Baron of Arizona flanger #3 (NTE1641 edition) Revisited 5/17/2024

[blackhatboojum]

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 also 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 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.

[jimilee]

Very cool, as always. You some some more phasering though.

[nzCdog]

Nice build! Happy flangerising 

[Thewintersoldier]

The baron will always be my favorite, great job Clinton.

[gordo]

Cool as always and good to know that the chip doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

[jessenator]

I know you've already told the story of its namesake in your first build of it, but my brain always defaults to "Arizona Ranger with a big iron on his hip" —maybe I need to give the Mojave a break 🤪

[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.