Boss BF-1

Though the BF-1 has some really cool sounds, it takes a little while to find something good. But it's only 4 knobs.

The pedal has the capability to come up with some really cool sounds, it can even sound like a UFO but when the resonance is turned all the way up it is really annoying. Great for that "forty-six and 2" sound. I use a Strat, a Vox Cambridge 30 and too many effects

Pretty reliable but the power supply issue is a bit of a pain, the only complaint there, but like anything BOSS, it's like a tank

????

I play Incubus meets Tool kind of music so it's pretty damn verstile, if it was stolen (God forbid) I would definately fetch another one.

Usual controls! Not particularly easy as a MXR micro flanger but anyway it's only a flanger.

First of all, this pedal was built to work with a 12V power supply! If you power it with a 9V one it won't work, or at least it will work bad!!
The sounds are pretty good, it's an old analog flanger: you know what to expect! A little noisy, but it's an issue of no interest for me.
Anyway it has two major problems: the first is that when you switch it on, the volume decrease considerably and the second is that the effect will kill almost every kind of distortion pedal you put in front of it.
The first problem I'm thinking to solve by installing a little booster inside to restore the volume loss while the second I gues it's unsolvable. I'll try to connect it before the overdrive or fuzz pedals. Let's see what happens.
Anyway I think that these problems are major ones. The vot goes down.

Definitely well built. I guess it will never break!

This pedal sounds good but the loss of volume is too big a problem for me to let me use it in my pedalboard! I'll try with the booster .
And after all it's really beautiful looking!

Four knobs, dozens of sounds and applications. It's a flanger.

You'll need an external 9V power supply as it doesn't take a battery connection.

Sounds great. The flanging is milder than my BF2 at low settings as well as harsh ones. At the upper ranges the sweep accellerates creating for an exciting effect.

I use it after line-level digital devices to air out the sound. Helps delays sound more ethereal. For a flanger, it's very warm but you'll be disappointed if you expect a warm pedal - the operating word is "airy".

Not a true bypass device, it affects output volume significantly. When enabled, it exaggerates the mids in a very narrow filter range and smooths the highs. I always keep it on as a sound reinforcement unit late in the effects chain. This is not a good choice for a pedalboard.

I use it very subtlely but depend on it to get a particular effect. A key part of my sound.

It's about 20 years old (if not older) and works fine. Large and built like a tank. The only things that are broken on mine are the knobs but not the actual potentiometers. Easy to replace but since I use it only with one setting I don't think I'll bother fixing those.

Electronically, it's very tempermental. I like it because of its unique effect, but if you're looking strictly for a consistent flanger effect day after day, week after week, you'll be disappointed. The magic in this one is its rarity and unique effect.

Roland will probably deny every making one. Repairs will have to be made by an independent electrician.

I play space rock. This pedal is a great match as a sound reinforcement tool to make digital effects sound less digital. If it were lost, I would purchase it again. I purchased this one in '90-91, saw it selling for something selling for $400 in the mid '90s and think one can be purchased today for somewhere in the $300 range.

Easy enough, just twiddle the knobs until you obtain the desired effect.

Quality -wise, it's the same as the following BF-2 flanger, in a different packaging. From hard, metallic doubling to jet flanging to frightening feedbacky flange, pretty versatile for such an old pedal!

This is part of the old, dare I say "original" Boss line, the casing is big, clunky cast iron, no battery compartment (AC adaptor is a must)... you could pound nails with the darned thingand it would still work, this gives new meaning to "built like a tank", this is more "built like a bunker"!

Old discontinued pedal, customer service? You're kidding right?

Back when I bought it (1985?), I was still trying to define my own style ... this pedal is unfortunately one of my "why did I go and sell it? It was a classic" type of pedal.

I wish I had held on to it ... but I wanted to standardize to all compact pedals so, I let it go! The only thing I hated about it was the lack of a battery compartment, AC adaptor only, it was otherwise a classic, reliable pedal which I should have kept.