A sound bends. It collides with itself. Two identical signals, once perfectly aligned, are nudged just slightly apart. They chase each other like shadows in the light—sometimes overlapping, sometimes clashing, sometimes swirling together in harmony and chaos. The result is unmistakable: a sweeping whoosh, a jet plane tearing through your speakers, a texture that feels alive, the flanging effect.

This is flanging.

It didn’t begin as a plugin button or a pedal on your floor. It began as a studio trick, born in the analog age, when creativity wasn’t limited by gear but sparked by curiosity. Engineers, sitting at tape machines, discovered that dragging a finger gently along the rim of a reel—literally the flange—could shift time just enough to create something new. The first time it happened, it wasn’t just an accident. It was a revelation.

In this episode of Inside the Recording Studio, Chris and Jody trace the origin of flanging from those early experiments into its debut in pop music. You’ll hear how it jumped from curious novelty to iconic effect—The Beatles bending the studio into an instrument, psychedelic rockers pushing boundaries, guitarists and vocalists chasing that jet-stream shimmer. Flanging was more than an effect; it was a statement that sound itself could be sculpted, bent, and transformed.

But what exactly is it? At its core, flanging is the dance of delay: two copies of the same signal, one slightly behind the other, fed back into itself, creating comb filters that sweep across the spectrum. Peaks and notches move in waves, and suddenly the ordinary becomes extraordinary. The math is simple. The sound is anything but.

From tape decks to stompboxes, from rack units to digital plugins, flanging branched out like an evolutionary tree. Each version carried its own personality. Hardware units introduced grit, unpredictability, and the occasional “happy accident.” Modern plugins offer precision, recall, and the ability to sculpt movement in ways the pioneers could only dream of. Both paths still converge on the same swirling motion—a reminder that even in today’s world of unlimited software, the fingerprints of analog experimentation linger.

Chris and Jody don’t just talk history—they dip into the practical. Where does flanging shine in a mix? How do they wield it in their own productions? Sometimes it’s the subtle push that adds movement to a backing vocal or drum track. Sometimes it’s bold, front-and-center, a moment where the effect becomes part of the song’s identity. And sometimes, restraint is the key—because as hypnotic as flanging can be, too much of a good thing can turn into audio soup.

And then there’s its cousin, waiting at the edge of the pool: the phaser. Similar, yet different. Less jet engine, more cosmic tide. Both swirl, both shimmer, both remind us that sound is not only pitch and rhythm—it is movement. To listen to a flange or a phase sweep is to hear sound shifting in space, refusing to sit still.

At its heart, flanging is about play. It’s about curiosity turned into technique, about mistakes transformed into signatures. It’s proof that sometimes the most enduring tools in music aren’t born in labs or boardrooms, but in studios where someone dared to touch the edge of a reel and hear what might happen.

Chris and Jody invite you into that story, blending the history, the science, and the artistry of flanging. It is not only about how it works, but why it still captivates us. Flanging is the sound of time itself being bent—an echo of invention, still swirling today.

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Gear we used:
Jody’s Mic & Voice Chain: Telefunken C12 – Groove Tubes Vipre – Apollo – UA Neve 1073 – UA LA2A – UA Studer A800
Jody’s Channel Strip: iZotope RX Spectral DeNoise – iZotope RX Mouth DeClick – UA Neve 1073 – UA LA2A – UA 1176E

Chris’ Mic & Voice Chain: Slate ML1 – Apollo – UA – Slate VMR (FG12, FG73, API Eq, SSL 4kE) – iZotope RX Voice – DeNoise
Chris’ Channel Strip: Eventide Precision Time Align – iZotope RX Spectral DeNoise – iZotope RX Mouth DeClick – UA Neve 1073 – UA LA2A – UA 1176E

Master: Oek Sound Soothe 2 – iZotope Ozone Imager – iZotope Ozone Maximize.

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If you want to collaborate, sponsor a podcast, donate, or want us to review your product – contact us at: collaborate@insidetherecordingstudio.com