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 Author | Topic: VH MXR Flanger (Read 672 times) |
Jeff Fiorentino
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|  | VH MXR Flanger
« Thread Started on Sept 6, 2006, 7:48am » | |
As always Chris our JFRocks equipment guy has come through for us and got his hands on a VH model MXR Flanger.
I love the White and Black striping by the way. For me the White and Black is VH not the Red and white, but then I'm an old guy what can I say. lol
The Flanger itself sounds amazing. Although I will say that I want to strangle the guy on the Musicians friend demo mp3 who does Unchained and leaves the Flanger on for the whole riff. I understand he or she is demonstrating a Product but geeze that sounded like crap and won't sell anything. 
Now as far as the Flanger itself goes the little VH Unchained button is awesome and its a nice dead on match for that sound.
The knobs work the same as the old MXR units. I have an old MXR unit from the early 80's I think, and I have to say this VH model works better. It's more accurate to the finished product recorded tone. Could just be my old one is old and this VH one is new, but it sounds better than the old one to my ear.
Remember like I always say, you as the home player are trying to copy a produced finished studio product when you try to match the tone of a VH CD or any CD at home. Many times things like compression and reverb are added during mixdown and not used during the actual recording process itself. The type of reverb or compression chosen in post production for mixdown will determine the finished product's sound in more ways than 1. This VH MXR Flanger goes an excellent job of producing the finished product tone without a lot of tinkering I might add.
Do I like the vh flanger better than the Boss BF-3?? NO! The Boss BF-3 I usually use does everything the VH model does with the exception of the UNchained thing which the VH model does better. It's a toss up. I'll probably use the MXR for future Vin Heuton lessons just to be authentic but I may switch them out and see if anyone can pick which is which and I highly doubt anyone will be able to. lol
DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND ME!! This Vh Flanger is an AWESOME Flanger. It's deep and rich and warm and everything you need to do the VH stuff. If you don't have the money, the next best alternative is the Boss BF-3. If you do have the money, I strongly suggest picking up the VH MXR Flanger, if you're a true Ed Head.
As I said that Unchained switch alone is worth the cost of admission.
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being s-u-c-k-y and 10 being Perfect.
I give this VH MXR Flanger a "9" The only reason I don't give it a 10 is because nothing is perfect and the price is a bit much. I think a retail sell price of about 125 to 140 is ideal. I think the 180 to 200 range is a bit much for a Flanger pedal.
Would I buy it anyway?? YES!! it's a dam good Flanger well worth the expense, "IF" you can afford it. If you can't afford it, regardless of what the marketing people will tell you, you don't "NEED" it to get the VH Flanger tone.
It's simply a nice toy for the Ed Head with a couple hundred extra bucks kicking around. The BF-3 will do you just fine in the end though if the VH model's price is out of your range.
THE VH MXR FLANGER WILL BE FEATURED IN THE NEXT VIN HEUTON LESSON TRACK,
which is called...."UNTAMED" (loosely based on Unchained) and will be up before the end of September as a Suspended 4th riffing, quirky soloing 101 lesson.  
Jeff
JFRocks.com
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Kelly
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #1 on Sept 6, 2006, 9:27am » | |
It's a bad A$$ pedal man.. I heard a lot more of Jeff and Chris messing with it and I thought it was really wild. I loved the Hear about it Later sound it had. Not that it means anything but I give it a big thumbs up too.
Kelly
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Jack Hammer
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|  | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #2 on Sept 7, 2006, 4:14am » | |
wow jeff i can't wait to hear the new vin heuton lesson with the new evh flanger.
i hear it's an amazing pedal but the demo's for it suck man i would never buy it going by that demo i rather go try it out my self i try'ed the boss pedal and it was amazing and my heart was set on the boss one but thanks to this review i'am going after the evh one
you're right by giveing it a 9 out of 10 for the hight price i agree nice review jeff
i'am looking in to geting a flanger and phaser for christmas i was going with the boss but the evh equipment is verry tempting what do you think jeff?
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Jeff Fiorentino
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #3 on Sept 7, 2006, 8:23am » | |
("UNTAMED.......and you bit me in the finger.....TAMED....now I am a Bleedin'......TAMED.......) Sorry I've had that darn UNTAMED Riff ringing in my head all day, yeah it's gonna rock and I'm going to try to match the sound for UNchained as close as I can in 15 minutes or less. lol It'll be a nice workout for the VH Flanger for sure.
I don't know that's up to you man. I would certainly go with an MXR Phaser instead of a Boss Phaser. Flanger wise it's about the cost really.
The VH Switch on both the phaser and Flanger from MXR make it worth the cost of admission in my book.
If it's strictly Van Halen or Classic MXR sound in general that you're after you can't beat the VH line. They've done a nice job with it. I was very impressed with the VH phase 90 and I'm very impressed with the VH Flanger.
My initial fear with them was they were a fancy paint job and nothing more. Usually these days nice packaging or pretty colors hide crappy equipment. The old OOO AHHH factor. The old, distract them with the flashing lights thing.
The VH Phaser and Flanger are both exactly what they say they are do exactly what they say they do. No tinkering needed. They both pretty much come right out of the box good to go, and if you take the time to do what only 1% of people do and actually read the instruction book that comes with each of them, (or pamphlet as the case may be.) they give you all the settings you'll ever need right there.
In the end it's up to you, but yeah man, this VH Flanger ROCKS.
Like I said though, I think 180 to 200 bucks or even more in smaller stores, is a bit much for what it is, but then I also think the 120 or so price on the Phase 90 is a little out there. It's about the licensing of the Vh name, that's not cheap, and that's part of where the price comes from. It doesn't have to be that way and it kind of ticks me off a little that it is that way.
It's a shame that most people need some sort of validation from a celeb to buy something, rather than just basing it on their own first hand experience and opinion. That's a sad remark on our society as a whole.
The MXR VH Flanger and VH Phase 90 are AWESOME pedals. I would buy them based on their own merits just from trying them out and forming my own opinion of how they sound.
Unfortunately this seems to not be the standard for our society and the result of that is we're stuck paying inflated prices for quality, simply because these companies won't produce quality without a Celeb name attached to it. The licensing fees that go with that name then get passed onto us, the consumer.
These are great effects and should be the standard that MXR produces, not some special thing with an inflated price tag. I would rather they just painted it Black and produced this as their Flanger and sold it for a more reasonable 120 to 140 price tag.
I say that because, I don't buy stuff based on what some celeb says is good. I buy stuff based on what I think is good, and I don't appreciate having to pay the extra money for some silly stripes and a logo.
I doubt you'll see that honest of a write up in the musicians friend catalog. lol 
Jeff
JFRocks.com
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Jack Hammer
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #4 on Sept 7, 2006, 11:03am » | |
i agree 100 percent jeff.
you would buy it be cause the product is good and that's all you need not cause edward got's his name on it. 
but if you had to put the boss flanger and phaser on a 10 scale what would you're Rating be.
i'am looking to get an old peavy amp that would get me a brown sound or an emulated one and i need effect pedals so what would be the most important one's to get first i all reddy decided on the evh pedals
next i think i need a distortion pedal or an over drive pedal boss makes a regular distortion pedal and a mega distortion pedal witch one is beter and what other pedals do i need for a evh set up
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blackspy
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #5 on Sept 7, 2006, 12:57pm » | |
Jack Hammer
Nobody can tell you what you need to buy for a certain sound. It really comes down to your guitar/strings/pickups + your amp and its settings (gain and tone). Most importantly YOU, and your technique and style. Pedals will only modify these sounds. There's really no preset formula, like buy these pedals and this guitar and this amp, plug it like this and there you have 'the brown sound', and will sound like Eddie. That's not how it works.
The essentials are all over the JFRocks site if you choose to read and listen to the advice given in the lessons.
Asking others what to buy is futile and you will waste hundreds, if not thousands of dollars buying stuff you personally have no opinion on.
Here's some linkage to get you started, and hopefully on your way to forming your own opinions.
http://www.jfrocks3.com/jfrocks/brownsound.html
http://www.jfrocks3.com/jfrocks/dial.html
http://www.jfrocks3.com/jfrocks/vanfx.html
http://www.jfrocks3.com/jfrocks/evhperform.html
http://www.jfrocks3.com/equip/index.html
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RCL
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #6 on Sept 8, 2006, 8:26am » | |
Of course you can solve any problem if you through enough money at it
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Kelly
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #7 on Sept 8, 2006, 8:34am » | |
Hey Jack hammer. This is the product review forum.
lets try to keep it on topic.
All Jeff did was put up a post talking about his 1st hand experience with the VH flanger.
All topics posted after that really should be kept to that.
General questions about what effects you should buy should really be put elsewhere. Please read the headings for our forums so you know what they're about.
I've created the new boards to keep things semi organized for new people as they come in, so they don't have to sift through a bunch of garbage to find answers to questions.
Kelly
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Jack Hammer
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Kelly
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #9 on Sept 8, 2006, 10:00am » | |
No big deal, just trying to keep the forum neat and as organized as I can.
Thanks for moving the stuff.
Kelly
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rvk5150
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #10 on Sept 9, 2006, 7:09am » | |
I just got the pedal and toyed with it; being the ultimate EVH head as many of you know I am I have to have his latest toys...
I traded with my old MXR Flanger plus $50 with a retailer on Ebay; osceosales is his screen name there and he is selling unit for $150 or $160 which is cheaper than anyone else just FYI for everyone....
I think it is great; my MXR Flanger was an 80's original and although I suck at guitar in comparison to all of you I can play a few of the Fair Warning riffs and will say it is as good if not better. Also the Unchained button does make a quick connect to that sound which is so cool....
A great piece of equipment; maybe a little pricey but only $20-30 higher than a normal MXR Flanger re-issue and for that it's worth it!
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Po Cherry
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #11 on Sept 9, 2006, 8:04am » | |
Hey Jeff, thanks for the review.
just one question, would you use the mxr evh flanger outside of the vh genre?
i remember reading on one of the fx page that you liked the boss flanger so much becuase it could do more than just vh.
thanks
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Jeff Fiorentino
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #12 on Sept 10, 2006, 3:46pm » | |
MXR Flangers always have had the problem of sounding like Van Halen. I have an original old MXR Flanger and it's VH all the way. Every single time I plug it in and play something all I can hear is either, "hear about it later" or Unchained or some other VH Flanger tune. It's the warmth of them combined with the fact that I dial in a warm tone anyway as that's what I like.
The good news is the VH model has a switch much like the VH Phase 90 that's called an EVH switch. On the Flanger it's an instant Unchained sound, on the Phaser it's a switch between the script model and reissue.
For my money, I would prefer the Boss BF-3, mostly because Van Halen is a very small percentage of what I actually play. It just so happens it's what JFRocks specializes in, but I don't want to sound like VH every time I hit the Flanger.
The VH stuff namely the VH Flanger and VH Phase 90 are, like I said best for the true Ed head like myself that wants to be as dead on with the tone as possible when doing something "Van Haleny" as I like to say.
Long and short of it is, the BF-3 will still be my main Flanger but this VH Flanger is a great Van Halen toy and it totally does what it says it will do. Total 100% truth in advertising.
You'll hear it on UNTAMED this week. It's a really fat warm flanger.
Jeff
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Po Cherry
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #13 on Sept 11, 2006, 12:15pm » | |
well at some point if i ever make it to elderlys ill make sure to try out both
thanks for the review
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| | Re: VH MXR Flanger
« Reply #14 on Sept 12, 2006, 9:08am » | |
Thanks for the review. I also prefer equipment that can do more than 1 thing. Although I love VH "sounds," I need to be able to dial in other tones as well and I hate having to swap out stuff too often. I'll try one out myself but I'll keep this in mind!
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