Ibanez · FL9 · c.1982–1985

Ibanez FL9 Flanger

The FL9 is the flanger from Ibanez's 9 series, built in Japan by Nisshin Onpa alongside the TS9, the AD9 and the CS9 chorus. Nisshin sold the same designs at home under its Maxon name, which is how Maxon came to bring the FL-9 back under its own badge years later. It has four knobs, Speed, Width, Delay Time and Regeneration. Regeneration feeds some of the flanged signal back in, and Maxon credits that control for the flanger's howl as it sweeps. Maxon's reissue used a Panasonic MN3207 bucket-brigade chip with a compander for low noise and a true bypass switch, and that version is discontinued now too. The 9 series ran from about 1982 to 1985, so an original FL9 is a 40-year-old analog pedal with old pots and parts that may have dried out. That's fine if it works and sounds right. Buy an original for the 9-series box and the history. If you want the same four controls with true bypass, hunt for the Maxon version.