Flangers

One effect that I have not talked about yet are flangers, which I use a lot along with other modulation effects such as chorus and phasers.

Flangers work by duplicating a signal and delaying it by a short amount, usually under 15ms. This means that as the waveforms play alongside each other, they will drift in and out of phase to create a worbly, moving sound. Features that are found on flangers often times could be feedback, in which the output is fed back in to the flanger, as well as LFO’s which will typically effect the delay time.

Here is an example of a guitar loop I recorded with the flanger bypassed:

Here is what that sounds like with the flanger enabled:

To get this effect, I used MetaFlanger from Waves with these settings:

The delay is set very short, with a slow moving LFO modulating it. I have the feedback increased to exaggerate the sweeping effect and have the high pass filter set at 1k so the lower mids aren’t being effected to avoid muddiness.

Some artists I listen to a lot that make use of flangers as a core part of their sound include Prince, Tame Impala and D’angelo. While Prince will use them mostly on guitar, an artist like D’angelo uses them more often on vocals. Tame Impala, on the other hand, will sometimes use flangers on the entire mix – this shows the variety that flangers can have and the different ways they can be used.

The core essence of why I love flangers is the sense of movement. It makes them great for transitions, watery sounds and anything that you don’t want to feel rigid.