12 Legendary Chorus Pedals
Today’s goal is simple. In this article, I want to walk you through the most legendary chorus pedals that were ever made. Easy peasy.
Before we get started, let me lay a few ground rules.
I'm only going to talk about classic chorus pedals. I'm not going to talk about vibrato pedals. I'm not going to talk about Uni-Vibes. I'm not going to talk about amps with chorus or rack units. I only want to talk about classic pre-1990’s chorus pedals.
I'm going to leave something out. There are inevitably some pedals that you guys love that I'm not going to mention, but I've thought this through. I have a ton of chorus pedals and I've chosen everything you're about to see for a specific reason, and one of those reasons is pretty much any pedal on earth is a spinoff of what I’m about to show you.
A lot of these are very similar. The chorus pedal started in about 1975 with the development of the bucket brigade device and everything after that is some derivative of that same exact circuit.
I'm not going to do anything past 1990, because there’s really nothing legendary from the nineties, let's be honest about that. I mean, Bill Clinton, maybe Brittany Spears, but as far as chorus pedals go, all the truly legendary stuff had come out by the late 1980s.**
**I know I just offended you. I’m okay with that, as long as you also know that I'm just messing with you. That’s what friends do.
I’m going to do my best to describe the differences between these pedals, but the best way to really explore these different sounds is to actually get your hands on one, whether you borrow or buy it. If you can’t get hold of the original unit I’m describing, then get hold of a Line 6 modeling unit, or any really well-made clone that models the classic pedal. The main thing is: you gotta play it yourself to really understand. I don’t mean that in a snobby, elitist way. That’s just how pedals work.
At the end of the day, this is just a guide to show you the most legendary chorus pedals ever. So without further ado, let's jump on it.**
**Feel free to picture that last phrase shouted out by Will Smith while doing an iconic dance.
BOSS CE-1 Chorus En semble
The first legendary chorus pedal comes from June 1976 (that's right, I even know the month): the BOSS CE-1 Chorus Ensemble. The BOSS CE-1 is the first ever bucket brigade pedal, because the inventor of the bucket brigade chipset (BBD) licensed it to Roland, Roland put the circuit in this pedal, and the world was forever changed.
If you've owned a Roland Jazz Chorus Amp, it's the same exact circuit. This thing is unbeatable. It has an amazing vibrato setting. It's super simple. I first played one when I played Brit of Spoon’s pedal board. He uses it a ton, and you still see these pedals out on the road. They're made like a tank. Yeah, they’re a little big, but this is definitely a case of ‘you get what you pay for’. This thing will survive the zombie apocalypse. You have to connect it with the attached power cable, but it's worth every bit of the effort and trouble.
Basically, this sound is lush, it’s full, kind of like Fabio's hair. I can’t put it any better than that.
TC Electronic Stereo Chorus Plus
The second pedal is also from 1976 (what can I say? It was a good year for pedals), but it came from a little Danish company that was just getting started, TC Electronics. Their product was the TC Electronic Stereo Chorus Plus.
The unit I have in my collection is a reissue, not an original, but it sounds identical. I actually texted some of the TC crew and made sure of that. Long story short: this is a phenomenal unit. It also has that nifty power cable. I love the middle mode, which adds some pitch, and it also has a flange mode speed with an intensity and true stereo. I can confidently say that this is the most versatile chorus pedal I'll show you in this article. It does a lot of sounds and it’s just really well-made.
You can't get much more classic than TC Electronics, and it's cool that it was TC’s first pedal ever!
BOSS CE-2
1979 is not just a Smashing Pumpkins song. It’s also the year that we got the BOSS CE-2, AKA, maybe the greatest year in music history.
I don’t care who you are, what rock you’ve been living under, if you play the ukulele instead of electric guitar, you’ve definitely heard of this pedal. The BOSS CE-2 is the most widely-known, bestselling, all around greatest pedal of all time when it comes to chorus.
Is that a pretty big statement to make? Yes. Am I exaggerating? Not even a little.
This pedal has been copied. In fact, almost everything that I'm going to show you later on this article is some form of this, pretty much part for part. BOSS has made something like--let me crunch the numbers--yeah, about 20 gajillion of these. I’m fairly sure that in the latest Mars photos, you can see a CE-2 sitting on a stone in the distance. This is a dang popular pedal.
That said, there are some different versions. We’ve got the Japanese silver screw (the very first edition) and Japanese the black screw versions which sound identical, but if you're a nerd, you might want the silver screw. Or both? Trust me, I’m not going to judge. Then there's the new Waza Craft, which is dead on perfect and features a mode from the earlier CE-1 that we looked at. If you want some really nice, clean chorus tones with versatility, grab the Waza Craft.
Electro Harmonix Small Clone
The same year as the CE-2, 1979, another chorus pedal hit the scene: the Electro Harmonix Small Clone. This pedal was popular. It wasn't as big of a homerun as the BOSS CE-2, but you can chalk that up to Electro Harmonix being a smaller company, not any lack of fantasticosity** on Electro Harmonix’s part.
**I’m calling it. This is gonna be the new “lit”.
I know I said I wouldn't talk about the ’90s. I’m going to do it anyway. I know I also said that nothing legendary came out in the ’90s, and I think I can reasonably take that back. Even though this pedal came out in 1979, it became something spectacular to a lot of people, including myself, because of the 1990s and a man called Kurt Cobain. You've all heard this pedal on Nevermind, “Come As You Are”, and pretty much all the live Nirvana stuff.
Not a lot more that I can say about this pedal. It's one knob, one switch, and it does chorus in the way chorus should be done.
Ibanez CS9 Stereo Chorus
Next up is an offering from Ibanez released the same year as my birth, 1982: the Ibanez CS9 Stereo Chorus. This is pretty much a CE-2 with a faster rate and a little more depth, so it's more intense overall. Some people prefer this to the CE-2.
The CS9 was released alongside the TS9 Tube Screamer, which is the pedal that most people know. But the CS9 is a really classic pedal. This has a really cool shade of purple, so cool that I actually hunted this color down to use on the Emperor Chorus of mine. Purple is also just my favorite chorus color. If you’re doing a chorus pedal, it’s gotta be blue or purple.
Ibanez had two other pedals that came after this in ’85 and ’86 from the Power series and the 10 series, a Stereo Chorus and the Super Stereo Chorus, respectively. These are just modified versions of the CS9, which is a modified version of the CE-2. Kind of a Russian doll situation. You're going to start seeing a little bit more of this, where pedals keep coming, they keep being designed, and they're all based around an original CE-2.
Gaia Tone Chorus Pedal
Next up is from 1983. At this time, I was one year old and did not care about chorus pedals. I’m not ashamed to admit that. But this thing was awesome, and now I care about it, and I’m old enough to actually play a guitar, so I think we can chalk this up to a win-win.
This pedal is pretty rare. It's from a Japanese company called Guyatone and it is almost a part for part replica of the CE-1. It uses that old original chipset that the MN3OO2 did, and it’s really versatile. I think it has the best ratio of slow to fast, and it never gets unusably crazy. A lot of these choruses have functions you would never use, stuff that makes your guitar sound like a drunk sailor falling in the ocean. This doesn't do that. Every range of every knob is really useful and runs on 18 volts, which means it's better.**
**Scientifically proven fact.
Arion SCH-1
The year is 1985. Step aside, Donnie Wahlberg, because there's a new kid on the block. BOSS is reigning, Ibanez is huge, but they decide to drop their worldwide distribution network. This opened the door for a brand new company from Japan called Arion. Arion released their own chorus pedal, the SCH-1. It's made of plastic. It's fragile, but inside of its fragile nature is a magical circuit. This circuit sounds most like a Leslie Cabinet to me, which is why a lot of guys love it, blues guys particularly. You'll see this on a board and it really replicates a rotary well.
This is a pretty special pedal. It has direct and stereo outputs. Also, fun fact: I designed my Emperor chorus around this. So if you like this, my Emperor Chorus is an updated version which allows you to use an expression pedal to control the speed knob. Look up a demo and you’ll notice as I play, I'll turn this knob and it sounds like a rotating speaker slowing down. My Emperor also has a tap tempo, as well as some other cool functions.
TLDR, the SCH-1 is basically a CE-2 topology modified to be a lot more swingy like a Leslie circuit, with added tone control from a Big Muff fuzz.
BOSS Dimension C
Next up is another pedal from 1985: the BOSS Dimension C. This is a pedal version of Roland’s amazingly popular Dimension D chorus rack unit.
Basically what you’re looking at here is the sound of the Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel in a box. It’s definitely a user-friendly pedal. You don't even need knobs. This thing has four buttons. Just four buttons. My favorite sound is number four, and as a bonus it has that beautiful purple chorus color.
DOD FX65
In the same year (1985), DOD released the FX65. This may be my favorite chorus pedal in my entire collection, which is saying something.
You have to understand that DOD is an anomaly. They have roughly 400 different versions of every pedal, so dating a vintage unit can be a little challenging. They all look different. You can't figure out what year, when, why, how, at least not for sure. The pedal I’m referencing here is one that I still have in the box with a price tag for $65, which was a decent chunk of change in 1985.
The FX65 has speed, delay, time, and depth. It was marketed as the professional model of the stereo chorus FX60. Basically, if you had the FX60 and you were like, “This is good, but I want to go pro,” then the guy at your local music store would say, “Sell the FX60 and get the FX65. That's the sound of the pro.” And the rest of history.
Ibanez Digital Stereo Chorus DCL
So far, all of these pedals have been analogs, but I need to show you some digital and to do that I'm going to have to stay in 1985. Just one for one more pedal. Scout’s honor.
I’m talking about the Ibanez Digital Stereo Chorus DCL, and it's pretty important. You all know that digital is a much more crisp and clean chorus sound. You may not know that in a lot of ways digital is more subtle, since a lot of people think of digital sound as drastic.
The next year we see the 10 series come out. The Power series in ’85 and the 10 series in ’86 shared the same exact circuit, they just replaced the delay time knob with a switch. The 10 series definitely looks better, but personally I don't like the 10 series as much because of the tweakability of the potentiometer. The knob is much more important in the Power series model.
In 1986, we had the Ibanez Twin Cam Chorus, which was also from the 10 series. The Twin Cam Chorus was released in 1986, and it is an identical circuit to the 1985 Bi-Mode Chorus from the Power series. This happens a lot in the 10 power series: they would just drop the same circuit in, knob labels, everything, and call it a different pedal.
The ‘twin’ part comes into play because essentially this is two of the classic CS9's (which, if you remember, is a variant of the CE-2) in one unit. You can run them at the same time, one fast, one slow, both fast, different depths, whatever you want. It's really cool, really powerful, and it packs a punch worthy of Mike Tyson.
WH-1 Digitech Whammy
Let me blow your mind here: the twelfth pedal in my legendary chorus pedals article is not a chorus pedal. Basically, it’s a bonus pedal. I’m talking about the original WH1 Digitech Whammy from 1989.
Why would I include it? The Whammy may technically be a pitch shifter, but it does have a chorus sound and it does it very well. Let me blow your mind again: you’ve heard this pedal on a lot of records and you've thought it's chorus, but actually it's the WH-1 Digitech Whammy. This unit has a mode called D2 Shallow and Deep, where the controller basically speeds it up and messes with the depth a little bit. It's magical. It's special. I love it. A lot of musicians did and do.
I've used this on my board for a long time. I take it off, and it comes back. The version two and all other versions of a Whammy usually have the added detuned setting, even some of the newer units that don't have the treadle, so you should check it out. You should try to use a Whammy as modulation because, at the heart of it, modulation chorus is simply pitch being changed and added to your clean signal. The Whammy does it really well and it's pretty unique.
It's worth mentioning, and you should definitely try it. Don't take my word for it. Unless you want to.
Hopefully, this article steered you to try some new, awesome, rockin’ chorus pedals. Like I said in the intro, I know I wasn’t able to cover every chorus pedal on the market, but I think this covered the bases (and, now you know that if you’re familiar with the CS9 and the CE-2, you have a pretty solid bead for all chorus pedals).
Until next time, keep it classy, dudes.