A well-designed flanger should be able to sweep over a delay range of at least 30:1 in order to achieve dramatic slow sweeps. Both the BF-2 and HF-2 have sweep ratios of about 13:1. What the...? The Panasonic pairing of an MN320x bucket brigade chip and MN3102 clock generator provides a pleasingly compact and simple means of getting a swept delay. The trouble is that the Panasonic delay chips have a fairly high input capacitance on the pins that receive the clock pulses from the 3102. Ideally, those pulses should be crisp and as close to square as possible, in order to have a nice instant "handoff" from stage to stage in the delay chip, and provide a continuous audio stream, with no audible gaps. And they do...until you get around to about 100khz (as the datasheet for them indicates). At that point, what *ought* to be a nice crisp pulse gets a little smudged, and more like a sloped trapezoid than a square. Think of the effect of that capacitance as being like the "tone suck" of a long guitar cable that introduces too much cable capacitance. There's no issue with stuff between, say, 200hz and 800hz, but once you start sending out higher frequency content, such cables tend to eat it up. The same is true of the 320x/3102 combo, when it comes to higher clock frequencies In the same way that proper buffering can help a player to run 50ft and longer cable with no signal loss, better flangers will also provide *buffering* between the clock and delay chip to allow the clock to successfully feed pulses to the delay chip at frequencies higher than 100khz. The stock BF-2 can only sweep from about 13msec down to a minimum delay of 1msec. If we wanted to get truly dramatic "jet place" sounds, we'd want to drop that minimum delay down to maybe 300 *micro* seconds (0.33msec), which would give us a 43:1 sweep ratio. (NOTE: The highly esteemed A/DA flanger sweeps from 14msec down to 0.33msec, a 42:1 sweep ratio). By using an MN3204 and halving the number of stages, the HF-2 attempts to address two issues. First, it chops the overall delay time in half, now going from 6.5msec down to 0.5msec. Not *quite* 0.33msec, but a little better. Being able to achieve a shorter minimum delay time means the sweep can seem to come from "out of the stratosphere", rather than providing that constant tanky tone of the BF-2. Second, bandmates need a bass to always sound "on pitch", in order to have a good sense of harmonies, and important guitar/bass note meshing. So, while chorused bass sounds nice, obvious pitch wobble in the bass is disorienting, Cutting the *maximum* delay time in half reduces audible pitch wobble. The "chip swap" in the HF-2 allowed BOSS to make something a little more compatible with bass, without having to redesign much more than the legending and chassis color. Personally, when I build a flanger or chorus for myself, I include a bass-cut switch for the wet signal, that allows the same sweep of time delay, but moves the low end of the delay signal a little more to the background, so any residual pitch wobble doesn't stick out as much. BOSS *could* ave done that, but like I said, a simple chip swap simplified things for them.

And now we call on Boss to release a BF-2W Wazacraft Flanger which has the HF-2 in its custom mode.

"the flanger to play when your band is ... never mind" hahahah great! BTW the high band flanger sounds fantastic, in my ears it sounds lusher than the BF2, both are incredible pedals though! thanks for the very detailed explanation!

OMG, THIS IS THE CLEAREST EXPLANATION OF A COMB FILTER. EVERRRRRRR. Not to mention a clear explanation of the “jet woosh” as a bonus once you find out what a comb filter does. This was a killer education on a favorite effect for me. The Boss flanger flavor isn’t my thing, but that flanger-friendly jam was! This video was pure awesome for anyone who wants to understand what that circuit is really doing!

Another superb video with a brilliantly explained "how it works", you're really getting into your stride with these. Also enjoyed the gut shots of the pedals along with an explanation of what is different/why that matters. Funny you mention about "talking too much", I enjoy your spoken work more than any other gear channel on youtube. I think because it is concise and well presented. You don't witter, there's no filler or pentatonic widdling or a litany of ums and irrelevant content. I'm guessing there's a lot of script writing going on in the background, because the delivery is just top notch.

Love the talking for an educational video. Simple reviews without talking are great too. I love having options. I learned from this lesson video. Thanks man 👍🏻

Fantastic explanation. I’ve been waiting for your video all week. Now the wait continues. Perhaps I shouldn’t have binged your catalog.

Great video! The BF-2 is a GREAT flanger and one of my "go to" pedals over the past twenty something years. I had been looking for comparisons with the HF-2 and your video came just in time! And you really nailed the technical description of flanger.

I still have a made in Japan Boss HF-2 i scored used back in the mid 90's when they were out of production for $50. Considering the extra premium the market puts on pre-Taiwan made in Japan Boss pedals, I scored myself a bit of a collector's item!

thank you SO much for taking the time, effort, and expenditure to physically show us what we're hearing. i'm sure it isn't easy being any kind of investigator, or heaven forbid, *educator* in this environment. i, for one, have gratitude. my brain feels bigger after spending time here. lurid pedal-abuse storytime: it's the mid-90's, in a small Midwest city. for reasons unknown, my noise/industrial/improv/art expression trio is asked to play the local late-night coffeehouse. this was the kind of place that usually hosted acoustic guitar Grateful Dead sing-alongs. okay. set and setting. we load in a selection of gear for the evening (multiple Peavey bass combo amps, Roland drum triggers, a small 4 channel PA, and various rackmount effects, each distributed according to the task). leftover were a couple of Boss effects- fine, we'll use the phaser on the drums, but what to do with the purple flanger? hmm... well, let's run it on the output of the PA, so the entirety of the band's signal is flanged. perfect. let's rokk!! this has been Weird Crap We Did in the 90's, with your host, Jammy

really in-depth explanation and i appreciate your thoughtfulness to explain this. you deserve more subs brother! cheers

It’s nice to finally know the difference and hear it side by side! I have always loved the BF-2, it gets a bit buried under all the MXR 117 and Electric Mistress love, but Prince, the Cure and the Cult could’ve had those pedals too, yet they went with Boss. I don’t have my BF-2 any more, but I do have a TC Electronics Thunderstorm and to these ears it’s identical.

Fantastic video and info, thank you!

perfect explanation of the comb filter, my compliments

Great video!

Thanks for this excellent explanation. I’ve always wondered why I prefer the HF-2.

Middle A(440Hz) is on the 5th fret of small E string. The note that was played was 220Hz and the A string open is 110Hz.

so informative. thanks for this!

This was brilliant! well done

Amazing video. This channel will be big eventually.

Oh man, someone else who listens for modulation in urban/industrial settings!! So cool.

great explanation. thank you for this!

Very interesting. I've had both and still have the HF2 (MIJ). Always wondered what exactly made them sound different and heard all the theories but nothing like opening the boxes up and taking a look.

very cool informative video, bravo! +1 subscribed :)

This is a great episode I have both flangers though I already knew the difference I prefer the hi band it seems to be a bit more subtle it stays out of the way and doesn't modulate pitch so much

My fave so far

Over the past few months I've started toying around with playing bass, and so far flanger is my favorite modulation effect on Bass. Pair it with some dirt, and it can add this real low rocket engine sort of sound that i just really love.

AWESOME!!!

Cool Sub Pop shirt. I lived near the offices for a couple of years and remember them taking stuff out of it in-2005/2006? Seattle was awesome until the mid-2000’s. Then it just became unlivable for artists. My ex-wife still lives there, and that’s another drawback.

I know you love your choruses and flangers so you should check out the Alexander F.13 pedal. Very cool pedal!

The youtuber we need :)

omg i love you

I still love my Mooer E-Lady. It just works with my Police-show ( I use it with a FTT Tri Avatar Multi-Chorus and a Boss DD-500 ). I had the MXR, Retro-Sonic. I'd love to get my hands on a Hartman. Nice comparison.

My HF-2 has been my go to for the last 20+ years purely cause its the one I saw for a good price but I quickly realised my flanger sounded different from the ones mates had. I have many variations from pedal to rack flanger but the HF-2 is king.

My hf-2 isn’t going anywhere bar back on board

One thing worth mentioning, but it would have been off topic for this video - is the BF-2 can be made to sound very close to the CE-2. There's a little more top end stuff on the BF-2 but the similarity is clear.

Despite my poor knowledge of English, I was able to enjoy a crystal-clear and entertaining presentation about a pedal whose technical solutions and sound characteristics didn't interest me at all. Great guitar playing in the video too!

You did not play a = 440 Hz, you played 220 Hz. Thx for this great video!

Do you have any preferred settings with the bf2? Im always trying to see how others use it

Boss BF-2 uses the MN3207 chip with 1024 BBD cells, has a longer delay and is more aggressive, EVH style Boss HF-2 Uses MN3204 chip with 512 delay cells, has shorter delay, subtler effect, David Gilmour style. Series made only in Japan. So they are not the same and sound very different.

I prefer the HF-2 but should i get a Strymon Orbit instead?

Man i was on reverb eyeing the boss bf-2 or 3 wondering which one i should get that sounds better on my 12 stribg electric. Now I'm adding the hf-2, man im tempted to get both the bf 3 abd hf-2 and see which i like my on the 12. Thank you for the informative video, my wallet my not lol

HF-2 all day - every day!

You da man. Keep talkin and drawin. And er'thing else. Haters can scram.

What is causing the Phantom frequencies and phantom overtones? you mentioned phantom ghost tones that the flanger pedal is creating

When you realize the MW2 challenge completed sound is probably a flanger

at first i was like " they sound like flangers......great i guess?...." but i definitely prefer the hi freq one . i like the less craziness

Nice... No, u aren't talkin to much. Thanks for sharing.

Ok, but what about on leather or cloth? same issue?

I've got the hf-2 version, in almost mint condition and its box.

I personally think the HF-2 blows the BF-2 out of the water. The high band one sounds more like a deluxe electric mistress, aka the greatest flanger of all time.

Flangers are kind of weird. In a good way I suppose.

Boss Flangers made me hate Flangers for quite a long time. Ear piercing high shrils. Then I got to goof with an Ibanez FL99 and bought it. Mellower, thick and well behaved.