VSN Guitar Flanger Pedal - Classic Metallic Flanger Sounds, 2 Modes, Retro Effect

I bought this pedal primarily because of the great price (less than $30 on sale), and secondarily because it's a mini and will fit well into an "all small" board I'm building. Turns out it's a great blues driver clone with a popular Keeley mod. I used it with a Telecaster into a small solid state amp with both clean and overdrive, a Marshall MG30DFX. The value of the pedal alone makes it worth 5 stars.After I set the pedal volume and tone to where they sounded best, I adjusted the gain through different settings. On the clean channel, from lowest gain to about noon, the pedal is a nice clean boost that could be used always on to warm up your sound a bit. From noon to about three, it starts sounding more like a tube amp getting pushed into that nice blues/classic rock tone. From three to five (maximum) it sounds like a low order distortion pedal where it might be good for the song, or a bit too much depending on your preference. So, it's got a nice range of tones possible with just the single center knob.On my amp's built in overdrive channel, the gain knob from low to about three o'clock when engaged actually took away some of the overdrive distortion and lowered the output volume, despite having made no changes to the pedal volume. It effectively cleaned the sound a bit. From three to five, basically the top 20% or so of the gain range, it added a little bit of overdrive which pushed the amp into an ugly solid state distortion tone that would likely sound good only with old hard core punk. I think this result is due to the amp's inherent distortion on overdrive having a greater impact on the tone. Due to this result, I'm going to limit the pedal to clean amps when I experiment further.I looked through some of the other reviews here while I was trying to figure out the fat/normal toggle. Playing chords while on the clean channel while going through the various gain settings, I was hearing subtle changes at best on the tone. I was originally going to give the pedal only 4 stars because I thought this feature was broken. One of the reviews mentioned the possibility of a broken toggle switch that was not affecting tone at all. I too thought that might be the case because no matter whether I flipped from normal to fat, or fat to normal while on the very same chord strum, I just wasn't hearing much difference. That all changed when I hit a single low D. Flipping from normal to fat compresses the sound a bit but emphasizes the low note. Flipping from fat to normal pulls the compression and puts the highs back in. It seemed like the normal mode sounded better with single low notes. Playing DG on string 3 & 4, the fat mode sounds better since it seems to emphasize the mids through the compression. So, looks like all the features are working well.I have high hopes for this pedal with my Fender tube amps, primarily the Delta Blues, and the Blues Jr. I suspect it will play very well with them. I'm looking forward to further exploring. I have no problem highly recommending this pedal to anyone. I'm going to look into other stuff from this manufacturer because it is a fantastic value.

Fit nice and snug in a tight spot, but is very visible. I saw someone say the red light is bright when you are tuning, but, after all once you hit bypass, to the guitar sound again, it all goes away. Not an issue on this review.

Liked it has a volume knob.

It works

fairly robust, but has a somewhat major flaw. when the linear potentiometers are pushed to the absolute top, the band jumps to very loud and completely distorts, and when pushed to the absolute bottom, the band cuts to nearly zero. the distortion issue is also in the volume control, but that's no real issue

With humbuckers this cleans up nicely like a blues driver when you roll back your guitar's volume knob. The ac-30 like jangles are there. You do get a hint of a decent Blues-Breaker circuit, although closer to an uncompressed TS9... (I can hear other reviewers laughing at that comment considering the circuit).... When the gain is cranked it's fuzzy like a blues driver BD2, but not fizzy, nor as high gain. Benefit to this budget pedal is the reduced noise-floor. This pedal at low volume into a compression pedal is really nice.With single coils it's gain is actually crunchy. Almost as if it is a different pedal. The fat switch is more discernable with single coils, as opposed to humbuckers.Others say this is closer to a poor-man's Super-Phat-Mod by Keeley... I say, it's inexpensive, and it is great for stacking into other saturated drives & gain stages. In fact, it does this amazingly well considering the price point.Truth is, I bought this looking for a BD2 clone in a smaller size for an already packed board. However gently different than a BD2, on its own, it really is a nice sounding pedal.... I may actually buy another as a back up.Lastly, ... Some of these budget pedals are beginning to knock my boutique pedals off my boards... This pedal is looking to do just that. Crazy considering the price....CONS: Just wish their graphic designers would center their text & graphics, & stop trying to use corny pictures to market a really nice sounding circuit.UPDATE:I now own 3 of the these. They are great punch circuits. Especially into a Walrus 385, and into DOD Looking Glass pedals. Or hitting an MK2 Tone Bender clone.... anyway... From what I can gather all three that I own are all a bit different (probably just slight potentiometer variances - one if them has more gain, and one of the three is brighter), but from what I can gather it's essentially closer to a Blues Breaker than a modded BD2. (NOTE: However the Donner Blues Drive is essentially a modded BD2 with a flick switch that turns the pedal in a SD1.)Other reviewers state this pedal is the same circuit topology as the Moore Blues Crab, which is a confirmed Blues Breaker. I don't own the Moore pedal to confirm it sound wise. But I like enough to own 3 of them.

Old flanger pedal died after like 20 years of use. Learned my lesson from buying such a low priced one as this one was like a fourth the price of my old one. I’ve never had any issues with pedals because they’re usual pretty durable so I opened the package and tossed the box. A few days later I finally had time to test it out. Plugged it in and all I got was an extremely loud siren effect. It was daisy chained to a bunch of other pedals so I tried it stand alone as well and same problem. DOA

Works great, good price