the treble tone knob up on your bass.

Yet another de-facto standard from BOSS, nothing fancy but sounds AWESOME

Yeah it's just another boring BOSS pedal, right? And it's purple, or fuchsia, or whatever... But it is yet another example where BOSS does something, and does it so well, that everything else is now compared to it. The BF-2 Flanger is a classic, and for good reason. It sounds awesome. There is a wide range of sounds, easily dialed in, going from a full-on psychedelic wobble, to a 747-soaring overhead, to a soft chorus-like blend. If you want to flange, there are plenty of options, but not a better one.

Very good flanger but used with a bass...

...it sometimes makes it difficult to cut through the mix, especially in low frequencies. On a Warwick Corvette $$ it offers a colourful wave. On a P-Bass fretless, the effect gets muddy and sometimes inaudible. I particularly like putting the rate between 3 and 5 o'clock for a psyche/disco, fat, sound.

Generic purple flanger that does what it says it does/

Society when the flanger flanges:

Great

Dont try and tell me Boss pedals are rubbish its only boutique marketing that says it. This pedal is a classic you have to have one even if you only use it for the jet flange sound on the ending of 1 song.