# What’s a good chorus pedal



## silvertonebetty (Jan 4, 2015)

What is a good chorus pedal that doesn’t go click ,click, pop like some other pedals.
I’m quite interested in the walrus Julia and earthquaker devices sea machine.
I know I had a boss c5 I think and it was surprisingly good you know for a boss. I’m not a huge boss fan and I’d love to try something new. So any suggestions would be nice


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## Bigsby1967 (Feb 27, 2016)

I have an old (vintage?) Danelectro Cool Cat that is nice. It runs on 18v and has a stereo out which is great if you’re running two amps. I picked up an EHX Small Clone recently which I haven’t played much. It’s best known as the Kurt Cobain “Come as You Are” chorus. Both can be found for around $80 or so used.


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## BlueRocker (Jan 5, 2020)

+1 on the Cool Cat. You can normally find them (if you can find one) under $100. 18 volt is a PITA.


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

Ehx small clone


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

I love my Boss CE-2w. No pop from this pedal.


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## BGood (Feb 20, 2015)

Had this one forever. I bought it when I played bass ... 40+ years ago. Still in love.


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## silvertonebetty (Jan 4, 2015)

guitarman2 said:


> I love my Boss CE-2w. No pop from this pedal.


I think I might suck it up and get the boss pedal that’s here for $80


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## JBFairthorne (Oct 11, 2014)

I love my Corona Chorus (and my Vortex Flanger) from TC. The tone print option makes it super versatile. If you can’t find a sound you like in their library then you’re just not trying.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

They're all pretty much the same, simply because, much like 3-tube low-wattage amps, there is a required circuit structure for anything using bucket-brigade chips. They tend to vary in their delay range by a few milliseconds in this or that direction, though it's surprising just how much shifting the delay range up or down a few milliseconds can change the perceived "character" of the chorus. If a given pedal allows one to either nudge the delay range this way or that, that's a good feature. Being able to mix the wet signal to get stronger and weaker chorus sounds is a good feature, especially if the Mix control lets you completely remove the dry signal to get vibrato.

"Stereo" is generally pretty useless, so don't be persuaded by it. In less expensive pedals, its only real virtue is that it lets you access the wet-only signal for vibrato.


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## Doug B (Jun 19, 2017)

silvertonebetty said:


> I’m quite interested in the walrus Julia and earthquaker devices sea machine.


You might want to check out the *Walrus Audio Julianna Deluxe Chorus Vibrato Pedal*


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## Granny Gremlin (Jun 3, 2016)

guitarman2 said:


> I love my Boss CE-2w. No pop from this pedal.



Second (or the CE-2B which adds a wet/dry mix control but vintage only so rare and prob expensive).

See also the DC-2W - even cooler - no knobs just 4 buttons for presets (can use combinations so it's more than 4 settings - the original vintage DC-2 won't do that, also the Waza reissue is stereo in/out vs the original mono if that's useful to you). Super lush, which is my jam

The Dano Cool Cat is alright too.

Not a huge fan of the EH Small Clone; not enough control of the depth of the effect for my tastes (which include bass as well as guitar and vocal use).


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## BlueRocker (Jan 5, 2020)

JBFairthorne said:


> I love my Corona Chorus (and my Vortex Flanger) from TC. The tone print option makes it super versatile. If you can’t find a sound you like in their library then you’re just not trying.


+1 - they're both great.


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## jfk911 (May 23, 2008)

I have a Julia and love it, I traded for it with a member here and don't see it coming off anytime soon. The cool thing with the Julia is the lag knob which can get some pretty gnarly sounds, also the blend knob which blends your dry and wet for subtle chorus or obnoxious 80s chorus.


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## silvertonebetty (Jan 4, 2015)

Ya


Granny Gremlin said:


> Second (or the CE-2B which adds a wet/dry mix control but vintage only so rare and prob expensive).
> 
> See also the DC-2W - even cooler - no knobs just 4 buttons for presets (can use combinations so it's more than 4 settings - the original vintage DC-2 won't do that, also the Waza reissue is stereo in/out vs the original mono if that's useful to you). Super lush, which is my jam
> 
> ...


 yeah I like the idea of 3-4 nibs to fine tune things.


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## Grainslayer (Sep 26, 2016)

Ive always prefered the Boss CE-3 over the CE-2.


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## jimmythegeek (Apr 17, 2012)

BlueRocker said:


> +1 on the Cool Cat. You can normally find them (if you can find one) under $100. 18 volt is a PITA.


Another +1 from me. Best chorus I’ve ever played. Super subtle to cheesy 80s shimmer.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

I've tried a lot of different choruses.
At one point I was getting that from my map--a Rolan JC60 with Chorus built in--just like their old large chorus pedal. (Later downsized into a Boss pedal & then various types coming from that)

But these days I have two chorus pedals if I am not playing the JC 60

A Danelectro Fab Chorus (Different than the Cool Cat) It does suite real well--and beyond that--it's a straight forward simple chorus--and it works great on my bass.
I also have the TC Electronics Corona Chorus--the Tone print option is cool--allowing you to have some different chorus options available.
It does way beyond subtle--as well as subtle--I use that one for guitar.

But others suggested are good choices as well.

Try as many as you can.


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## BlueRocker (Jan 5, 2020)

I put this on the board for a while to stop my tweaking. It's nice.


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## ga20t (Jul 22, 2010)

PastFX Chorus Ensemble is the best I've heard or owned. It's basically a miniaturized CE-1 (preamp included), though I'd recommend the true bypass mod to get around the preamp when you don't want or need it. No way in hockey sticks I'd go with a non stereo option... not with the sounds this unit is capable of.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

BlueRocker said:


> I put this on the board for a while to stop my tweaking. It's nice.
> 
> View attachment 383663


Sometimes simpler is better.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

BlueRocker said:


> I put this on the board for a while to stop my tweaking. It's nice.
> 
> View attachment 383663


The motivation is sensible, and quite honestly, MANY players would like modulation effects to be simpler and more foolproof to use. So this fits the bill. Having said that, MXR went with compromises when designing this, its various phasers, and some of its flangers. You can't adjust sweep width, so they went with a fixed width that was acceptable for slowest sweep rates AND fastest, though not optimized for either. I have a couple of their 2-knob flangers, which provide Rate and Feedback controls, but no sweep width. They sound great, for what they do, byou can't make slow sweeps wide enough, and you can't trim back the sweep width at faster rates for a pleasingly gurgly tone.

I'd love to see a designer "round-table" in one of the magazines about how they balance usability and convenience against tonal variety and character, but I doubt I'll ever see that.


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## BlueRocker (Jan 5, 2020)

Obvious compromise with one knob. But it works good if you want a "generic chorus" sound.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Well that's just it. There are times when a bowl of tomato soup, and a grilled cheese sandwich, made with processed-cheese slices and white bread, are EXACTLY what you want and need. Not a diss of any sort. Just a recognition of when enough *IS* enough. If a Telecaster - the near sparsest and bare-bones of guitars - can be "enough", so can a one-knob stompbox.

Going the complete other way, I have several "full-featured" flangers, and let me tell you, it is harder to dial in a sound you like than it is to dial in something awful. When the usefulness and musicality of a setting on control X depends too much on the setting of control Y, or worse, the setting of control Y *and* control Z, things start to become frustrating. What players want is to be able to get to what they want, quickly and easily. You don't want a teenager that has to be pestered for every little thing. You want one that cleans up after themselves, takes out the garbage without needing to be asked, never drinks straight from the milk container, and never puts empty containers back in the fridge.


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## markxander (Oct 24, 2009)

jfk911 said:


> I have a Julia and love it, I traded for it with a member here and don't see it coming off anytime soon. The cool thing with the Julia is the lag knob which can get some pretty gnarly sounds, also the blend knob which blends your dry and wet for subtle chorus or obnoxious 80s chorus.


I'm pretty sure I'm the member you got it from. I bought another and it's back on my board 😎

In my experience most chorus pedals sound pretty close and I like basically all of them. The Julia has a soft switch and a knob that blends from full dry through chorus through full wet (vibrato). It's also in a small box with top jacks. I had and loved the CE-2W for a long time but the features of the Julia make it my favourite for sure.


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## jfk911 (May 23, 2008)

markxander said:


> I'm pretty sure I'm the member you got it from. I bought another and it's back on my board 😎


yes you are! On a side note how is the Blackstone treating you?


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## MarkM (May 23, 2019)

knight_yyz said:


> Ehx small clone


I have a Nano Clone and me no like, noisy a hell.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

MarkM said:


> I have a Nano Clone and me no like, noisy a hell.


What kinda noise? Hissy or ticky?


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## MarkM (May 23, 2019)

@mhammer its hissy.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Higher-end devices that use a bucket brigade chip will often include a "balance" trimmer on the two complementary outputs of the delay chip. Think of it like having two absolutely identical coils on a humbucker. If they have identical sensitivity then whatever noise they each sense/produce gets cancelled. In an effort to reduce parts and labour costs, many manufacturers will simply use two equal-value resistors, and leave it at that, rather than use a trimmer (and pay someone to twiddle it) to more precisely set the relative output of each complementary output of the chip and achieve maximum noise rejection. Those two "equal" resistors have often been 5% tolerance parts, which come _close_ but not perfectly. Ideally, one can transplant a trimmer to replace the pair of equal-value resistors, but that presumes a thru-hole circuit and board, and I gather the Nano Clone is mostly surface-mount.

Having said that, not ALL the noise produced by a bucket-brigade circuit is insufficiently-cancelled clock noise. There can be poor choices of chips in the audio path, and insufficient lowpass filtering. It is also worth noting that the clock frequencies used for chorus are generally lower than those used for flanging but MUCH higher than those used for analog delay. So the noise you find annoying may have little to do with clock "leakage".


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## fendervox (Jan 31, 2017)

If pedal board space, and price aren’t a huge issue, the Diamond Halo Chorus is beautiful and inspiring. They add a phase mix which really adds to the character of the chorus. Can be run in stereo too! If you check out their manual, there is a lot of tweaking that can be done on the inside from kill dry, sine/triangle wave shape, and predelay time on the chorus. I spent about an hour trying out different configurations and found my favourite chorus sound ever after tweaking. Despite its size and price, it really is a hidden gem of chorus pedals!


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## BMW-KTM (Apr 7, 2015)

BOSS Digital Dimension


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## loudtubeamps (Feb 2, 2012)

I have been using the DOD FX 65 stereo chorus for along time...very quiet at any setting.
I must admit that I only use a chorus when running in stereo to fatten and spread the sound.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I finally got a delay pedal I had made working yesterday (too busy looking at the copper side of the board to notice a fractured resistor lead). Not my design, and based on the PT2399 chip used by the vast majority of <$100 delays. It includes the option for modulating delay time. If you set the delay time short, and set the modulation rate and amount just right, It makes a pretty nice chorus. I imagine it's not the only pedal of this type that can do that.

Bottom line: chorus pedals can provide pleasing chorusing but they're not the only category of pedal that can do that, so consider expanding your horizons.


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