Maxon FL-9 Flanger

The Maxon FL-9 is an analog flanger pedal from Maxon. It uses a Panasonic MN3207 BBD (bucket brigade device) IC, the analog delay-line chip at the heart of the effect, which Maxon says creates "some of the richest, thickest flanging and time-delay effects possible"¹. A flanger works by mixing a slightly delayed copy of your signal back with the original, with the delay time swept by an LFO; the FL-9 does this entirely in the analog domain.

The pedal is discontinued. Maxon's distributor states that "This pedal has been discontinued and will not be available again"¹, so finding one means the secondhand market.

Where it came from

The FL-9's story starts with Ibanez, not Maxon. Premier Guitar's Jordan Wagner describes Maxon as "the company that Ibanez originally commissioned to design the effect"³. The original Ibanez FL9 Flanger was produced from 1982 to 1984 as part of Ibanez's 9 Series, and TONEHOME reports it was reissued from 2004 onward, with secondhand availability described as very good⁴. The Maxon FL-9 covered here is Maxon's own version of that circuit, reviewed alongside the CS-9 Pro Stereo Chorus and AD-9 Analog Delay in Vintage Guitar's October 2004 look at the Maxon Nine Series reissues².

In 2009 Maxon released the VJR-9 Vintage Jet Riser Flanger, which Premier Guitar called a hopped-up successor to the Ibanez FL-9³. Players comparing flangers today may also want to look at the Ibanez FL9 page, or the unrelated Glou-Glou FL9, a modern stereo analog modulation device that borrows the model number.

The controls

The FL-9 has four controls, and they appear under slightly different names depending on where you look. Maxon's current product page lists Rate, Depth and Regeneration¹, while Vintage Guitar's 2004 review of the reissue names Speed, Width, Regeneration and Delay Time⁵. Pedal of the Day, reviewing a vintage Ibanez FL9, describes the same four knobs as Rate, Width, Regen and Delay Time⁶. The table below combines these descriptions.

That Delay Time knob is the one that sets the FL-9 apart from simpler flangers: instead of a fixed delay range, you can move the center point of the sweep, which changes the character of the effect from subtle to extreme⁶.

What it sounds like

Maxon says the controls let you "dial in everything for shimmering chorus and vibrato to hollow, metallic overtones to thick, jet-like flanging sweeps"¹. So the pedal covers more than straight flanging: slow, shallow settings land in chorus and vibrato territory, while high regeneration settings produce the resonant, metallic extremes.

Vintage Guitar's reviewer, testing the 2004 reissue, found that "the pedal's sound was appreciably warm, transparent, and our signal was quieter with the pedal on"². That last point is worth noting for anyone who has owned a noisy vintage flanger: the reissue ran quieter in the signal chain than the reviewer's bypassed path. Maxon also highlights silent operation, saying it "makes the Maxon FL-9 at home on the stage or in the studio"¹.

Who plays it

Maxon's product page names Gretchen Menn as a player who uses the Maxon FL-9¹.

Buying one today

Because the pedal is discontinued¹, the $320 list price from Vintage Guitar's 2004 review² and the £268.00 GBP figure on the maker's product page¹ are historical rather than current prices. For the original Ibanez version, TONEHOME reports production ran only from 1982 to 1984 but describes availability on the used market as very good⁴, and a service manual for the Ibanez FL9 is available for anyone maintaining one⁴.

Players who want a new analog flanger in a similar spirit can compare current models such as the Boss BF-3 Flanger, the MXR M117R Flanger, the Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Electric Mistress or Maxon's own VJR9 Vintage Jet Riser.

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