A Tone-Bending, Always-On Friend

This pedal is warm and groovy. I keep it always on. It bends the pitch enough to make your tone unique but subtle enough to add more layers of effects. I put it at the start of my signal chain.

"The" Flanger

Truly covers all your flanger needs. I find that it sounds the best when you set it up as a flanging chorus, it makes the guitar bloom in a very musical way which is even better in stereo. The "ultra" mode is great paired with distortion when soloing as well.

esoteric

this really is a niche pedal, it is hard to get a usable sound out of it. but, it does have still plenty of usable and unique sounds, it's just that you have to go out of your way to find uses for the sounds this pedal offers. it's definitely a pedal to use sparingly, but effectively.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

flanger.

I dont have a lot to say about it, but is an aswome pedal. The gate/pan let you do some nice stuff like a stutter or vibrato (depending the output you're using). And you can do a lot of different mods with it like a chorus for exemple.

From Gear Setup

A very versatile and neat flanger, BUT...

The main issue with this flanger in my experience is that it boosts your signal when you engage it. This has been an issue with playing live. Other than that issue, it's a pretty nice flanger with great modes and creative possibilities. However, I've been going back to my Boss MD-200 for modulation now, as the flanger on that does not boost your signal when you engage it.

It works, but I was hoping to be more impressed

Its...a flanger. I got this hoping it would be a good replacement for my DOD FX-75B (the footswitch on it bothers me and mine produces audible flanging even being the only ON pedal and with the guitar muted). It definitely works as advertised, but not the way I wanted. Unlike the sound I go for, this flanger sounds a bit more...."on top" of the sound rather than "integrated with" the sound. The bass option is a good perk though; having failed to replace my DOD on my guitar board, this ended up actually expanding my bass board. Which in turn made me get more serious about bass.

I guess it fits other people's styles, but until I find the circuit I want in a flanger, its a standby.

Get the BF-2 instead

BOSS discontinued the analogue BF-2, which formed the basis of the classic Robert Smith guitar sound, in the early 2000s, and they replaced it with this. I suppose they were trying to update the pedal for a new Millennium. And yes, it's got more options; a standard mode, an Ultra mode, a slicing/pan mode, it's stereo, and it'll take a bass, and there's a momentary switch so you can add the effect at certain points only, and....

...and it doesn't sound anything like as good as the BF-2. This is a digital flange effect with none of the mystery, depth and vibe of its predecessor. Just get that instead.

MORE than a Flanger

This pedal offers incredible versatility, with the quality of Boss and saving space on your pedalboard.

From Vibrato, Chorus, Tremolo to the Flanger that it rightly mentions. There's even a setting where you can achieve a ''vintage'' texture that sets the mood like a vinyl, similar to the LoFi junky from Zvex, it's just a matter of experimenting.

Strange but GREAT!

I've never been much of a Flanger type of guy but I got this one out of luck from a friend who gave it to me. I've been experimenting with it and using it in a lot of tracks just to get the hang of it, which has been strangely awesome! My new band and I love how it interacts with the rest of our music, and how it adds this crazy vibe to whatever we're doing at the moment!

Flanger to get the job done!

The BF-3 is a great digital flanger that is easy to set up (given you play around with the settings for an hour maybe first). The buffer in the BF-3 can cut a bit of your highs off in the clean sound, but with overdrive and distortions you wouldn't notice it, I recommend throwing the BF-3 in the amps effects loop or even putting it in a true bypass loop to protect your 'Tone'. I played through other flanger pedals and this one is the one that can do Flanging and other modulation effects the best! the gate/pan mode can be used as a Tremolo in mono and sorta a Uni-vibe in stereo amp setups. the ultra mode is great for wacked out Flanging. But the Standard mode and momentary mode (which is standard mode with, well the momentary application) is where this pedal sits better for my application, if you set the 'Res' knob low and the 'Rate' knob high you can easily get chorus sounds, even Phaser with the right settings. If you're unsure where to start with your modulation pedal search, I recommend the BF-3 or any flanger with (a manual knob which is essentially the delay time), even if flanger isn't your thing, you can cop some other modulation pedal sounds from this one effect alone.