Pearl FL01 Flanger

I have Pearl FG-01, is there FL-01??
never mind

I just wanted to say that I was experiencing a hiss and signal distortion when MANUAL BUTTON was LOWER THEN 8 or so.
But when used with battery, everything cleared and it sounds perfect now

...so if you have similar problems, TRY USING BATTERY OR UPGRADE YOUR POWER SUPPLY

4 Controls Manual, Feedback,Depth, Speed gives excellent control, however you need to spend time finding the sounds. The Feedback and to a lesser extent Manual controls easily create some extreme sounds.

There are a good range of quality sounds available here. I like it clean with delay and reverb with settings ranging between a chorus and flange sound. I use it with a variety of guitars and a small valve amp. As per above you need to spend time to find these sounds (and note them for future reference. Neglible background sound generated by the pedal.

OK so far

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I like this pedal. Its a nice alternative in my setup to chorus on clean sounds, and I like the airplane effect sound.

As with all the Pearl Pedals I own I bought from E Bay so no manual, normally this isnt a problem, however I could have done with some suggested settings for this.
The Flanger is definitely the trickiest to set up. There are 4 controls, Manual, Feedback, Depth and Speed. Feedback and Speed are both senistive, so you need to experiment to the get sound you want.

That said once you have experiemented with the settings there are some great sounds to be had from this pedal. There are also great range of sea sick inducing options you can select if thats your stuff also. Generally speaking I am happy if a pedal has once good sound this has a few, so deserves good marks.

No problems so far. ( I have bought 5 pedals in this series from Pearl from E Bay and no problems with any of them).

Dont make pedals any more

Great sounds but you will have to invest time to find them. I would buy a replacement if mine disappeared.

The guy who sold me that (strange) effect explained me with a certain accuracy how to use it.

Because of the wide range of possibilities due to the 4 knobs (manual, depth, speed and feedback), you'll have to be very very very carefull.

When you've found your sound please glue the knobs or make a photograph, cause it's easy to loose it definitely

I realy found a deep, warm flange sound never got before with any other flanger that I got before (and sold immediatelly with no regret) : even my small stone couldn't reach its level and I'm not talking about the poor poor boss flanger.

If you're curious, turn to the right the feedback knob, it's pretty... star trek.

Oh by the way, my setup is : a fender "The Twin" amp, a gretsch NASHVILLE JR2 guitar coupled with these effects : big muff (electo-harmonix), a TS9 tube screamer (Ibanez) and an impossible to find ARIA-DIAMOND wah-fuzz, you can imagine that typical 70-80"s mixed sound.

That pedal have a realy realy good appearance after +/-20 years of life, never got problems, I use it without any fear in each and every gig the Lord allowed me to perform.

I'd like to say that battery life is dramatically short so use an 9 volts adaptator.

Pearl don't make effect pedals anymore, so I'm looking for another second had one...

I play french "noir d?sir"/rough rock style and coupled with the TS9 noone understand what"s hapening

If you have the opportunity to get one, grab it immediately, because of its unreachable warm sound, but take your time to get your sound.

The first time I plugged my GRETSCH NASHVILLE JR2 on it I thought that it would be like Doctor Jeckill and mister Hide.

But the creamy, deep and shivering effect reaching my ears is my great reward.

If it was stolen or lost, well I could never "flange" again.

But don't forget this : take your time to manipulate it and you'll (perhaps) reach the holly grail

Mess around with 4 knobs (Manual, Depth, Feedback, Speed) and stop when you hear something you like...

Very classy range of sounds from flange to chorus and even a sort of phasey sound. Some hiss with the manual control low but turned up high, the hiss goes and it sounds good there too. Overall I'd say less noisy than my old EH Electric Mistress but a distinctive character all of its own.

You can go mad with it if you push the resonance and depth up - all sorts of weirdness is possible but it is also a very musical pedal at more moderate settings.

20? years old, Japanese built and still going strong. I got it 2nd hand on ebay a couple of years back. As robust as any boss - it is built with a cast metal box.

Good pedal, I don't use a Flanger all the time but when I do, I like to think I sound a little bit different. I'll knock off a mark for the slight hiss but in reality that's not a problem when I play.

Four knobs: manual (frequency of effect), feedback (watch out with this one!), depth and rate. Pretty easy to use. The knobs have a very wide range (much more than on, say, a Boss), so be careful turning them.

This unit is capable of producing some very weird sounds! Especially with the feedback set to high values ... However, it is also possible to find some more "standard" flanging sounds with a bit of fiddling. Mine tends to be noisy, but the hiss largely disappears when I put the manual knob on 10. It does change the original sound though (I think it cuts the lows, so with the effect on you get a brighter sound). This doesn't bother me much, but it isn't really what you would like to see in a flanger. Overall: nice bright flanging sounds, great for clean "Andy Summers" type of sounds (add some delay!), and great for the experimental guitarists too (get a friend to turn the knobs while you play).

I have several Pearl pedals, and never had any problems with them. The fact that they are still around after 20+ years should say something! I never use backups, if it were to fail during a gig, I would just unplug it and live without it.

Don't make pedals anymore, well no effects pedals, that is ...

For my style of music (alternative pop/rock) it is great. A lot of cool sounds in this little box, but a bit noisy on some setting and cuts some of the lows. If you want only standard flanging sounds, perhaps try out a Boss first. If you want to sound "different" and like more extreme sounds, give it a try (if you can find one). If it were stolen, I would try to buy another one.

Dude! Its a flanger! How hard can it be? Take some time to figure out what button does what and you`ll be ok. Everybody has his/her own sound, its up to you to figure that out.

Ehrm... well, what should I say? I use a Marshall Valvestate 8080 and when played clean its not that bad. But with distortion it sounds horrible. I usually only use some flanging when I play "1979" by Smashing Pumpkins.

Looks reliable. Boss kind of construction. Good and solid... nothing wrong with that.

Never dealt with them, and never will. I dont believe they make effects anymore.

Played clean this flanger isnt that bad. I bought it because I could get it very cheap (it looked ragged though:p) but with distortion it just sucks. But if you dont use a flanger that often (like me) and you do want one, and you can get this Pearl Flanger cheap (like 15>20 bucks) I would go for it. If it was stolen I would concider buying a good, second hand Boss Flanger.

Four knobs, appears easy to use, but it takes a while to figure out all the sweet spots for standard flange/chorus sounds.

I love this pedal, in comparison to my electric mistress it couldnt really be any different, the best thing about this flanger is the fact that it sounds and has the capability of making absolutely nuts sounds whilst still being essy to tame, if you want to sound a bit different go for this pedal.

i also have a pearl octaver which i gig all the time and that hasnt let me down, the switch needs cleaning now and again but otherwise its built a lot better than other brands.

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really cool, especially because there pretty cheap and unheard of, well worth keeping an eye out for.

Easy but can get weird at times. I had no manual so I had to guess at certain settings. I can honestly say I have not been able to get EXACT sounds of certain songs but was not really looking for that in this pedal.

Yamaha Pacifica into a Danelectro practice amp is what I run into:
Crybaby wah >> boss ds-1 >> proco rat >> Pearl Flanger >> MXR blue box. The biggest problem I have with this box is that it is noisey and hissy. But I have never seen a decent modulator that doesn't do this. I mainly use this thing to make odd noises (along with the blue box, see my review of that) so I am not looking to imitate anyone with it. However, I have been able to get that odd warbly, pulsating noise on Nirvana's Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.

Sucks batteries sometimes but seems pretty solid. I would use this as my only flanger, I really don't want another.

Dunno how to get in touch with Pearl or if they are even still around. Don't need to though.

I play Nirvana and that type of stuff and basically make a lot of noise with this thing. It comes in handy for some spaced out effects and I can get a decent chorus-y sound out of it. If it were stolen I would be pretty pissed because it seems to be the only "rare" piece of gear in my setup. If you can get one cheap or are a collector, grab one of these. It is definately a weird piece.

This is a four knob standard pedal with delaytime, feedback, modulation and depth. It is an extremely hard beast to tame. If you dial a wrong setting, witch is easily done, you get exessive highs, gurgles, or even thundering feedbacksounds WITHOUT even plugging in a guitar!!!

The sound quality is good but a bit overenthousiastic on the highs. The only working settings I can find are the real heavy flange settings as used on the entire mix in "Killer Queen" by Queen or "Listen to the music" by the doobie Bros. Quite usable but limited. Out-of-this-world-sound lovers can experiment a lot.

Pearl effects are build in, one piece, 4mm metal housings. Usable for derailing trains.

Pearl has seized building effects and amps a long time ago. Their pedals were all build in the early eighties. So customer support can get Tricky. On the other hand. I know seven gigging Pearl-pedal users and the worst thing that happens is damaging OTHER equipment with these concrete-solid lumps of metal.

Pearl has made some of the best pedals ever to grace the stage, notably their compressor and phasers. But this one isn't one of them. This thing overshadows anything that has ever sucked on this planet. It's hard to use, has only one usable setting wich isn't great. Experimental guitarists might love this thing but TRY BEFORE YOU BUY!