Chorus pedal that doesn't squash the tone or cut frequencies.

I think I understand OC's issue a little better, and i use a crossover on my pedalboard because I think I have the same issue. All my effects are "guitar pedals", the all go through the high end chain, and the get summed with the lowest at the end. It's not a popular solution, and it's completely unnecessary for most players, but I want to hear the "rubbery" quality of the low end all the time, regardless of what effect is on top.
 
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In theory it makes sense to crossover the signal and apply the chorus on high frequencies only. But you won't hear the effect if your tone does not have enough high end content and/or when you're using flats. If you do, then you decide if you like what chorus does to your high end.

I had better experiences hearing the effect when you blend the dry signal instead. For instance, the Choralflange and the MXR Stereo Chorus are much more effective with bass IME but then you mess up the low frequency content.
 
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I also have the MXR M83 Bass Chorus Deluxe. Love the bass and treble boost so the sound isn’t thin. I also like the flanger/phaser effect. I only use a slight level of these effects so the bass and treble controls are a big plus for me. Besides my Sadowsky preamp pedal (for my passive P sometimes) and a tuner, this is the only effect pedal I own. And I like the blue color too. 🤣🤣
 
In theory it makes sense to crossover the signal and apply the chorus on high frequencies only. But you won't hear the effect if your tone does not have enough high end content and/or when you're using flats. If you do, then you decide if you like what chorus does to your high end.

I had better experiences hearing the effect when you blend the dry signal instead. For instance, the Choralflange and the MXR Stereo Chorus are much more effective with bass IME but then you mess up the low frequency content.
Flats are weird with a crossover, but it's not because you don't get the effect. What happens is that you get a lot of the effect in a very narrow band of mid frequencies. Some effects sound fine like that, with some tweaking, some effects become unusable. I'm about to try switching my main bass to flats, so I am hoping it doesn't mess everything up.
 
I use a Source Audio Lunar, it's got some sweet features that are really helpful for bassists.
What I find missing on most analogue Chorus / modulation pedals is the lack of a bass friendly wet / dry mixer or a comprehensive EQ to dial back your original bass tone. Most modulation pedals are designed for guitar and have a pretty hefty bass cut. Bass doesn't output a lot of top end (which is what triggers the chrous effect), so we tend to need really heavy / full on wet sounds to barely hear any chorus effect in our tone. The sort of chorus levels that would make a guitarist shudder.
Most mixers are a 50:50 wet dry control, which is fine for guitarists who neeed that level of subtelty and won't miss the inherant bass cut that this type of mixer will bring. For us a bassists, the more we blend in the wet, the more chorus but loss of bass...blend in the dry and you loose a massive amount of chorus but gain a bit of bass....it's not helpful. A low retain blend is far more helpful, ie one that blend the mids to upper frequencies but leaves your bettom end alone.
Unfortunatly, this isn't very common on analogue Chorus pedals and is often missing on some large multi-modulation panels too.
Fresh bass strings help create the necessary zing to push the treble frequencies that are needed in a chorus effect. Good luck with flats....

The SA lunar has a really comprehensive 4 band EQ under the hood. I like to dial in extra bass than rely on the messy blend controls. I also like to assign a treble control to around the 4K region. This is really nice for boosting the necessary frequencies for the Chorus effect to be heard in a mix. The Lunar is easy to power, gives me 6 patches (that can be any type of modulation) and it's in a small box that's about the same size as an analogue chorus but with a ton of digital functionality. It also sound fantastic and doesn't sound digital at all...in fact more people thing it sounds very analogue and vintage.

As I said before, don't be timid here...maxxed out chorus effect is usually "is that all...I could do woth a bit more?" on bass.
Generally a tri or quad chorus is needed to really make the right sounds on roundwound bass strings that are a few years old.

I have Lunar patches available on the Source Audio Neuro cloud, look them up under "Gazzajagman".
Thank you so much.

You said it better than I ever could. Will look into those.
 
I also have the MXR M83 Bass Chorus Deluxe. Love the bass and treble boost so the sound isn’t thin. I also like the flanger/phaser effect. I only use a slight level of these effects so the bass and treble controls are a big plus for me. Besides my Sadowsky preamp pedal (for my passive P sometimes) and a tuner, this is the only effect pedal I own. And I like the blue color too. 🤣🤣
Thank you for the input. Makes a lot of sense. 🙂👍
 
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I love the idea of chorus on bass at times and have heard some good recorded examples. Live in person I have heard others use it and sound good but I never liked it for myself because of the reasons posed in your posts title….too effected, too much change.

I just picked up a TC electronics Viscous Vibe (which has a chorus option and uses chorus modulation as part of its structure). After playing with the settings in the app and on the pedal itself, I found a combination that I like that has an effect still sounds like my bass.

So you may want to consider TC as an option because of the tweakability.

I havent tried it yet with the band so the real test will come next week.
Thank you for the recommendation. 🙂👍
 
I really loved the EHX Bass Clone. Works fantastically with no low end loss thanks to the crossover. I'm not usually into cheap (or cost-effective, shall we say?) pedals, but this one is a winner. I've also heard great things about the Anadime Bass Chorus, but it's spendy. The crossover is key in bass chorus, in my opinion, so the low frequencies stay in tact. Otherwise the whole thing sounds too mushy.
Thank you. The EHX is on the short list.
 
Best I have heard is the Walrus Audio Julia. I know it's got heaps of fans here too.
I just got one and I think it meets OP’s requirements. But for me the effect might be too subtle. It seems none of my band mates can tell when it is engaged!! Even in a direct demo, where no one else is playing, I say, “Hey check this out!” Turn on the chorus. They’re all like what? Did you turn something on? Is it an EQ?

I am gravitating towards the gnarliest chorus sounds from the 80’s now.
 
I just got one and I think it meets OP’s requirements. But for me the effect might be too subtle. It seems none of my band mates can tell when it is engaged!! Even in a direct demo, where no one else is playing, I say, “Hey check this out!” Turn on the chorus. They’re all like what? Did you turn something on? Is it an EQ?

I am gravitating towards the gnarliest chorus sounds from the 80’s now.
I guess I fall in this camp too.

I want the whole world to know I turned a pedal on.

Thx for the reply.
 
I have an EHX Bass Clone and it does indeed give you that "hard" 80s chorus sound—think Peter Hook from Joy Division/New Order. It's also budget-friendly. The down side is that it's pretty noisy. It's not subtle at all, but sometimes that's what you want.

If you do want something more subtle, I also have a Julia and will just pile on with the other commenters that's it's a really good, bass-friendly chorus pedal that will do subtle but can also be dialed in to be not so subtle. It's a lot less noisy than the EHX but it doesn't get as gnarly, even when turned up to be less subtle.

They're both good pedals but they're quite different—depends on how "in your face" you want the effect to be.
 
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I have an EHX Bass Clone and it does indeed give you that "hard" 80s chorus sound—think Peter Hook from Joy Division/New Order. It's also budget-friendly. The down side is that it's pretty noisy. It's not subtle at all, but sometimes that's what you want.

If you do want something more subtle, I also have a Julia and will just pile on with the other commenters that's it's a really good, bass-friendly chorus pedal that will do subtle but can also be dialed in to be not so subtle. It's a lot less noisy than the EHX but it doesn't get as gnarly, even when turned up to be less subtle.

They're both good pedals but they're quite different—depends on how "in your face" you want the effect to be.
I have all of the controls except for rate and blend (d-c-v in Walrus-speak) up pretty far - around 2 to 3 o’clock and it still seems pretty tame. What settings do you use on the Julia for extreme chorus?

The funny thing is as I have been using it, it sounds fairly different to me, but other people don’t seem to hear it.
 
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I have an EHX Bass Clone and it does indeed give you that "hard" 80s chorus sound—think Peter Hook from Joy Division/New Order. It's also budget-friendly. The down side is that it's pretty noisy. It's not subtle at all, but sometimes that's what you want.

If you do want something more subtle, I also have a Julia and will just pile on with the other commenters that's it's a really good, bass-friendly chorus pedal that will do subtle but can also be dialed in to be not so subtle. It's a lot less noisy than the EHX but it doesn't get as gnarly, even when turned up to be less subtle.

They're both good pedals but they're quite different—depends on how "in your face" you want the effect to be.
Thank you for the reply. Wonderful real world input. :)
 
I never had a good experience with chorus and gave up using it on bass unless I'm playing solo and even that I prefer other effects.

That being said from my experience the best sounding chorus was the Fulltone Choralflange, MXR stereo chorus, and the TC elec. Chorus/flange.

Many bass chorus pedals including the MXR Bass chorus deluxe didn't do well for me. It's either not enough effect, or things get too muddy. This is because of the nature of the chorus effect and IMHO, it is not the best effect to use for the bass especially if the bass is supposed to provide the fundamental low end of a piece. A chorus effect modulates the pitch a bit and the last thing you want as a bass player is sounding out of pitch and muddy. That being said many great bassist including some of my favorites use it successfully. I decided it's not for me.
I hear ya. Im a less is more guy. Doing a gig withe ex-singers from Kansas, Journey, Boston, Chicago and Foghat. Need chorus for Dont Stop Believing. Tried to skate my way through without it and the artist noticed. He gave ma an old 90's Boss pedal that looked like it had been in a barn for 100yrs. It sounds awful. There's got to be a better choice. :)
 
A high pass in a chorus usually isn't about retaining low end. Its about keeping the fundamental from being modulated so you don't make the entire band sound out of tune when you turn on the chorus. If you just modulate frequencies above a certain point you can have some movement in the upper mids and treble without shifting the actual note heard in the mix. In most designs the dry signal passes through to the output exactly as it came in.
^ This makes a lot of sense.
 
Another vote for the EHX Bass Clone - what a fantastic value for the money, it's quiet, has great crossover and sounds killer.

I have tried about a million chorus pedals, primarily chasing the tone of my beloved 1979 Clone Theory, and the pedals that you should consider trying out OP:

Tech21 Bass Boost Chorus
Source Audio Lunar (if you are savvy with the app/computer app)
JAM Waterfall (though I never was able to try the bass version)
MXR M83

I really liked the Moog MF Chorus when that was a thing too but it also is suuuper control sensitive and can make some wild noises.

Also - despite me being a massive fan of a bunch of bassists who favor chorus, I found that my chorus journey abruptly ended when I realized that the tones I was chasing in a live, real world environment could be found in a flanger. I really haven't looked back from my vintage BF-2 except to record on my vintage Clone Theory! Food for thought!
 
Another vote for the EHX Bass Clone - what a fantastic value for the money, it's quiet, has great crossover and sounds killer.

I have tried about a million chorus pedals, primarily chasing the tone of my beloved 1979 Clone Theory, and the pedals that you should consider trying out OP:

Tech21 Bass Boost Chorus
Source Audio Lunar (if you are savvy with the app/computer app)
JAM Waterfall (though I never was able to try the bass version)
MXR M83

I really liked the Moog MF Chorus when that was a thing too but it also is suuuper control sensitive and can make some wild noises.

Also - despite me being a massive fan of a bunch of bassists who favor chorus, I found that my chorus journey abruptly ended when I realized that the tones I was chasing in a live, real world environment could be found in a flanger. I really haven't looked back from my vintage BF-2 except to record on my vintage Clone Theory! Food for thought!
Sweet. Thank you for the input.

Had a Tech 21 Bass chorus boost. Liked it but was a bit of a large footprint.

Like what I’m hearing from the Lunar vids.

The EHX is definitely in the running.

Thanks again. 🙂👍
 
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