Flair

Flanging with a harmonic structure

FLAIR expands the familiar short-delay-and-feedback flanger into a set of tunable voices. Its Chord setting determines their musical intervals, so increasing voice count can produce a chord-like resonance instead of simply a thicker sweep. At high feedback, that structure becomes especially pronounced.

Three approaches to movement

Standard adds the flanger voices together. Thru Zero pairs the moving voices with static counterparts, producing the characteristic cancellations associated with tape flanging. Scan moves between voices in sequence, giving an arpeggiator-like contour without becoming a conventional MIDI arpeggiator. Pitch, modulation and damping let the same processor range from subtle metallic motion to a conspicuous tuned texture. Begin with a single voice and restrained feedback, choose the harmonic relationship, then widen or animate the result.

Source: Manual, “FLAIR / Overview of FLAIR,” pp. 10–13.

Voices and tuning

Pitch sets the first voice's fundamental in semitones and shifts the full comb-filter structure. Chord determines the relationship between voices. In Standard and Thru Zero modes, Voices fades from one to four voices; in Scan mode, it crossfades through them sequentially. Detune offsets the individual voices for a less static sound, particularly useful with a unison chord.

Sweep and stereo motion

Rate sets modulation speed and Amount determines how far Pitch moves. Activate LFO Sync for host-relative note divisions; numerator, denominator and subdivision controls set the cycle. Width adds stereo duplication, opposite panning and modulation offsets, with cross-feedback becoming more apparent as Feedback rises.

Resonance and tone

Feedback increases regeneration and tuned resonance. Damping reduces high-frequency content in that feedback, allowing softer textures even when resonance is strong. Mix balances dry and processed signals. Invert changes their phase relationship, swaps spectral peaks and notches and lowers the perceived voice pitch by an octave; in Thru Zero it can cause particularly strong cancellations.

Mode-specific behavior

• Standard: Conventional comb-filter flanging, expanded by Chord and Voices.
• Thru Zero: Moving and static voice copies cross in time. Offset shifts their relationship, altering cancellation timing and reducing cancellation when modulation is absent.
• Scan: Moves between the chord voices instead of continuously summing them. Its Scan Mode selects Triangle, Sawtooth Up or Sawtooth Down movement.

Watch the display while varying Pitch, Voices and modulation to connect the sound with the changing resonator layout. Keep Feedback restrained initially so cancellations and level changes remain easy to evaluate.

Source: Manual, “Overview of FLAIR,” pp. 10–13.