Chorus/Flange for fretless

[ATLbassist]

Have you ever checked out Eberhard Weber? He's a German jazz bassist that played a lot of electric upright - now sadly sidelined by a stroke. Anyway, his 70s sound had a bit of phaser. That could be an interesting alternative:



I picked up a Blood Moon pedal to get the sound, based largely on this demo (at a more extreme setting):

 

[Rumbledore]

vintage mxr micro chorus has a nice midrange bump an really thickens your tone. its a subtle chorus effect, but fat. they call it bucket-brigade because of the way the redicon microchip combs threw your signal! im excited for you chef!

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[LukeSlywalker]

Best sounding “cheap” bass chorus is this pedal from Hartke. It’s the cheapest pedal on my pedal board and I use it more than anything recently. I get so many people asking “what was that pedal you were using on fretless?”. This one

Hartke HC33 Analog Bass Chorus Pedal

If you are going for Jaco’s tone on Continuum, this will get you there

 

[Nev375]

where in MO re you?

Cape Girardeau

 

[Chef]

Thats far from here. I bought two motorcycles from Grassroots bmw, that's been some years ago now.

 

[arbiterusa]

It seems to me as those many fretless players use just a tad bit of chorus/flange (am I even using the right term?!?!) both for color, and, perhaps, to mask intonation being not dead-on perfect..

Unless you’re biamped, I wouldn’t use chorus at all as it really messes with the fundamental. I threw in the towel on bass effects over 30+ years ago, but still use quite a few in my guitar rig. So I did some testing.

1. Avoid Boss.
2. EHX Small Clone sounds freaking great.

That’s all I have, so all I could test. Good luck.

EDIT: if you’re having pitch issues don’t do this, it will make it impossible to tell if you’re in tune or not. I threw in the towel on effects because I play nothing but fretless and could not tell if I was playing in tune.

 

[drumvsbass]

Ehx Bass Chorus or Small Clone for the simplicity. TC Corona Chorus for more in depth.

 

[40Hz]

Delay is all the way somything different than reverb.

I’m well aware of that. But a lot of what many players are using reverb for can be better accomplished with a short delay.

 

[StereoPlayer]

And what do you use to get that?

I use a boss ce-2 chorus. A boss bf-2.
Roland GP-8 for the delay (rack mount), 8 effects.
Any delay works. It’s very subtle. Slap back. Just don’t over do it.

In the 70’s-80’s sometimes I used a reel to reel for the delay.

Life is good.

 

[onamission]

T Rex Sweeper Bass Chorus

 

[TheLowDown33]

Not really for OP, but for those looking at this later...If I were to go with a dedicated chorus, and I had a bit of cash, I would spring for the walrus audio Julia. That thing is the chorus of all choruses and sounds absolutely amazing. A very close second is the source audio Gemini, which has the benefit of having 3 different modulations loaded onto a single pedal. When I had mine, I had a chorus, phase and tremolo.

 

[Jared Lash]

It's not cheap, but the Iron Ether Polytope is my favorite chorus sound for fretless bass. I don't generally like chorus because of the wobbly sound (from the LFO) which is why I love the Polytope.

A great sounding, more traditional chorus is the Jam Waterfall.

If you want something cheap, the TC Electronics Corona Chorus (or Mini Chorus) is a great option that sounds good stock and has Toneprints for lots of other options.

 

[Loring]

ADA

 

[Bassman474]

Hands down the EHX electric mistress, chorus AND flanger with separate depth controls plus master rate. Simple, sounds great, and no low end loss. Can be had new around $120 used under $70

 

[bass.slinger]

I would recommend a chorus that only affects the higher frequencies. Both the MXR Bass Chorus and the new EHX Bass Clone have this option. This leaves the fundamental solid and still provides a bit of effect. I think these would be best for your application. Out of the other pedals listed in this thread I like the EBS Unichorus but they can have footswitches fail (out of the six EBS pedals I have owned, two footswitches failed).

Personally, I much prefer flanger over chorus because when I use an effect like this I am not looking for subtle. I use a Moog MF Flange in the highband loop of a Brimstone Audio Ouroboros crossover pedal. This allows me to keep the fundamental and still flange the snot out of the highs.

 

[fretlessguy]

Chef:
Like you I do not use effects, but this thread has made me want t to use my chorus pedal, a Boss CE 3. I have not used it in a while but remember it is simple and easy to use. I only like to use just enough to enhance the mwah and no more.
Wish you well on your search.

 

[AndyPanda]

@Chef
I didn't read all four pages --- so this has probably been explained already, but here is my way of looking at chorus:

You know how the pitch goes up if you speed up a record or a tape? And the pitch goes down when you slow down the record or tape? So what a chorus does is to sightly speed up and then slightly slow down the audio (it's a fast digital delay that has the amount of delay increasing/decreasing instead of holding steady) so the pitch goes slightly up and then slightly down.
And the LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) is what controls how frequently (the Frequency) of the up and down cycles (i.e. a fast vibrato or a slow vibrato). It also controls the shape of the up and down cycles (a sine wave is a smooth bending up and down) - and how far sharp and flat to change the pitch on each cycle (sometimes called depth or width).

If the chorus simply changed the pitch, then it would sound like vibrato but it also blends the pitch change with the original "in tune" audio (sometimes in stereo and if you have two amps that is a great sound).

For a very subtle chorus you choose a slight depth (just a little pitch change) and a slow frequency (so it slowly alternates between slightly sharp and slightly flat). And for a more exaggerated effect you increase the amount of pitch change and perhaps speed up the frequency.

 

[Thumpin6string]

I would have never considered using a flanger. I use a bit of chorus with a little reverb. It accentuates the MWAA. Mine is an old Arion bass chorus and a cheap Behringer reverb (Boss clone). They actually sound great with my fretless 5.

 

[Laurent]

If you have been living as long as you have and making beautiful music without effects, just keep on doing what you are doing and save yourself the grief.
Effects on bass are like falling into a rabbit hole. Just look at the recommendations, there's already 30 different options....

 

[LowActionHero]

View attachment 3084440

Sine wave bends smoothly with no corners, the others all have corners and big discontinuity jumps - what they cause in the sound is a pronounced pitch-warbly bendy garbling around the corners in the low frequency oscillator sweep. Sine wave LFO sweeps are smooth with no pitch garbling at the corners (since there are no corners). Some of the pricier ones have waveform options, but I'm thinking a cheap old used chorus might be just the thing - for example, the Boss CE-2B Bass Chorus can often be found cheap on ebay, I think that's got a sine wave LFO, I have one, I'll check.

Edit: I checked, it's a triangle, gets bendy unless rate is very slow. I know there are cheapish ones with the sine wave feature, just not coming up with one right now.

. you'd kinda have to hear them to hear the difference, but they are different. Sorry, I'm no help either.

I think you want a chorus. But flangers can be similar and I love my Arion, subtle to CRAZY. But then again, I use the chorus/flangers in my B3 lately, for space/weight reasons.