After having acquired more flangers than should be allowed by law, we sealed ourselves away in the laboratory to study the nuts and bolts of the effect. What emerged was the STS-88, a love letter to the flanger. Our development sector contains units of all types, from the ubiquitous Boss HF-2 and EHX Electric Mistress to more exotic pieces like the Effectron ADM256 and MXR Flanger/Doubler. In one late night frenzy of pedal swapping, we discovered that enveloping a flanger in a cavernous reverb really did the trick. Finding that this pristine combination suffered at the hands of extraneous noise, we embedded a very gentle noise gate to stifle inherent guitar hiss and LFO clock noise. The result is an extremely musical flanger that sounds like an extension of your own instrument, but it can also fuel up and take off when a little dirt of any kind is applied beforehand.

CONTROLS

DEPTH: Controls the amplitude of the LFO. Turn knob clockwise for a more intense flange sound, and counter-clockwise for less.

MIX: Controls the wet/dry mix. Turn knob clockwise to hear more effect and counter-clockwise to hear less. 

RATE: Controls the rate of the LFO from 0.077Hz to about 6Hz. Turn knob clockwise for a faster LFO and counter- clockwise for slower. It’s essentially the pulse of your flange.

REVERB: Controls the length of the reverb trails. Turn knob clockwise for a longer lasting reverb, and counter-clockwise for shorter.

INTERNAL CONTROLS

If you unscrew the four screws on the back of the STS-88 and remove the backplate, you will find an adjustable gain trimmer and a buffer switch.

ADJUSTABLE GAIN TRIMMER: Adds more overall gain to your signal.

BUFFER SWITCH: Selects true or buffered bypass. Buffered bypass drives long cable lengths. Turn the buffer on if you're running to or from your FX loop, if all of your pedals are true bypass, or if the STS-88 is your only pedal. The STS-88 ships with the buffer switched.

STARTER SETTINGS

POWER SUPPLY

The STS-88 runs from 9 to 18 volts using a standard DC center- negative power supply for pedals. Make sure you’re using a supply that provides at least 100mA. Running the STS-88 at 9V will sound great, but if you want a bit more output, a dry signal boost and increased headroom, try any voltage you like up to 18V! The STS-88 does not run on batteries.

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