DEMO Good Enough Flanger (Ibanez FL9) updated

This post contains an audio or video demo

blackhatboojum

Well-known member
Here’s the second of my Tombstone silver mine series, the Good Enough flanger. This one I’m dubbing the “Good Enough Edition” because it’s just good enough to work. I’ve been on a hot streak with this stuff but, I knew I was going to screw up sooner or later. This is the one where it finally happened. On my schematic file, I crossed up pins 5 and 7 on the 3102 clock chip, which led to me running the traces wrong, which led to this borked atrocity. I figured out what I did wrong but, I had to get creative in the ugliest sense to get a working flanger. I’ve since corrected all of my files and put in a new order for revised pcbs. The rest of this batch I chucked in the f*** it bucket.

Despite the ugliness and lack of photos in the Arizona sun, it is a working flanger and why not share my latest build experience. It also gives me the opportunity to say “Hey! Look at me! Sometimes I suck!” 🤣

Named after the Good Enough silver mine in Tombstone Arizona, this is a clone of the Ibanez FL9 flanger. I’ve made some tweaks, like using a quad op amp, but it’s essentially the 9 series classic. Like the AD9 is to the Boss DM-2, the FL9 is like the Boss BF-2 in a lot of ways. The schematics look very similar but, in typical Maxon fashion, the part values are very different. This results in a different sounding effect in comparison to the Boss counterpart. The FL9 is warmer, smoother, and doesn’t sound as boxy as the BF-2. It also doesn’t have the metallic edge that BF-2 has. One of the things I love about the BF-2 is how it sounds when you dump the regen knob all the way out. It’s my favorite chorus sound if I’m going to be honest with you. The FL9 does not do that. It always sounds like a flanger, even with the regen knob dumped all the way out. That's actually what I love about this flanger. It does the flanger thing and it does it well.

This isn’t my first foray into the world of the diy FL9. I built the Effects Layouts version awhile back and like that one, I love this one too. I actually love it more because… well… it’s all mine from conception to birth. Well, that’s enough rambling from me today. I’ll probably update the build report later when I get the revised PCBs but, until then... that's it for this one. Crappy proof of life demo included as well.

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Looks and sounds amazing my man!

Got a question - say I had a working stock DIY BF2 - would it be possible to swap a few components around (and if so, which ones) to make it more similar in tonality to the FL9 or are they different enough on a circuit-schematic level that it wouldn't make sense?
 
Looks and sounds amazing my man!

Got a question - say I had a working stock DIY BF2 - would it be possible to swap a few components around (and if so, which ones) to make it more similar in tonality to the FL9 or are they different enough on a circuit-schematic level that it wouldn't make sense?
Thanks!

To answer your question… no, it’s not really possible. You would have to swap out a lot more than a “few” components. While the circuit topology is very similar between the two, the values of components used is not.
 
Thanks!

To answer your question… no, it’s not really possible. You would have to swap out a lot more than a “few” components. While the circuit topology is very similar between the two, the values of components used is not.
Damn, I thought this'd be a TS808-SD1 situation, oh well the fromel mods will have to do, they make it brighter/more transparent and the resonance less metallic so the most important differences between the two are bridged
 
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