Boss BF-2 Flanger

I would say medium for easy of use. I had to take a look at the Effects Guide from Boss to get an idea of a good starting place. It was a lot of fun tweaking the knobs and creating all those sounds.

Setup = 84 American Strat equipped w Noiseless pickups, 91 Charvel w Dimarzio Area 58 and 61 pickups, or 73 Ibanez Les Paul copy equipped with Seymour Duncans. All w gauge 10s. Crate Palomino v32 212. Connect by itself with monster cables and thru my Carl Martin Combinator 2 with George L cables. Also tested with Vox Pathfinder model v9158, Fender FM 100 head, Marshall MG 250 DFX.

Settings = no noisy. found a lot sounds good for funk, soul rhythm work, some for rock, and some for lead.

Sound = the effect sounded great and actual boosted the overall volume level. great for that swoosh and swirl, short delay, watery chorus sound, funky phase sound. I can get sounds for Maroon, Seal, Van Halen ...

Great clean or with distortion.

No issues what so ever. Gig all the time with a variety band playing all kinds of music. Its found a permanent spot on my pedalboard.

Never had to deal with Boss.

like I said, I play soul, r&b, funk, jazz, latin, latin rock, tejano, rock, and pop.

i have a bf2 mij once but i sold it after a few years, now i got one but its a mit. i think the quality differs because the knobs from mij productions are tighter than the mit prods..

if you have a really good ear, you can have various sounds from this baby.. i make it as a delay and a slight phase effect for modulation when im kinda tired of flange effect..

i have an analog flanger once, an ibanez fl9.. its a good one but it is limited to though, it limits a jet flange effect.. but the warm it produces a warm sound which a bf2 lacks.

i think boss pedals really stood up in their warranty of 5 years and more coz i owned a lot of boss pedals and theyve been with me since day 1..

just go to their website and you can get all the support you can get..
manuals and stuff..

been playing for 12 years.. been playing jazz/blues/funk/soul/rnb and rock, so i pretty much wear this baby a lot.. id probably get an analog flange effect to double the effect of bf2.. if this were stolen, id get another one.. my clean tone depends very much on flange rather than chorus so this is pedal really serves me well..

easy to install if you've got a bit of confidence with a soldering iron (practice on a old radio with some desoldering braid if you've never soldered before).

clear, easy to follow instructions and a handy tips page were included with the kit on cdrom.

the boss bf-2 only has 4 knobs, the feel of them changes (but it changes for the better).

The sound is much better after the mod. There is less noise and more depth.

I got the BF-2 on ebay for $50. I had fond memories of them from the late 80's - but it sounded nothing like I remember them (unlike the CE-2 that I got recently which is great). I'm sure they sounded the same back them but to my ears today it sounds like thay had a good reason to bring out the BF-3.

After the mod - I really like the pedal now, a huge improvement. It's great for subtle stuff. I haven't tried many other flangers so I can't actually compare it against anything else.

I'm looking forward to experimenting with this unit - I reckon that it's got lotsa potential.

I've only played for an hour or so.

But, Boss pedals are built like tanks so the reliability factor is up to you and your solering iron.

Pedal Hacker kept up good email contact and went out of their way to get the mod kit from the US to Australia.

I don't see any problem arising in the future.

A great way to spice up an old pedal.

Easy to do if you want to try your hand a pedal modding - It was my first pedal mod.

I'd say that this mod is well worth the 16 bucks and a few hours of fun with a soldering iron that it takes to make it happen.

May the Flange Be With You 2

Easy to get a variety of sounds if you put some time into it.

I use this pedal with a variety of Fender and Marshall tones, and it suits all. Avoid high gain, however.

I bought this pedal with Joy Division in mind. It nails that sound, as well as David Gilmour's tones. Sounds similar to John McGeoch's work with Magazine. Also replicates Keith Levene's Public Image Ltd. tone.

My BF-2 is one of the silver screw MIJ 1980 models. It doesn't have much external damage and it works like new. I'm probably going to pass this thing down to my grandkids.

Never had a problem.

I play experimental music, particularly influenced by the New York No Wave scene of the late 1970's. This pedal works for everything. I highly recommend it.

Easy to use and edit a few knobs is all.

The sound is OK, but heard better flangers (to my ears)- I think the Digitech Flanger is much better and with more sound options, but the Digitech pedals always push on and off too stiff (can always change the springs I know, no big deal).

Yeah built like a brick sh... well you get the point. Also they are usually very reliable electronics-wise, except sometimes the pots and jacks get a little dirty, like any pedals played in too many smoke-choking-suffocating hole in the wall "clubs".

no idea

Great tough pedal but sound isn't as good as others I've heard--to MY ears anyway. Someone else would probably worship this pedal. Couldn't they have picked a btter color like puke orange-yellow, instead of girly pink (good color for the chicks tho :D ok )

Due to the 4 knobs, and the power this gives, dialing stuff in isn't quite a simple as it could be... but there are options a-plenty...

This is a late-80's Japanese BF-2... as others have said, this has a bit of a harsh tone... but i love it! I often use it with distortion, and it sounds uber freaky... i put all the knobs at 50%... a nice square-sounding yet warm flange...

it's 20 years old... i've gigged with it tons... never a problem

an excellent flange... the MIT version was also great...

4 knobs

I have modded my Boss BF-2! I purchased an on-line book that gave me instructions, you have to change about 12 things plus I personally added a very cool purple LED instead of keeping the stock red

http://www.guitartone.net/allmods.htm

Anyway, after the mod, the flanger becomes very natural, clear, clean? sounding, your guitar tone comes through first which is great :) it kind of sounds like a flanger/chorus now, it sounds great

Well? boss is top notch so it it fails, its down to my modding skills :)

The stock pedal is good but you can mod this pedal to sound very cool :)

4 knobs. i still dont know what the manual knob does tho...

im satisfied. if set right, sounds nice. set wrong, and its a little to twangy but then again, every pedal set wrong sounds like shit.

boss...

just a good pedal to have in your arsenal

4 knobs! simple

I bought a Guyatone fl-3 which sounds cool :) I was originally after the Boss but I heard such great reviews on the Guyatone. To be honest, I picked this up in near new conditon in a secondhand store for the weird price of 15 British pounds??! so I grabbed it! I must say, I think I prefer the sounds of this Flanger to the one Ive been using and now the Boss sites on the main board! to my ears it has a warm digital sound where the Guyatone has a more natural sound, if that makes sense? they both sound different, I like them both but the Boss fights in best with my playing. Anyway, you can hear the Boss on Blurs/Graham Coxon Albums, its used loads and thats when I first become more aware of it, check out Blurs Popscene track, the intro uses the Boss BF-2, with a high setting, its a great Flanger

Boss

This Pedal suits me great, I love its sound as found on Blur albums, its very warm. Ive plugged the Boss and the Guyatone Fl-3 in together, you can get some very warm, natural, digital, mixed up, cool sounds :)

anyway, if you dont like this pedal, please check out the Guyatone FL-3, it has its own Flang Sound, I love both pedals

It is more than adequate. Just dial it in and off we go. Get some some weird metallic tones, as any flexible flanger should do. Note: I origanlly bought this because I was unhppy with the various flange setting on my long-gone Boss ME-50- BIG IMPROVEMENT.

Mine was a Japanese model. You have just to know your flanging stuff.

Fender USA Lead 1/Ibanez Talman TC420->Boss autowah->Boss bass overdrive->Boss feedback/distortion->Yamaha Jap flanger->trem->MXR Phase 45->volume pedal->Boss EQ->Boss delay/sampler into a variety of different solid state and valve amps (mostly Fender Super 210 valve).

It's at least adequate, if not very good. I only just sold it in favour of an old Yamaha Japan flanger. No noise or distorting of existing tones, as you would expct from, especially Japanese Boss.

Boss...

Lame with customer support unless you've got a CE-1 or the first DS-1 ever made. At least they don't charge anymore for their 'manuals'.

We play indie pop and a decent flange is vital. I've been playing for 15 years. This was a good flanger- it is just that the Yamaha one (which, by the way, self-oscillates!!) suited my purposes. Excellent pedal.