The BOSS BF-1 Flanger is an analog flanger from 1977, and it holds a specific place in pedal history: it was one of the very first pedals that Roland produced under the BOSS brand name1. BOSS describes it as a "big box" pedal, the larger enclosure format the company used before moving to the compact standard pedals most players know today2.
What it does
The BF-1 is a flanger, an effect that sweeps a delayed copy of the signal back against the original to produce the familiar jet-plane sweep and hollow, through-zero-style movement. Internally, Aion FX reports that the BF-1 used the SAD1024 with a CMOS clock, similar to the Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress1. That places it in the analog bucket-brigade family of flangers, alongside circuits like the Deluxe Electric Mistress, rather than among later digital designs such as the BOSS BF-3 Flanger.
BOSS itself frames the BF-1 as the starting point of its flanger line: the company describes later flanger models as "superseding the 'big box' BF-1 Flanger that debuted in 1977"2. For a player tracing the lineage, the BF-1 is the pedal the modern BOSS flangers descend from.
Where it came from
The BF-1 dates from the first years of the BOSS brand. Aion FX calls it "one of the very first pedals that Roland produced under the BOSS brand name," dating it to 19771. It is also one of the older BOSS pedals from the 1970s generally3.
The pedal still turns up with working players. Producer and engineer Mike Crawford, speaking with BOSS, said: "I also own a BF-1 Flanger, one of the older BOSS pedals from the 1970s."3
The BF-1 is a 1970s vintage pedal, long out of the current catalog. Players looking at modern BOSS flangers will find the line continued in the BOSS BF-3 Flanger, and the wider field of current options is covered on the Flanger Pedals page.
Videos
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Bob McMillan
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Questions
When did the BOSS BF-1 Flanger come out?
The BF-1 debuted in 1977 as a big box pedal, in the earliest days of the BOSS brand. Aion FX describes it as one of the very first pedals that Roland produced under the BOSS brand name, and BOSS itself refers to it as the big box BF-1 Flanger that was later superseded by newer models.
What chip is inside the BOSS BF-1 Flanger?
According to Aion FX, the BF-1 used the SAD1024 bucket-brigade device with a CMOS clock, an arrangement similar to the Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress. That makes it an analog flanger in the same family of circuits as the Electric Mistress rather than a digital design.
Sources (3)
- Aerolith Analog Flanger / BOSS BF-2, Aion FX, 2026-07-03
- The PX-1 Plugout FX: Timeless BOSS Pedals Reborn, BOSS (articles.boss.info), 2025-06-06
- Behind the Board: Mike Crawford with Portishead, Massive Attack, and Goldfrapp, BOSS (articles.boss.info), 2024-08-08
