NPD: Bent BF-2 (w/clips)

[jrmy]

So, a while back, I met this guy Greg Furious, who plays bass in Chris Evil & the Taints. Great guy. Great beard (seriously, the man sports serious facial hair). Turns out he also repairs & bends pedals. A friend in one of the other bands playing said, "You should really hear what he can do to a BF-2!" So the fates aligned, and I saw that our own McSpunkle was selling a BF-2 right here in b/s/t. So I picked it up, and called up Greg.

Today, after many missed connections and complicated schedules, Greg and I got together, and I got my first bent pedal. Yay hooray! Greg walked me through the stuff he'd done (my camera's on the fritz, so no pix for you) - put in a new bright white LED, put in new chips so the regular mode would sound richer, and made the bend flip-switchable (the switch is conveniently located direcly above the right-most knob, so it's easy to flip on the fly). And then we plugged it in.

It's pretty crazy-go-nuts in the bent mode. I'm not sure what the heck is entirely going on. There's definitely an element of slapback delay, and some things that sound like a spaceship flying in and out of tune, and then other things that sound a bit like xylophones falling into each other. And it looooooooooooooooves the drums! I dragged my drum machine out of the closet, and had some fun techno houseparty times.

The one problematic thing is that in many settings, it develops a weird high-pitched tone that comes and goes with the flange wave. Sometimes it's so high-pitched that I think I could eq it out without the rest of the signal suffering, other times it's like being dive-bombed by seagulls. Anyhow, this is not a subtle pedal in the bent mode, so I can certainly live with a little more weirdness in the sound. Interestingly, this didn't happen when I used it with my drum machine.

Since I'm clearly not doing the pedal any justice in talking about it, I've recorded a few demo clips. The bass one covers a lot of little snippets of the various settings - it starts with the regular flange with everything at noon, goes to the bent mode with everything at noon, and then gets into the more "refined" bent sounds. The minute:second breakdown goes -

0:34 big swells
1:11 wiggly chop
1:36 metallic verb
2:00 tremoverbything
2:23 degrading flange & whistles
2:51 metallic ramp-up
3:18 funky beeps
3:42 xylophony harmonics

I also recorded two clips of the pedal with my old-ass Yamaha drum machine. The first is just me slowly turning knobs. The second is, I think, much more effective. A funny thing about this pedal and the drum machine - the effect was most subtle with the feedback knob (at least I think that's what it is - the rightmost knob. The description is now obscured by the bend switch) maxxed. In both cases, the only thing I toyed with was the knobs on the BF-2 - the drum pattern remained the same throughout, so all extra crashes, zooms & bangs were added by the pedal.

Anyhow, there you have it: crazy bent flanger sounds. I've gotta see how this thing plays with my other pedals now...

[McSpunckle]

Can I have it back now?


That sounds sooo cool.

[the raytownian]

Think of how popular (or hated?) it'd be if they made like this STOCK, haha.

It's not like big manufacturers don't have the capability to make a "regular" flange with additional crazy features...

Sounds cool... Makes me kind of want to look inside my Washburn Flanger (I read at least one review that said it was pretty much exactly like the BF-2)... Maybe if I ever get a second, I'll attempt that.

[jrmy]

Can I have it back now?


That sounds sooo cool.

Ha! I thought you'd want it back!

If you want something similar, I'd be happy to share Greg's contact info with you - it shouldn't be that hard to find another BF-2, and I know he'd be happy to do the bend again. And he's extremely affordable!

Think of how popular (or hated?) it'd be if they made like this STOCK, haha.

I know - you'd get tons of user reviews on sites saying things like "This thing is great at what it does... too bad that thing is SUCKING!" But I think there's bajillions of cool noises in here - some more usable than others, perhaps, but all interesting.

I just did another bit of recording, this time on guitar. I think that I might like it on guitar more than bass! Blasphemy! Here's the breakdown -

0:00 - chorusy
0:26 - metallic droney verb
1:00 - banjo meets sitar in a steel-walled room?
1:21 - detuning reverb
1:40 - wobbly spacey
2:08 - burbling swells & whistles
2:31 - metallic ramping
2:50 - palm-muted ramping
3:12 - funky xylophone bubbles
3:37 - detuned delay

[McSpunckle]

Can I have it back now?


That sounds sooo cool.

Ha! I thought you'd want it back!

If you want something similar, I'd be happy to share Greg's contact info with you - it shouldn't be that hard to find another BF-2, and I know he'd be happy to do the bend again. And he's extremely affordable!

I may try something similar with one of my DODs, since I can't seem to sell the damn things. ( ) and they're pretty similar in function to the BF-2.

God... those guitar clips are great too.

[jrmy]

I may try something similar with one of my DODs, since I can't seem to sell the damn things. ( ) and they're pretty similar in function to the BF-2.

God... those guitar clips are great too.

Hey - you've got the skillz, so give bending those DODs a shot! I bet you can find some awesome sounds in there.

I'm glad you dig the guitar clips! I definitely want to try writing some guitar parts around some of those sounds... I'm really liking those weird metallic reverbs, as well as the more out-there detuned stuff...

[Nychthemeron]

I'm listening to your latest posted clip and HOLY CRAP THAT'S AWESOME.

I love spaceship-esque effects.

[pillof]

it sounds like pds 20/20. really cool.

[Scruffie]

The problems you say with noise I beleive could be down to Heterodyning... you may find using shielded wire inside helps with it and filtering will probably get rid of it too although if you're running clocks straight into eachother or into the BBD with the bend.. then it's inevitable but filtering (or EQ) will help.

Other than that... I want me a Bent BF-2.

[01010111]

I may try something similar with one of my DODs, since I can't seem to sell the damn things. ( ) and they're pretty similar in function to the BF-2.

God... those guitar clips are great too.

I have an old dod flanger, an fx75 I think, when I got it I couldn't hear anything no flangey or chorusey anything going on it was like I had only turned on an led. So I opened it up started toying with the trimpots, as I assumed someone else had done to remove all traces of flange, and one of the trimpots was giving me all kinds of sounds like this. Like dropping pots and pans down a bottomless pit filled with glass that also happens to be a tilt-a-whirl...
...so are the days of our lives.

And that latest guitar track is tits.

[jrmy]

The problems you say with noise I beleive could be down to Heterodyning... you may find using shielded wire inside helps with it and filtering will probably get rid of it too although if you're running clocks straight into eachother or into the BBD with the bend.. then it's inevitable but filtering (or EQ) will help.

Other than that... I want me a Bent BF-2.

Thanks for the info, Scruffie. If the whistles really get annoying, I may see about getting Greg to make these changes. I haven't opened up the guts to see what he did, so I'm not sure exactly what's going on there.

And I'm not sure if he'd ship to the UK, but he's a good guy - I wouldn't be surprised if he'd be willing to discuss what went into the bend with you!

I have an old dod flanger, an fx75 I think, when I got it I couldn't hear anything no flangey or chorusey anything going on it was like I had only turned on an led. So I opened it up started toying with the trimpots, as I assumed someone else had done to remove all traces of flange, and one of the trimpots was giving me all kinds of sounds like this. Like dropping pots and pans down a bottomless pit filled with glass that also happens to be a tilt-a-whirl...
...so are the days of our lives.

And that latest guitar track is tits.

That is very cool on the DOD... I wonder if McSpunkle could get something like that with his DOD's?

Glad you like the guitar tracks! I've gotta find time to actually record a song using some of those sounds. After posting, I refined one of the metallic reverbs to a place that I really like, and riffed using it for hours. Just... need... some more... time!