Boss BF-3

The controls are pretty basic: resonance, manual (controls the target frequency), depth, rate, and a mode knob that switches between standard, pan, gate, and 'ultra.'

I find it pretty intuitive. I wouldn't change anything.

This pedal sounds fantastic in my rig whether I'm using it on clean tones, metal rhythms, or screaming leads. The versatility is wonderful.

My favorite feature is the stereo panning option. If you've got 2 amps, you can make it slowly pan back and forth between them, or set the rate faster and get a dizzying tremo-vibe type effect. I never use the 'ultra' mode because it's too much flange for my needs, and I've never gotten around to trying the 'gate' mode because the description didn't pique my interest.

The BF-3 plays well with other pedals, like my MXR Chorus and my Digitech Whammy.

I A/Bed this unit with a Line 6 Flange and the Line 6 sounded cheap and cheesy in comparison. With the line 6 it sounded like there was resonance and swooshing on top of my tone. With the Boss, the flanging sounds more like part of my tone.

The only complaint I have is that it significantly boosts my overall level when I turn it on and there is no way to control this. Knocking off 1 point for that.

I've had it for about a year and a half. No problems.

There is no way to guarantee that any pedal will be the sound YOU are looking for, or that it will sound good in YOUR rig. People who don't understand this should not post reviews.

For my purposes this baby does everything I want and I'm happy to pay $120 for a flanger so versatile. Compared to the vintage MXR flanger I used to use, the BF-3 sounds better, is easier to use, has far more tonal possibilities, and can do panning. The only thing I would change is to get rid of the damn volume boost.

Just play with it till you find a sound you like.

You can conjure up an array of sounds from mild to wild!

It's a Boss pedal, nuff said!

not needed

I play metal and rock, and I must say, this is the best flanger I have ever owned!

Not too complicated, but the "Manual" knob doesn't seem to do much.

I bought this pedal based on the rantings and ravings of people who rated this pedal here. You must all be tone deaf. This pedal sucks!!

It sounds cheap, cheesy, tinny, weak, and totally horrible. This pedal kills my tone. I play a 1979 Les Paul Custom thru a Fender Twin Reverb. This pedal noticeably kills my tone and is of no use to me.

I fail to see how Boss has managed to hold such a large market share among effects pedals. There are SO many better pedals out there in the same price range. I replaced this with an Ibanez FL-9 Analog Flanger. The difference in sound quality is overwhelming.

Reliability is a moot point when a pedal sounds this bad. I removed this pedal from my line up and replaced it with an analog flanger that sounds 100 times better - and is made of METAL, not plastic like this crappy pedal.

N/A

Very bad sounding pedal. Save your money and buy something other than overpriced and over rated Boss junk!!

Bought used with manual.
Honestly, I Found it a bit Confusing, I still don't Know What the "Manual" control Does.

I'm Using This With an Ibanez Iceman bass.
At First I Liked it, But even on Ultra Mode it seems Too Subtle for my Liking.

My Main Problem though, is that When The Flanger gets to the "Top" Of The Cycle, It Tends to "Honk"
Also, The Gate Setting is Pretty Much Useless.

Never Had a Problem with it, Or any other Boss Products

Never Dealt With them

Honestly, I think This pedal is WAY overrated, It Sounds Weak, honky and Unimpressive, I've Gone Back to using a Flanger on my Zoom B1! It Sounds Better Than This In my opinion.

Bought new, had manual so immediately could dial in the two sounds I particularly needed from a flanger for current gig. Without manual may have taken a bit of experimenting - but then again that's partly because it does so much.

Using PRS EG4 into Blackstar A30 via MXR dynacomp, tubescreamer, (BF3), delay, reverb, noise gate, boost pedal. Standard sound is great but this does so much more. Fixed flange and pseudo-chorus effect are very good.

Usual solid Boss build.

Not needed

I play a wide range of covers including big ballads and Brian May solos so I need to imitate a lot of colours I may not have chosen for myself. This is key to that. I can't understand why anyone wouldn't give this a high mark unless you want top line studio effects for recording and, frankly, if you did you wouldn't be using a pedal anyway. I remember early 80s flangers and for the money this is ridiculously good value. Unless money is no object look no further, and even then try it.

too much tweaking for me to get the sound I want out of a flanger :(

not bad sound but very stero sounding and I dont even know what old-school flange sounds like. but the boomarang flanger sound gets a bit crumbling sounding or something in the bass end. or maybe i need to tweak with it more :( who knows. my first flanger was the dano diner flanger and this one second.

its made for a fat foot like yours

i own a tele with fender deville 212 and various other pedals...
i like alternative rock been playing 12 years.

ive owned it for months and still havent found the sound im looking for out of it. im thinking because its got too many options in the 4 knob sound ratio. its expensive as hell too, the color is cool though... the sound is good and decent and is fair with other pedals but its made for flanger tweakers or something not a flange noob... im thinking about getting the MXR flanger to replace this with.

I wasn't really sure about the "momentary" mode at first but overall, it's easy to use.

Very good. Very versatile. Can be as present or transparent as you want. Pretty quite overall ...Basically, all the things you want in a flanger. The thing that sets this pedal apart is the "manual" knob that allows you to change the range that the pedal operates in. You can get a low wooshing sound or a higher swirling sound.

Boss is supposed to be bulletproof.

Wouldn't know.

It's a good pedal. It's more versatile than anything else I've tried and has a "stronger" effect than the DOD flangers I've owned in the past (FX-75B, FX-75C, and GS30.)

Lots of different sounds at your disposal, and quite a few knobs to tweak, it can be quite daunting at first.

I love this pedal. It sounds very smooth, there isn't too much noise except with really heavy distortion, but I have a noise suppressor for that. There is a wide variety of sounds available, and the inclusion of the gate mode is a great idea, tremolo as well! I actually like the volume boost now as well, at least you can hear the effect, I'd rather have a volume boost than a volume drop. It's only slight anyway.

Had it for nearly a year, no problems. After all, it is a Boss. *groan*

N/A

For the money, this is fanstastic. In fact I'd say this is the best damn flanger on the market, for versatility and sound. It doesn't sound digital - unless you want it to. Hell, Joe Satriani even used one in his live rig from 2002-2005. Yep, this pedal is awesome.

With 5 adjustable knobs, this pedal is very easy to change the sound you want to get out of it with the flip of a knob. Also it allowes you to set your own tempo just by holding down the step pedal... very fun to work with... Also it has a bass and guitar input (wont work with both pluged in), and a stero output...-

With this BF-3 Flanger, I power it with my One Spot, and then i run my Ibanez RG-7321 to a DS-1 Distortion, MT-2 Metal zone, BF-3 Flanger, NS-2 Noise Supressor... Aslong as the MT-2 and the DS-1 are not on at the same time this pedal is amazing. Gives you a real Van Halen sound (Aint talkin about love)... Id give it a 9

The only 3 things to survive a nucular war are polititions, cockroatches and boss effect pedals.

Guitar Center hooked me up. VERY GOOD

Over all ill give it a 9, its a damn good pedal very happy with it. Gives you a good flange sound...

It's easy to get a good sound out of this once you know what you can adjust, and know what you're looking for. It has Res, Manual, Depth, Rate, and Mode. You get 4 choices for modes. It's very fun to mess around with until you know what you want.

I'm giving this a 10 because, well, what else can you expect?

I think the effects are great, my only complaint with this pedal is there is no volume knob, because if you have the wrong settings on the amp, the volume will increase 2000% when you turn it on.

Well, maybe not 2000%...

I use it with my distortion usually, which sounds awesome. In the Ultra mode, this gives you a very strong flanger sound, which is awesome.

I use the Standard mode too, which is great, as well as the Gate/Pan.

I'm giving this a 9 because it could use a volume knob, although if you get the right settings it says at or close to the same volume.

I can throw this off of a overpass onto the freeway and it would probably still survive. This thing can take more of a beating than I can.

I've never had any problems with it.

Even if I did, I can trust BOSS because since they were around since the invention of the wheel.

I play alternative rock, much like Nirvana or The Foo Fighters.

I love this pedal a lot.

In fact, I actually lost my old BF-3 a while ago, and guess what? I purchased another. It's that good.

To sum it up, this pedal is everything awesome in existence.

It has 5 knobs. The best way to set this pedal is to listen for it.

This is the coolest modulation stompbox ever built. It revisits and sums up all of Boss's previous Flanger incarnations. In adition to that, the knobs can be stretched in all directions to create a wide variety of modulation sounds. This thing covers phase shifter, flanger, chorus, vibrato, tremolo, and ring modulator sounds effectively, and all without a bit of background noise. I have close to 50 effect processors, and this pedal works well when layered up with distortion, reverb, and delay, etc. I have an all tube 35 watt "custom" 5F6 Bassman head and a 2x12 cab with Eminence Red Coat speakers. The BF-3 sounds really alive through this rig.

I bought it used, and it was in perfect condition. I don't do any shows, as I am just a hobbyist, so none of my gear is put through strenuous physical challenges. But I do own some Boss pedals that are almost as old as me, and they are still perfect.

I have never had to deal with Boss customer support, but in that sense, their website is a great resource for questions and contact information.

My main musical interests are grunge rock and techno (but not at the same time). This pedal goes great with any style. I've even hooked it up to my DJ setup with favorable results. Of all the pedals I own, this is the one I consistently recommend to anyone looking for modulation to put into their sound signal chain. One pedal that is almost as versatile and a little cheaper is the Ibanez CF-7. Of the simulated effects I mentioned earlier, the CF-7 is just not able to create tremolo effects as the BF-3 can. Also, there are a lot of complaints that the CF-7 and other from the Ibanez Tone-Lok series sound unnatural (I love them for this reason). With it's wide sonic capabilities, the Boss BF-3 sounds consistently natural and clean on any setting. Even when dialing in a ring modulator setting, the tone can be tuned like with a real ring modulator.

Let me begin this review by reminding you that I just VERY recently got this pedal (last night to be exact). I figured it wouldn't really matter, seeing as I've already managed to find the good parts of this pedal, and it shorting out on me isn't an issue-it's a Boss! It's not that easy to get a good sound out of it right off. In fact, for me it seemed damn near impossible. Thanks to the well-presented manual and a lot of trial and error on my part, I've managed to get a lot of good sounds out of it. This is the first flanger I've ever played or owned, so yeah, it took me a little extra time to figure out what everything did even with the manual's help. If you're familiar with flangers this will probably be a cakewalk to figure out.

God I was unsure about this thing at first. I started off with this pedal getting like 90% flange, 10% original note. If it wasn't that, it was too subtle. I didn't buy a flanger to get a chorus sound. If I wanted chorus, I'd buy a chorus pedal or use my amp's built-in chorus. Thankfully, after tweaking the knobs enough, I've found a few really good but note-discernable lush, deep, flanging sounds. I'm sure there are more in there. Be aware (at least in my case) with the depth knob up, when the flange is at and around its crest, it will distort the note HORRIBLY, and at and around the trough, it'll make this god-awful buzz. I have gotten no volume boost like many people here speak of, none whatsoever, with or without distortion. A little noise, but it's a flanger, you're gonna hear a little background flange. I should be getting a noise suppressor soon, thank god (need to tame my MXR ZW-44 Overdrive. Nice pedal but noisy with amp distortion)


Standard

Very nice flanging sound, but not quite deep enough for what I want to use the pedal for. I've gotten a number of good flanging sounds out of it so far. It'll probably suit most peoples' flanging needs very well though.

Ultra

This is what draws me back to this pedal when I try to keep it turned off. It sounds very deep, lush, NOT CHORUS-Y! Just what I wanted out of this flanger.

Gate

Cool little effect, but I wish the gate would actually start in sync with when I started playing and apparently not always be gating, even when I'm not playing. Put it on gate, start playing a phrase, and be amazed as you see what Ian sees. I'm sure I'll find a way around this sooner or later. And if not, that's why they make tremolo pedals, isn't it?

Pan

Can't really say, as I don't have another cable to run into my Epiphone Studio 10 Practice amp.

Momentary

I imagine it'd be very useful on stage or even otherwise. Just press and hold for as long as you want the Standard flange mode to be on. Release foot, goodbye flange. Not a big issue for me, seeing as I have enough time and room to press the pedal twice to turn it on and off.


Sounds very nice. This is my rig so far.

Gibson Les Paul Vintage Mahogany => MXR ZW-44 Overdrive => Boss BF-3 Flanger => Boss DD-6 Digital Delay => Fender Princeton Chorus (not the DSP one)

Can't say, haven't had it that long as I mentioned before. However, reliability-wise, I've heard nothing but good things about Boss. If I gigged, I'd do it without a backup.

Never dealt with them.

Style-wise, I'll play almost anything. I like everything from Duke Ellington to the Beatles to Steely Dan to Megadeth. Mostly, though, I play classic rock and thrash metal. I went CRAZY a few times improvising some thrash and rock solos and let me say, it adds some definite depth to it. Even in a metal rhythm setting, this pedal has a lot to offer to to the open-minded. What do I love about it? The ultra setting. Very rich, full flanging. Suits me very well. Hate about it? The fact I don't have 2 decent amps and another cable to try out the pan mode. If this thing got stolen, I'd be tracking him or her down and beating them down with the pedal. A little expensive, but in my opinion, worth it.

Not too hard, only four modes & one of those is momentary.

Apart from that you have you regular speed, depth, man & res controls

Im rating this pretty high for what it is, a digital flanger giving you a few options.

It is quite overpowering and doesn't sound as lush as an anolog flanger like my FL301, however i find this Boss flanger to go really well with distortion.

Standard mode is like a BF-2, the ultra mode is really full on for tripped out sounds etc. The gate mode give a panning effect & when you use it in mono it sounds like a flanged Tremelo.

Like i said it's pretty overpowering, so if your after a subtle flange to just do a light chorus effect i'd look elsewhere

Boss needs no words here

Again, no words needed

Great value flanger!

I use it in the effects loop & it works great, nice jet plane woosh with distortion.

If it were stolen i'd get another.

Once again Boss has falled to install a volume knob on their Flanger. My trust old BF-2 has the same problem in that when activated the volume shoots up a bit and I gotta turn my guitar down at the same time I activate the Flanger!

Has 4 different modes but only one foot switch!

It sure does more than the old BF-2 but at twice the price!

I returned the little gem to Guitar Center and stuck with my BF-2 as the price was just not warranted.

I'm giving this a lower score for ease of use cause I gotta bend over to switch modes and for $150 ....that's retarded!

Sounds exactly like the old BF-2 in regular mode.
The Ultra mode is cool.
The tremelo mode is cool for some things.
I didn't bother to hear the stereo option.

Hey, it's cool if you're limited on space but it's too impractical and expensive if you're not limited on space.

Why not just score another old BF-2 and a Tremelo pedal and for the same price you'll have tons of tonal variations AND THREE FOOTPEDALS!

I did use both flangers at the same time and got really cool sounds.

I've been playing for 35 years....everyday since 1979.

I have 5 old Marshall half stacks and a host of vintage Les Pauls and Stratocasters.

Too expensive!!!!!!

Easy enough just play with stuff until it makes sense,but i can see why new players or not "not very technicaly minded players" could have some trouble

Good i mainly use the Mono inputs but having the two choices is helpfull,but i did find some settings not very transulent and nice as i have on my Ibanez FL-9 or my Rocktron Hypno chick.

havent had any trouble

dont know

I feel its an over rated pedal,i prefer the Ibanez FL-9 much more

very easy pedal to use, read the instruction manual the whole way throug h and with a little tweaking here and there, you should be able to the get the flange sound youre looking for in no time

this pedal sounds great. ive used in my crate with an ibanez rg series, and a fender strat, and it sounds great with both. this pedal is also very versitale, i tried out basically every other flanger pedal on the market, and none came anywhere near in terms of versitility and crisp clear sound as this one did

ive owned it for about 9 months, done shows with it, hasnt given me any problems at all

i play all types of rock, mainly metal, punk, and classic rock, whichever flange sound youre looking for, you can find it in this pedal, if someone stole this pedal i would definitely go out and buy another one

the BF 3 is fairly simple to use, once you read the manual and understand what the knobs do. the manual explains the unit very thoroughly. I gave it an 8 because the tap tempo mode is somewhat confusing to use, its very reliable but can be difficult, go try out the pedal and see what i mean. awesome pedal :)

to me, this is the best flanger i have ever heard. it is not noisy at all, and on clean channel there is hardly any audible noise difference when the effect is switched on, at least that's what my pedals like. and with distortion, the lower frequencies are made more audible as well.
my effect loop is fairly simple, because i dont like using tons of effects, to show i dont have to rely on them to play well. from left to right: BOSS DS - 1 distortion , BOSS BF 3 flanger.
I play through an ibanez jet king guitar, and a small marshall practise amp. I can get most of kurt cobain's flanging sounds, including those on Smells Like Teen Spirit, and many other phasing and chorus sounds as well. The chorus and lighter flanging sounds are awesome too, never weak and full tones.

it is made of solid steel, no boss pedal has ever died on me and i doubt they ever will. tyhe one drawback with the BF 3 is, because its all digital, it eats batteries VERY quickly, for example, while my DS 1 can last around 90 hours on an alkaline 9 volt battery, the flanger can last only 10 tops. Both BOSS and I recommend getting an adaptor

i have never had to deal with boss/ roland customer support,so i do not know. but i have heard they can be difficult to deal with at times.

over all, this pedal rocks!! it can be used for all genres of music. I play mostly hard rock and gothic metal, and i can get some pretty creepy sounds out of the BF 3, its awesome.
I've been playing for about 3 years now, and i own a BOSS DS 1, the BF 3, an ibanez jetking, and a marshall practise amp. this pedal has all the features i would want in a good flanger, plus more. if it was stolen, yes i would buy it again. the only drawback would be the battery consumption.
my favourite feature is the ultra mode, which boosts the flanger's output a little more. very useful. none of the flangers effects get in the way. ever. AWESOME PEDAL :)

Nothing to add.

I think this is one of Boss's best pedals. It improves on the BF-2 and my old HF-2 particularly with regards to headroom. I can now put this in my amp effects loop. The only problem, as pointed out below there is a severe volume boost with the effect on, so placed after the preamp you find yourself trying to play more quietly which is pointless with high gain settings. I have used it a lot in front of the amp and its great for the Dave Gilmour, The Wall sounds. I was hoping to buy another hoping the output was lower but it sounds like they are all that way. Very stupid if you ask me.

Probably the best compact Flanger ever made but I do wish they would put an output level control on this and a few other Boss pedals like the TR-2.

Quite easy to tweak in a nice sound. Manual is very complete and shows you some good setting samples to start from. The tap-tempo setting is not very usable on a stage i think. If you want a long sweep you first have to press the pedal down for 2 sec. Then if you want a sweep of around 2 sec you need another 2 sec. to tap in the right speed meaning you are at least 4 sec. busy to get your right setting. Not very handy in the middle of a song... The momentary function which allows you to just kick in a flanging part by just pressing down the pedal and releasing it when you want it out is very cool though for soloing...

It is not noisy at all and it doesn't really "suck" your tone when bypassed. Sounds best in fx loop. The main problem i have with it that IT IS NOT VERY TRANSPARENT!!! When you activate the pedal there's not much left of your original guitar sound and you have a completely different, very digital sounding guitar sound with a flanger over it. There is also a volume boost. Now some people might dig this but i just want to add some effect to my sound rather than change my whole guitar tone. I have to say that on clean guitar sound it's very ok indeed but when using lots of gain/distortion you hear this very well. I use my amp's (diezel vh-4 and Marshall DSL100) gain for distortion, maybe it sounds better if you use a distortion pedal and place the flanger behind the distortion and in front of the amp. The ultra mode is a bit too much for me but it doesn't sound crappy.

It's a Boss... Will probably survive armageddon...

Who needs customer support when it's a Boss? It won't break down and everything you need to know is in the manual...

I've been playing pop/rock to metal for 14 years now. I have owned quite a lot of different flangers and this one is not bad at all for the music i play. My first choice was a Ibanez DFL flanger but they are very rare here in the Netherlands. 'Till i find one this baby will be the flanger on my board. It is the 4th Boss pedal on my board now out of the 7 i own. I still think Boss is the standard for guitar pedals...

First off. I bought this pedal ONLY for the bass. It has a bass input which handles the sound differently to guitar. Anyway, it took me about 20 minutes to read the manual, become acustomed to all the controls, and learn how to get any flanger sound i wanted in secs. I dont need the manual anymore practically. The controls look a bit complex, but once u have an understanding of how flangers work, its easy as pie.

This pedal is one of the sweetest flangers on the market for the bass guitar (and guitar probably.) the sound is classic phycadelic. very warm and subtle if u want. u cant have a rather odd sound which sounds like your signal being put thru an ashmatic smoker's lungs. lol, wen u use this pedal subtly, u can mimic some chorus-y sounds and phasers. I really like this pedal.

As usual, boss have made another tank-like pedal. in fact, all their stompboxes r built the same. very sturdy. i would gig without a backup, but i dont like the battery compartment, the wires seem rather flimsy.

N/A.

I play in several groups. this pedal is very sweet sounding, so nice! the main problem is the practicle use of it. It's hard to find a place to use it on bass in a song. It's like this: would u drive a F1 car, full speed in a 20km limit street? okay, bad example but its the easiest way to explain. I like it alot, i would probably buy another one if this got lost or stolen. It doesnt go well with other effects. LOL, i think the colour (purple) is pretty groovy too!

It takes a bit of noodling to find the right sound. It's faster if you're familiar with the way flangers function. The manual is very good and to the point. It provides sample settings, and you can use those as a starting point to find your own.

Mais ou menos facil para usar. Tinha que mexer um pouco para achar o tom que eu quis, mas depois era facil. O manual ajuda.

I play Fender guitars. It's a little noisy, but no more than most flangers. It seems to brighten up your tone a bit, so if you're already playing with a very quacky, bright tone setting, this might take it into ear-piercing territory. But for my normal tone presets this works fine.

Flanging can be very transparent, rich, or extremely pronounced, and all the gradations between. Nice and 3-dimensional, not boring at all like a lot of flangers. At times can feel a bit digital, but in a good way, somehow. Mostly it feels very analog and interesting. Nice and compact, too. It's hard to get bored with it because with the four main sound controls (not to mention to mode switching) there are a lot of sound options. Sounds good with overdrive.

O tom e muito rico e misterioso. E caro, com certeza. Custa mais do que salario minimo. Mas e muito legal. Tem muitos tons que voce pode achar. O som tem tres dimensoes.

Appears very reliable.

Confiavel.

No experience.

Nao tenho experiencia.

I play a lot of 80's stuff and 2000's stuff. It's a great product. Probably the most solidly good flanger around.

Eu toco musica dos anos 80's e musica moderna. Este produto e otimo. Provavelmente e o "flanger" mais solido e bom que pode se achar.

It's actually a bit tricky to get the right sound out of it initially. It's not highly intuitive... like, say, the Electro Harmonix flanger, but once you find out where the "sweet spots" are located, it's fairly simple.

I use this with a Telecaster and a Stratocaster. I actually own another flanger, the EH Delux Electric Mistress. Of all the flangers on the market today, the BF-3 (and BF-2 for that matter) and the Mistress are among the most chorus-like. The BF-3 is a bit more flangy and extreme than the Mistress, but sometimes you want that. I love the mysterious sort of early Cure sounds that it produces. "A Forest" is a good example of this, though I like set it a little deeper than that generally. Brilliant! The flanger sounds on the first "Neu" album are also acheivable. I can get an almost believable live Police sound out of it, but it's just a bit too modern-sounding on some of the sweeps to exactly match it... that's where the Mistress comes in to assist.

Flanger is a great sound when done tastefully. I prefer it to chorus any day. The BF-3 is a great all-purpose flanger. It has a wider variety of tones than the Mistress, at the cost of the liquid, almost milky quality that the Mistress offers. The BF-3 has a bit of a darker sound to it, while the mistress is a bit lighter.

There is a slight volume boost to the pedal. The changes from the old BF-2 format are hit and miss. The "Ultra" mode is too extreme for my tastes - I would never use it. I would have preferred and expression pedal option. It can get extreme enough in the regular setting, in my opinion (though it can also of course be very subtle). The gate/pan effect is interesting enough, although I don't have two amplifiers. If you plug into the stereo and not the mono out plug, instead of a gate effect the volume slowly rises and falls, but never cuts out completely. The "momentary" setting is nice if you just want to add a smattering of flange here and there in a song, as in "Roxanne."

I've only had this model for five months with no problems. I used to own the BF-2, which was problem-free.

I don't use flanger exclusively, but it is one of my favorite effects. I often just play clean with reverb or delay. I also enjoy overdrive and tremolo effects. In my opinion the BF-3 (and BF-2, which is identical except for the "Ultra" "Gate/Pan" "Momentary" and "Tap-Tempo" options), is one of the best flangers on the market. A very solid flanger. Much preferrable to MXR or similar sort of Van Halen big hair flangers. This one is for moody people and sensative artists and the like. Lots of wonderfully dark sounds are available - very mysterious and three-dimensional. I would love to try it in stereo. The Delux Electric Mistress is superior in smoothness - it's probably the most chorus-like and analog-sounding flanger available. However, the BF-3 is more flexible and has it's own unique voice. They are equal in quality but slightly different in flavour.

This is really easy to use if your familiar with flanger "lingo" i.e manual rez depth etc. But if your not the manual explains it very clearly and even gives you some settings to try out.
very easy to get a good flanging sound out of it!

I use a Ibanez GAX50 running through dod eq pedal the flanger then a psm-5 power supply unit and then into an Marshall avt50 amp.
Line noise is virtually nothing with the BF-3, and i dont get any at all unless i crank my amp all the way which the slight fuzzing sound is probably just because my amp is cranked all the way up :P
I play lots of Tool and it matches that flanging sound almost dead on. Very good flanger very smooth. The most used setting i use is the standard flange. Pan u cant really use unless you have two amps. Gate seems to just to turn the volume off and on over the set amount of measures. Ultra basically kicks the flanger into high gear and the flange effect is more intense.

OF course its a boss.
would gig without a backup

never dealt with them

I play mostly Tool and this seems to fit right in there/
Been playing for about a year and a half, if it where lost or stolen i definetly get another one!!
I tried a lot of flangers and this one seems to be the one for me, and i cant really think of anything i hate about it.
all in all a great flanger

This pedal is easy enough to use. Just play around until you find a sound you like. One thing I can?t get is the tap tempo feature; quite often I will turn the pedal on and rest my foot on it for a while. Then the next time I turn it on and get some strange sound and think something is stuffed inside. So I usually just use the momentary mode

Well? This thing surprised me. I had read reviews about the BF-2 that said some pretty strange sounds could be achieved; I wasted no time in seeing for my self. My chain goes like this: Guitar (Piece of Shit, I really cannot tell you how bad my guitar is) > original Crybaby > Marshall JH-1 Jackhammer (The BF-3 makes this sound kinda like a metal zone) > Boss BF-3 > Peavey Envoy 110.
If you turn everything down and crank the RES it will sound like every note is coming out of a metal pole, kinda like steel drums. If you crank everything it will sound like it?s under water or something. If you crank everything but keep the RATE right down and add some distortion you get this real metallic sound (imagine tearing corrugated iron). If you have a low rate setting on the GATE/PAN mode the sound will come then go away then come back again. If you do the same thing but plug it in through the MONO output it will sound like a tremolo. If you have MANUAL at ?, RES at ?, DEPTH at ? and RATE at just over ? and add distortion individual notes will sound like whacked out harmonies (try playing a harmonic like this). Have the MANUAL and RES at ? DEPTH at ? and RATE at ? and add distortion for a jet plane effect. I use this after my distortion to get these sounds I can hardly notice it when I put it before. ULTRA mode is a bit to over the top for me, I rarely use it.
Of course you can do much more subtle things with it with great results. Sounds great clean. My favourite setting would have to be the ? Jet Plane?.

Well you know how you read reviews that say, ?I could drop this thing of a 10 story building and it would still work fine?. I actually tried; the only thing that happened was a small chip in the paint. I would play live without a back-up any day ?WARNING? this thing is a battery-eating Beast, make sure you have spare batteries when playing live (this is of course unless you want to here strange clicks and hums through your sound). When the Check light fails to work, be prepared.

Well I bought this second hand so I need not apply, but you would not need it on a machine like this.

I don?t really have a set style. A some times play old favourites, some times I play more modern tunes. In the tunes I write myself I can always find a use for this cool pedal (usually for strange sections of sound to capture attention). People just love it when I dial in a strange sound and use it to play whacked out versions of well-known covers.
I did not get a chance to play around with the BF-2 because they are not sold anymore were I live so I cannot really compare it to similar flangers but I would imagine that it would be better then a BF-2 simply because it is much newer (20 years or so) and has more features to play around with. This Is a great pedal for people experimenting with different sounds and looking something new.

Easy to use, manual simple but satisfactory. I did not buy this unit for flanging - an effect I really don't have much use for - but for the gated effect. There is also a nice touch with this pedal (you might miss it unless you read the manual). In Gate/Pan mode you get a usable tremolo effect by using the right output only (mono). I am experimenting with finding a tone similar to a univibe here...not quite there yet.
Controls all do what they are meant to - 'Manual' is a strange name for this knob though...it seems to adjust the frequency range of the effect.

Gear set-up as follows: Fender 1979 (25th Anniversary) Strat - Crowther Hotcake (great pedal)- Ibanez TK999 Tube King (adds Marshall-esque distortion that Fender amps can't do - great pedal, IMHO), Morley Little Alligator volume to Fender 2x12 Deville Amp. In the effects loop - BF3 to (old but adequate) Boss ME5 - Delay and chorus and subtle EQ-ing only used).
The BF3 is not noisy, and there is a good range with all parameters. What is missing is an overall effect volume control...the only major drawback for me personally. The standard Flange setting is good, and the Manual control is useful in 'sculpting' the tonality (phew!...that was a big word!). Ultra Flange is no use to me whatsoever. I just don't like the ringy, swooshy Flange thing myself...always sounds too artificial to me.
The Gate/Pan takes the cake for me, though. I strongly suggest you listen to the sound sample that Boss provides on their website...then you will get inspired re. it's application. The stereo panned sound also very usable, as is the tremolo...only you can't attenuate the effect level, so you can't get subtle tremolo.
If you're into normal Flanging sounds though, this is a very versatile unit, albeit very expensive in my country (New Zealand). Not really Boss' fault though...we have a weak currency.

Only use it 'in small doses' so no back-up needed, Being Boss I expect it to be very reliable. Hungry on batteries though, so will need power pack. I was not prepared to buy the proprietry Boss one though...again too expensive here!

Have found them quite friendly here. No local website though. The dealer network here is sewn up by one retail chain so no price competetion. I mark them lower because of this, but probably not a big deal.

I have been playing over 30 years, some semi-professionally, some teaching.I play blues/rock/ fusion styles - a lyrical lead emphasis.
The BF3 is used sparingly for sustained chordal sections.
I am very happy with my current set-up, and do a lot of live playing.I seek a distinctive sound (don't we all). I also use (again sparingly) an EBow plus (great toy!), and love the Hotcake...does what the o/drive channels on the De Ville DON'T do well. DeVille is a good workhorse though. The Tube King is great, IMHO, for getting a more Marshall-esque distortion sound, and works nicely with the Hotcake which I use for gain boost, although they both separately have quite diferent tonality.
I hope it isn't stolen...I won't be able to justify buying another! I had to sneak this one past my wife!!!
Again, I really brought this for 1 specific effect. I am not aware of another stomp box that does the flanging gate thing. Boss also are known to do the pitch modulation effects well, so will stick with this unit.

Thx for reading...this is my first submission...sorry it ws a bit long!!

takes a while,
but if you are not stupid

my setup is: guitar-->535q wah wah-->maxon od9-->rocktron rampage-->big muff us-->BOSS BF3-->marshall vt1-->boss ce20-->akai head rush delay-->amp

sound is great BUT not much more valueable than it costs.
flanger should be most trancparent and this one is not so.
my opinion, becouse theie is a problem finding a good flanger today is to buy the MAXON FL9 which costs about 250$ but it worth it.
and it eats up your tone a bit, not big deal

will never brake - but sound quality is more important issue

no need

ok value, second best flanger

Once you have a quick look at the manual for about five minutes (I read it on the bus home after buying it) you should get sounds you want out of it pretty quickly.

I use a Trace Elliot Boxer 65 for my Warwick Streamer Standard bass and out of the amp it sounds gorgeous but when we miked the amp for recording it sounded a bit icky (although I'd preferably line out of a bass amp but there's no line out on my amp).

An earlier review stated that using the gate/pan mode in mono sounded awful but I found you can get some great sounds out of it.

Also, try manipulating feedback on a mike through it, my friend was messing about and managed to get the French national anthem out of it.

I've been using this pedal for over a year now and not one second of trouble have I had (although I recommend an AC adaptor, batteries get eaten up quite quickly)

No need ever for my Boss pedals

Fits perfectly with what I play (somewhere between Sigur Ros and Tool). I'd definitely buy it again if anything happened to it, it really is a nice pedal. The only thing I will say is that the tempo tap setting is a bit tricky to use at first. I much prefer it to my guitarist's Digitech Turbo Flanger. Don't even look at other brands or models

Hola! Recibi un Flanger como regalo de cumplea?os.
Recomiendo que utilizes un eliminador de baterias durante tus ensayos, porque el BF-3 se come una bateria de 9V en menos de 3 horas. El manual..... que te digo.... Hay que leerlo varias veces si es que es tu primer contacto con los manuales de BOSS. En general el manual es bueno. Te recomiendo pruebes los ejemplos del manual para que descubras las posibilidades del Flanger. Un 8 porque el Flanger exige trabajo hasta encontrar el sonido que buscas.

Squier (barata)+ DS-2 + BF-3 + amp. Como muchos pedales de BOSS, si el eliminador de baterias es ruidoso, pues el BF-3 trabaja ese sonido tambien. El BF-3 tiene dos salidas una que produce estereo y otra que no. Tiene dos entradas, una para bajo y una para guitarra.
Dependiendo de cual salida utilizas puedes ademas variar los efectos.
El controlador de modo a la derecha es una maravilla, pues dependiendo de la eleccion ahi, varian los sonidos en las salidas de mono y estereo. Sin embargo (algo menos positivo tiene que haber) el modo Turbo.... el modo Turbo es cualquier cosa menos lo que tu crees que es. Turbo no significa ni fuerza ni rapidez, en este pedal significa un poco mas alla. Con un buen amp. este pedal es una maravilla.

Como todo los BOSS la caja aguanta cualquier cosa. Como el pedal no esta en funcion todo el tiempo en mi caso, lo utilizo con eliminador de bateria y bateria incluida, por si el eliminador muere a mitad de actuacion.

Todavia no he necesitado hacer uso ni de la garantia ni de tomar contacto con el fabricante.

Aunque no lo crean, este pedal lo utilizo en los solos.
Le doy a la guitarra desde los 16 anos (comenze con una acustica) y ya tengo 50.
Si este BF-3 se perdiera o lo robaran.... compraria otro BF-3!
Lo que no me gusta, ya lo dije, es cierta tendencia a producir ruidos de fondo. Lo que me gusta mas: te obliga a llevar bien el tiempo. Lo utilizo siempre en la posicion de Flanger standard.
No lo he comprado con otros y como ya lo dije, no lo elegi.
Si ayuda a hacer musica? No. Ayuda a darle variacion al sonido de tu musica.
Eso si, este pedal exige HORAS de prueba, hasta que encuentras el sonido para tu guitarra, otros efectos y tu amp.
Un 9 porque este pedal exige.

Like all good effects it takes a bit to fine-tune one's taste. The 8 i gave this pedal on ease of use, is not a bad thing, all good equipment is hard to use at first.

Though a wider range of sound than the BF-2, the BF-3 only really has about 4 things on the old one... Tap Tempo, Modes, and Stereo sound. They both sound about the same (seeing that they are the same effect), but the BF-3 offers an extra boost (and ultra mode) and a gateing in and out effect. The Gate effect is really cool if you have this pedal setup to go stereo.

Boss... that explains it all

Never needed it

For a flanger this thing is as good as it gets.
Boss will never let you down.
It was worth it to me, but ultimately you'll just have to wander down to your nearest music store and check it out for yourself.

5 knobs, got a quality sound out of it in a matter of minutes. Rate and depth are self explanatory, res goes from dreamy swirl to a roaring swoosh, manual sounds better when set quite low, although it's a bit subtle. standard setting is good enough for me, ultra is insanely good. The momentary is useful, but i havent needed the set tempo or gate/pan mode yet. nice to know its there. all you need from a stompbox really.

I play a '77 ibanez thru an old boss ce-3 -> electro harmonix big muff reissue -> BF-3 -> marshall DSL 401. The amp's being repaired at the mo (see my review on that), but the flanger sounds awesome! on clean, it gives a gorgeous AIC swirl up to the usual sonic whoosh, and a quavering vintage tremolo with the rate cranked up. with the distortion on, there's another load of sounds you can get out of it. sounds like concorde in yer bedroom.

It's a boss with all the reliability that goes with it. this thing will not let you down. just bring a spare battery if you're not using the adaptor socket.

never had to deal with them.

I play a load of 90s alternative/grunge stuff and it's perfect. Tried the BF-3 and the BF-2 in the shop, but the BF-2 sounded a bit thin and weak so i paid the extra #10 and damn it was worth it. i've pinned down the warble on soundgarden's 'black hole sun', the whoosh of alice in chains circa 'dirt' and with my big muff got the sound of the smashing pumpkins 'love'. been playing for bout 5 years, and if it got stolen, i'd replace it straight away. apart from not being able to alter the gate/pan rate independently to the flange rate, the only thing i don't like is the naff purple colour...

its pretty easy, all you have to do is mess with the knobs so theyre at a setting you like and then stomp it to turn it on. I did need to look at the manual when i got it because it is a little complicated to get to know the pedal's full potential. I really wish you could store patches for different flange sounds like on the Line 6 modelers. I also wish you could access the tap tempo faster and easier like the Line 6 delay modeler. On the BF-3 pedal you have to hold the button down for 2 seconds then you tap your tempo and hold it down for another 2 seconds to turn it off.

ABSOLUTELY MARVELOUS! i tried many flange pedals before i got it and this one took the cake baby. very smooth and warm or brash, depending on your personal tastes.

hasn't failed. metal chassis, hard rubber bottom, you can't go wrong.

i've never had the need to deal with boss or roland customer support in the many years that i have been playing

this pedal is fricken great! ive been playing for 8 years and play gigs about every weekend. ive tried many different flange pedal and this one tops them all. the line 6 modulation modeler is also a great pedal, but i like the sound quality of my boss better.

It took me awhile to get to know what all the knobs and settings do. I've mastered it now.

You can sound like:
Flanger
Chorus
Siren
Univibe
Vibrato
UFO
Tremolo (the Gate thing is really cool)
Sitar
Etc.
I love this pedal.

Great pedal. Makes a better Chorus sound than the Boss Chorus pedals (CE-5, CH-1). This may be the best Boss pedal ever.

At the beginning it was hard to find how each knob affect the sound but with the manuel, it was more easy to understand. After 10 minutes with the manuel, it was easy to use.(It was my first pedal)

Set-up: Peavey rage 158, Ibanez Ds7, Bf-3 Flanger and Vantage guitar.

The sound is really good. I find a lot of combination and still finding more combinations. The stereo mode make the flange better than with the mono output, the ultra mode is good with the distorsion and make the flange harder. With the gate/pan mode, you can tremolo sound with a little flange if you want with the mono output. The momentary knob can be useful but I don't really use it. I love all the modes.

With a good distorsion, you can make really good music with the BF-3. You will always hear the airplane sound with palm mute and it can make you distorsion a better sound. With my setting, when I use the disortion and the BF-3, it make some noise but with a ns-2 noise suppressor the noise's gone.

I try my BF-3 Flanger with other amps, guitars, effects and the sound is always good.

As others have said, it is a BOSS and last longer than you.

I never dealt with them.

I play most of the time alternative music and it is a good match. I have been playing for one year and half and the BF-3 is my favorite pedal. I love all of is feature because I can always make new sounds and I like that. The fourth mode are useful and always sound well. I think it was the best purchase I did and I don't regret to have spend a lot of money for my BF-3.

Spend some time with this wee toy, I have never had a Flanger befor and found it strange for the first 30mins or so. When you know what knob does what its easy.

Jag, FlextoneIIplus,Twin + other boss pedals.

I think the sound on this Flanger is good, I enjoy the ULTRA setting as it is all whooshy. The GATE/PAN seeting is good for creating smooth, warm rhythum sounds. Havent really used the momentary setting much, havent found a use for it within the context of my playing. The STANDARD setting is just what it ses on the tin.

As others have said, Its a BOSS.

N/A

i play lots of stuff from the Primus covers band Im in to the Psychedelic/Industriual band I play in. This pedal gives me great sounds for solos and whooshy chords, just what I wanted it for. My only reservation is that it was a little expencive, I would have rather paid #70 rather than #80 (it would have got me lunch and few pints that day).
My bands site is www.bastardsquad.tk
Cheers

Pretty easy if you know what flange sound youre looking for. If you dont then tweak it has it.

The sound quality is awsome. The bf-2 was the first flange I used. It didnt impress me much. It seemed like the flange swirl wasnt loud enough, so I took it back and tried the bf-3. prob. solved it kicked ASS. I love the ultra setting.

I have BOSS pedals,ge-7, ac-2 mt-2, ns-2, and now the bf-3 and they all work great.

Never dealt with them.

Ive been playing around 13 years, and have tried lots of stuff. I spent fortunes on things that I thought would work that didnt. Do yourself, a favor and save time and money. Try BOSS effects first. PS NO, I DONT WORK FOR THEM.

Easy to use, 5 knobs, not too difficult

great sound quality, not a big fan of flange though. My neighbor said to get one so i did. You get the airplane sound, some weirdo techno sounds. Not to my taste.

Boss, last longer than you.

never dealt with em

As I said above, pedal is not for me. I play rock and metal. I have next to no use for it. Only thing I could use it for is if I was doing some sort of riff in harmonics. BF-3 sounds awesome in ultra mode with harmonics. But other than that, it'll just collect dust. If you know your gonna use it and want a great flanger, buy it. If you play rock mostly, not Incubus spacey rock, don't buy it. Save your money.
Great tone, easy to use. If its what your into, good investment.

This is a great pedal. Its simple to say, its also easy to get different amounts of swirl and sparkle ot of it. The settings are easy to distinguish as you change them. I dont know what everyone is talking about when they say the tap tempo setting is hard to grasp. Its as easy as hold, release, tap twice and hold again.

The sound can go from bright and sparkly to deeper and very juicy.
The manual and ultra can enhance the sound to get a very rich and swirly Flange. The effect itself is a quiet type. it goes great with multi-picked bar chord sorta stuff. Tve mostly used this with a strat and ashton 40 watt thing. Clear and crisp sound is achieved with every amp and guitar ive used sofar.

Same old Boss pedal quality. they give a warranty cos they know u wont need it. Simple. Most expensive and best sounding electric BRICK ive ever played really.
No backup would be needed. just keep an eye on battery power if u dont have a pack.

never needed it

I dont really have a set style. But this is a fairly flexible pedal anyway.
If it were stolen and i had the money i would replace it, but as far as im concerned they would have to prize it out of my fingers to get it.
I love the depth u can swirl with this pedal. i dont have any gripes. The ultra boost has got to be my favorite. It gives that bit more depth.
as far as flangers are i dont think its missing anything.
This pedal is a plus if your knocking up songs, it gives a tone that u otherwise wouldnt have. It can really fill up the background.

This pedal is a must For Flange Fans, anyone who likes the Flange
sound, or anyone who just likes a good pedal. Recommended for softer parts of songs mostly.

I'm a real pedal fanatic and Boss was my first choice i had looked at the market and tried loads but this was the one for me. The ease of use is great its soo simple and easy to change with the different modes although the tap tempo is difficult to get used to. But there is so much to do on it and spent and 1hour and a half playing around with and it also works for bass and has a double output. The manual is pretty helpful as well.

The sound on this is great, my guitar isn't to good but it goes great with my amp (Laney TF300) it works great with distrtion and you even mix it in with other effects and if you do it rite u don't get one big blur of sounds. And its great set with the gate mode and the swirling chorus, and good sound to tweak those rhythem guitar riffs as well.

This baby is tough you can step on it a 100 thousand times and it still won't break, and it won't break in a gig or even you u smash your guitar to it. However a big down point is if u don't have a power pack the batteries will run out very quicklly. So u always need a back up.

I've never had to deal with the company or send it back, but its a great upgrade from the BF2 i'm just waiting for the next one now.

Over in England it was great value, and it great for people hwo like getting Tom Morrello type solos and Incubus type riffs. If i ever lost it it would be worth getting again, compared to other Flangers its the best by far. However it would be nice if the gate and pan effects were seperate modes, becuase if u won't to change between the two u have change the outputs.

The BF-3 is just as easy to use as the other Boss pedals, although it does require a little tweaking to get a good tone. Like everyone else stated the tap mode is a little hard to use, but the manual did a great job of explaining the mode.

I've never tried any other Flanger, except messing with the BF-2 a bit, but this is a far step above the BF-2. I like combining the ultra mode with the Metal Zone for an awesome jet plane effect. The swirling chorus is cool as well. This will give you the sound of about any artist, especially for you Incubus fans. (Although personally I don't like Incubus or any other band that uses effects as a crutch. Learn how to play, then apply the bells and whistles.)

I dropped it in the parking lot today. Seriously. It still works great.

Never needed it.

This is a great flanger pedal, although right now I'm beginning to question why exactly I bought it. It's a cool effect, but unless you like the spacey new school rock, (which I do, but prefer straight hard rock and metal), I recommend saving your money. I have yet to find a practical use for the effect in a song I've written. I enjoy writing my own music rather than covering other songs. Despite the infrequent use this pedal gets, I'm sure once I find a cool riff to use a flanger for it will become awesome.

The BF-3 is really easy to get a great sound out of it. I only dropped the rating a little because the tap mode is a little tricky and tough to do while playing live. I plugged it in with all knobs at 12 o'clock and it sounded beatiful... so imagine how much better it was after some tweaking!

Very rich and full flange! The Ultra mode is really rockin'! I never tried the BF-2, so I cannot compare, but it does sound much better than the DOD that I tried. I am very impressed with this pedal. It's very quiet. I love Boss pedals, they don't hum, buzz, or hiss... ever!

Rock solid!

I use it my effects loop of my Fender Princeton Chorus. It sound very sweet, especially when running the stereo returns. The gate/pan sounds awesome and so does the Ultra mode. Excellent stereo effect. There is not a thing that I hate about... not even the raspberry color.

I don't have much time, but Boss has done me right for years, and I have a lot of experience with playing, recording, effects in general. I feel like I owe it to them and you to review this incredible flanger. It's not that easy to use on the tap mode, and getting a particular sound takes a little tweaking, but once you've dialed in the sound you're looking for, this Flanger makes it happen.

Set-up - Modded Fender Strat, modded Fender amp, a handful of Boss pedals and a Dunlop wah.

It seems like Boss made the BF-3 more transparent than its predecessors. It still does the jet plane if you've got a lot of distortion, but don't all flanges.

Man, I've tried a lot of flanges, and owned a lot (see below). This thing kicks ass on every setting. It doesn't seem like it has weak spots unlike its predecessors. I can get a chorus sound, a deep chorus sound, a Jimmy Page fast and deep chorus, and all sorts of flange sounds, and this flanger kicks ass on all of them. It kicks ass. It's the best flanger I've ever had by far.

This Flanger can do a lot of different sounds nicely. I have had Boss effects for years, I've owned 2 of their flanges - one from the ME-5 multi-effects unit and the BF-2. I didn't like either one of them, and I would call them passible at best. I also owned an Ibanez Flanger which sounded like a jet plane all the time. I also have tried the Electro-harmonix version out, and it's none of these are even close to this one. I wonder if boss will take it off the market because it's so good. I don't see them in the 2002 catalog.

Boss kicks ass on reliability. I could run over it with my car and it would work. I've thrown these pedals down on the floor at gigs for years while I'm setting up, and they have never ever failed me. You could throw it out of the window of a 10 story building and I bet it would still work.

With my ME-5, I had to change out some switches, and Boss is set up through their dealers to take care of you.

Anyone in the market for a flange should consider or buy this. The only reason I wouldn't buy this one over another brand is if I was looking for a specific and distinct sound, a certain wave form which translates into a certain sound. But a pedal like that isn't going to take you far. The BF-3 will do just about any chorus or flanging very nicely. No weird shit. It's way better than the past versions of Boss flangers.

Duh it's a stompbox. Twist knobs and step on it. I've only had one previously flanger, the DodFX72 which sucked. It took me a while to get the right sound, a slow sweep that didn't vary to extremes, but that 'while' was only like half an hour at the most.

I have little experience with 'high end' flangers, but it sounds great to my ears. You can make all sorts of sounds with it, and the options are there to boot. Though tap tempo is tricky, at least it's there. I wish it had an exp/ctrl jack for the FS-5U to do tap tempo on the fly like the PH-3 does. However, I am VERY thankful for the bass input (as I play bass). Very useful. I'm sure the stereo outs would be too, but i have a mono setup. Which renders the gate/pan feature useless, but it's nice to know it's there in case i want to use it someday. Ultra and Standard sound very different to me, and it's cool to have that 'extreme' option. Also i would consider buying another just for the momentary feature - i like the sound of cranking all 4 knobs and using the momentary switch just for the end of a riff. However for now i'm sticking with the slow sweepy flange, i have everything set at 12:00 and it sounds good to me.

Duh it's a boss. Never broke on me unlike crappy DOD pedals. Boss to me seems like the perfect middle road - not cheapo crap like danelectro, the tones are actual worthwhile, tweakable and readily available, the options are there, the features are there, and the prices aren't ridiculous compared to some other companies. However i think the ibanez toneloks are tough competition, as they seem just as solid if not more (except for the switches) and the PD7 i own sounds much much better than the boss odb3. Back to the point anyway it's reliable.

Never had to deal with boss, or Roland. But as one other reviewer said quite wisely - Boss has the best customer support in that they make their products so finely that you don't NEED customer support, cause they don't break.

Great pedal, i'd recommend it for anyone wanting a flanger, whether it be their first or just a new tone to experiment with. Has all the options i'd want and ever need. However I hope Boss starts making more and more new pedals of the twin pedal type... i like being able to store more than one sound and flip through them like on the CE-20. A phaser like that would be great that could flip through 4, 8, 12 stage, and rise/fall or step. I oughta work for boss or something. Oh well they rock anyway. Great pedal, great sounds, tolerable price.

Like the previous reviewer said, the BF-3 is a BF-2 plus added features. It's very easy to use if you've played a flanger before (especially a Boss), although the gate/pan mode does require more tweaking. Ultra mode is extra thick and dense, standard you've already heard, gate/pan is icing on the cake (as an added effect choice) and momentary lets you kick it on and off by stepping on and off of the pedal. It's also set up to be used in stereo, which the BF-2 didn't allow for.

I've played all sorts of effects (from TC Electronic to Electro Harmonix to Lexicon to Rocktron to Boss) and there's nothing wrong with the way Boss pedals sound. While they may be more of a "garden variety" as effects go, they always sound great, are reliable, durable, and easy to use. The BF-3 is no exception. You can control rate, depth, resonance, and manual to achieve a huge variety of flanging effects. Personally I like a slow deep sweep so once I get it set, I keep it there. But I can tweak it to my heart's desire when I get the bug as well. The flanging effect sounds great clean and also loves distortion. By itself, it's not noisy at all and distortion only adds a slight audible swoosh if you're not playing. I use my Boss effects in an acoustic set up with a Peavey Ecoustic 112 amp and a Takamine LTD 98 acoustic-electric. The effect also does well in an electric rig.

Right now I have a dozen Boss pedals, a loop station, and a BR-8 and have never had a problem.

Great web site but never needed to deal with 'em.

I read reviews from people who rag on Boss gear, but personally I love the tones and ease of use and reliability of Boss. Over 25 years I've used close to everything that's out there and Boss always sounds very good to excellent and has NEVER crapped out on me. I can't say that about all effects companies I've bought from. Sure there are "better" sounding effects available, but for the money you's have to spend to get them ... In other words, how many of us are audiophiles? I like great tone but I'm not willing or able to spend hundreds of dollars for each piece of gear that I want to use. For a fraction of the cost of the "top of the line" gear. I can set myself up with a pedalboard that has everything I want in it that sounds awesome to boot. Boss lets me accomplish that and keeps my set up simple and compact. Listen to everybody's opinion but make up your own mind and use your own ears. Cost doesn't always mean best quality.

ok...
This pedal is essentially a Boss BF-2 with Stereo Out, Bass input, and a mode switch. Pretty easy to figure out in standard and ultra modes, momentary mode is, well, uh, momentary, but Pan/Gate is a bit of a bitch. If you're running mono, it can produce some very strange square-wave tremolo-like effects, since it tries to pan stereo and only gets one output.... weird and pretty useless... but still fun to mess with. The only real complaint is the method for setting tap tempo. The whole "depress pedal for 2 seconds then release and tap again" method drives me nuts. Understandably, you gotta do it somehow with a single pedal stompbox, but I wish there was another way...

Aside from the above weirdness in the pan/gate mode, some great basic flanging sounds. Ultra mode seems to just kick it up a notch. The momentary switch is kinda useless for my situation, but I can see how someone could set this thing to a really strange setting and just kick it in now and then for one of those strange blurbs of sound.

The stereo flange is absolutely beautiful. That's all I have to say.

The true test of any stomp box is this....

Could you use it to crush somebody's skull?

Bricks, Sovtek Big Muffs (only the green ones), Marshall stompboxes, and Boss pedals all pass.

uh....
not that it really applies to this, but I work at a music store, and I deal with Roland regularly.. and they are extremely easy to work with. Helpful beyond belief whenever something gets screwed up... They even let me keep a couple of pieces that they over-shipped once (please don't tell my boss - I'd like to keep my job)...

This is just an upgraded BF-2. If ya liked the BF-2, but wanted to tack on a stereo mode, you'll love it. If you're a bass player who liked the BF-2 but wished it was EQ'd a little better for the bass (like me), you'll love it.