Baron of Arizona flanger #3 (NTE1641 edition) Revisited

[blackhatboojum]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

Question... How many BF-2 flangers does a person need?
Answer... All of them!

If you don't know me by now, I'll let you in on a little secret... I love me some Boss flanger. In total, I've built 5 of them. 4 of them have been on the Fraudhacker PCB and 3 of those have been of the BF-2 variety. What makes this one different than those other BF-2's you may be wondering? Well, I used a NTE1641 BBD for this one. I wanted to know if there is a sonic difference between a MN3207 and a MN3007 in the same style of circuit and if I’m going to be honest... I'll use any excuse to add another BF-2 to my collection. Have I mentioned that I love Boss flangers yet ? In all seriousness though, I spent about 40 minutes contrasting and comparing this build with my OG Baron of Arizona flanger. I can honestly say, there's little to no difference between the sound of my MN3207 BF-2 and this one. This latest build has a slightly lower overall noise floor and the flange wasn't quite as deep with the depth knob maxed but, that was the only difference I could hear. Those two things could easily be chalked up to part tolerances so I'm not reading too much into it. Both sound exactly like a Boss BF-2 and I can dial them in to sound exactly the same. Outside of that, there's not much else I can say. Same color enclosure, same artwork, and I used white knobs instead of black for this one. That's pretty much it.

 

[Harry Klippton]

The hat man compels you to build more flangers

 

[Cvoxdog]

Nice! BF2 is my favorite flanger.

 

[Guardians of the analog]

Another slam dunk

 

[Bio77]

Looks sharp!

The difference in sound should be headroom, which you might only notice with a drive in front. What regulator did you use?

 

[blackhatboojum]

Looks sharp!

The difference in sound should be headroom, which you might only notice with a drive in front. What regulator did you use?

Thanks! I used a 78L05.

 

[Paradox916]

we are going to be needing that chip back…..

Very cool man, excellent build and such a great circuit!

 

[Bio77]

Thanks! I used a 78L05.

Yeah, at 5V, like you said, should be identical to the 3207. Most of the circuits using the 3007 have a charge pump (BTW, they also have loads of clock noise problems). If you wanted to play around, you could try using a 12V power supply and try some larger valued regulators.

 

[blackhatboojum]

The hat man compels you to build more flangers

The hat man is in control .

Nice! BF2 is my favorite flanger.

Mine too!

Another slam dunk

Thanks Chris!

View attachment 56503
we are going to be needing that chip back…..

Very cool man, excellent build and such a great circuit!

Many thanks!

Yeah, at 5V, like you said, should be identical to the 3207. Most of the circuits using the 3007 have a charge pump (BTW, they also have loads of clock noise problems). If you wanted to play around, you could try using a 12V power supply and try some larger valued regulators.

I'm actually thinking about breaking out the old dc power supply, and playing around with this one. I'm curious as to what voltage, noise and/or LFO tick starts to creep in.

 

[blackhatboojum]

I recently revisited this build, and played around with different voltage regulators. Here are the results in case anyone might be interested.

Pedal at 12v with a 9v regulator: Brian mentions in the build docs that this configuration can be used but, hasn't been tested. I've now tested it and I can say... it doesn't work. It ticks, more accurately, thumps like crazy.

Pedal at 12v with a 6v regulator:
Works, doesn't tick, but results are not desirable. There is a significant increase in volume when engaged. This is to be expected since the op amps are getting more voltage but, the bbd is not receiving a voltage benefit in terms of headroom. It's still being regulated to only 6 volts. The extra volt also changes the clock speed quite dramatically. Stock voltages gives me speeds of 40kHz to 530kHz with a sweep of the manual knob. The extra volt causes the speed to jump up to 830mHz with the manual knob maxed. At that speed, it sounds really warbly and off putting to my ears. It's no longer a flanger and more of a seasick chorus sound.

Pedal 9v with a 6v regulator:
Very similar to being run at 12v but, without the volume boost. Again, not very desirable to me. That boost in clock speed just doesn't work for this circuit. There's probably a resistor in the clock network that could be changed out to bring the speed down to a more suitable range but, I don't see the point. That extra volt doesn't really help the bbd in terms of headroom from what I can tell so why bother. 9v with a 5v regulator seems to be the sweet spot for this circuit.