Flanger Tips
What is a flanger? What ever it is, it’s name sure does sounds weird. Flanging occurs when delay times go into the millisecond group that is in the single digits. One way to chronicle flanging is to say its like a whishing sound or a sound a jet airplane makes. The noise it makes is a kind of filtering or vibration that moves audibly up or bottomward in frequency. The way it moves depends on what’s going on with the modulation.
Lets say an audio source is put off by 6 milliseconds and then you integrate that with the source sound, usually when feedback is added, several frequencies destroy each other out. This will result in an arrangement of peaks and valleys across the frequency spectrum. When you apply modulation, the delay time can either cut back or extend and in return the patterns of the peaks and valleys will shift up or down.
The curve you hear is the flanging you hear. As the delay times shorted, the flanging will appear to go up and when they lengthen, the flanging can seem to go down.
By touching the flange on one of the tape machines, this would make the machine slow down, ergo causing the delay to alternate in one route and this will also change the way the sound reacts with one another. This technique is considered true flanging, because it allows 2 sounds to cross in time.
How did flanging get its name? Well, in the 1960′s, audio engineers perceived when they recorded the same exact sound on two different tape machines and played them at the same time, one would slightly delay to the other. These 2 audio sounds would react with each other and cause frequency cancellations between the both of them
Flanging is a kind of spacial repercussion that has a distinctive sound. This sound can be so bold, that’s its easily over used. If you where to record a twelve song album or cd, you should only use the flanger in one or maybe two songs. Anymore than that and its overkill.
