2 year old thread - BE RESURRECTED!

I just wanted to say I spent a LOT of time with some VH flanger tones last night, and I have two ways to work it that both sound pretty good.  They're both basically the same.

The AC Flanger is closest to the VH tone, but it can be really bright, and it tends to goof up the high end.  Also, there's no mix parameter (the one you see in Edit does nothing), which is accurate to the real thing, but difficult to work with.

So what I do is I put my amp behind the mixer.  In channel A I put a Mid-Focus EQ to trim mostly highs (HP freq 65% Q 0%) and a touch of low end (this flanger tends to distort low-end, getting you a quasi-fuzzy tone - I want to tame but not eliminate that).  Then I put the AC Flanger with settings similar to what Hollis posted above (but I don't set Regen THAT high).  Channel B is basically empty; however, because EQ's tend to introduce a significant delay into the signal producing comb filtering, I put a completely neutral Parametric EQ in Channel B to offset the Mid-Focus in Channel A.  Now I have a dry signal and a wet signal and can use the mixer to balance them together.  I don't get the crazy harshness of the highs from the flanger, but they're not simply gone.

My normal EVH signal chain is Line 6 Drive - path split (separate channels as described above) - mixer - Uber w/ Hiway or Greenbacks - EQ - reverb - delay.

For more modern EVH tones I go a bit crazier.  In Channel A I substitute the AC Flanger for the 80A Flanger, and in Channel B I add the AC Flanger.  So I've got two flangers going on at once.  I dial them in keeping the widths and regen/feedback a little more conservative.  The trick to finding the right spot is to make sure the Manual parameters work together.

For any flanger usage, start with Manual at 50%.  I thought this was used to set Width at 0%, then you control the flanging manually by assigning this to a pedal.  Well, that works, but it still has some effect on the tone when Width is > 0%.  At low values, it sounds like the flanger isn't working correctly, getting you this wobble type sound when it hits its cyclic min and max - you don't get a smooth swooshy flanger tone.  At higher values, the flanger sound is diminished and the tone seems loose and out of sync.  I would keep Manual between 40-60% if what you want is a traditional flanger tone.

Regen/feedback is what makes the swooshy tone really audible.  But too high and it dominates your tone.

Finally, I like the flangers in front my amp/distortion.  Running them in post configuration really emphasizes the super swooshy sound, but then the effect takes over the tone making everything less musical.  I prefer to let the comb filter it produces play into the distortion, altering my distortion tone.  If I want a mod tone behind the amp to really make things wet, I use a chorus or the Dimension instead.  And you really need a mix parameter for post usage, or the effect dominates the tone.