Mr. black and the Ibanez Chorus. I went thru a bunch of minis and settled on these two. Don't look back.
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Chorus pedals for Bass
- Thread starter Geri O
- Start date
The problem I find with Chorus pedals is that they are really designed and intended for guitars. On bass there isn't much in the top end there to start with and needs really heavy settings (compared to a guitar) to hear anything worth while. The classic Chorus sound robs a lot of low end too. If you try to mix in the bass original signal to retain the low end, then you lose a lot of the chorus' wetness effect.
Over the years I've had a lot of great chorus pedals. I rocked a Strymon Mobius a long time and I found that I wasn't getting what I wanted out of the Chorus patches. I wasn't getting the sound I was after.
After a lot of research, I went down the Source Audio route. Their three modulators all share the same downloadable patches and are identical except for the baked in physical knob assigns (bit of an over site there SA). I went for a Lunar as it offered more useful controls than the Gemini (mix and tone? Really?) and the Mercury. I've had it about a year and my conclusion is the hardware is amazing and sonically superior to the Strymon Mobius. To the point, I would say that this digital device sounds more analogue and a lot of analogue pedals. The stock phaser and flanger sounds are top drawer out of the box, no edits needed. However, the Chorus' effects...less so.
But I don't think this is a fault of the device or a fault of SA's coding. They are pretty close emulations of the source pedals, it's just that those pedals aren't great on bass to start with. CE-1, CE-2, Dual and Quad Chorus' seem to struggle on bass, and are very difficult to get them wet enough. There is so little treble on bass that there's much to affect. I don't think the designers had bass in mind when they designed their circuits. Adding a parallel mixer may be great for guitar but it's awful on bass. While it can clumsily dial in low end, I find that by the time I've dialled in enough low end...I've totally lost the effect's wetness. What's needed on bass is either a fancy low retain mixer (a parallel mixer that dials in the very low end dry) or a solid bass boost control. The great thing about the SA Modulation pedals is that you have both (and a lot more) in the neuro app.
I've basically spent the last year tweaking my chorus models to work in a fashion that really works for bass. The SA's 4 band semi-parametric EQ allows a lot of tweaking. Plus you have a low retain and mix control. You also have 4 chorus models to choose from, an optional tremolo and you change the modulation shape too. If anything was going to nail Chorus on Bass, the SA gear was going to be my best shot.
So I've settled on a pair of patches, one based on "Phrs82"' "Dimension M ish" patch. It's a classic Flange / Chorus model (think CE-2) but pretty much nails the lush and expensive sound that I was looking for. I also found that a bit of low retain and bass boost helped the low end a lot and a massive 16db boost at 3Khz seemed to add all the lushness I could want (in fact this seems to be the magic source for Chorus on bass). The other patch is a modified "Nikopappas" "Purple Rain" patch, based on a Quad Chorus model. Again, I applied the low retain, touch of bass boost and the magic 16db at 3Khz and voilla...a Chorus that sounds great on fretless, great on it's own, stacks with an OC-2 and / or Gated Muff. I finally think I've found what I've been looking for. Patches will be on the Source Audio Cloud later today and I might even get around to recording some sound bites. "GMC Purple Rain" and "GMC - Mild CE-2", if you search under "gazzajagman" you should find them on the could easily enough.
Over the years I've had a lot of great chorus pedals. I rocked a Strymon Mobius a long time and I found that I wasn't getting what I wanted out of the Chorus patches. I wasn't getting the sound I was after.
After a lot of research, I went down the Source Audio route. Their three modulators all share the same downloadable patches and are identical except for the baked in physical knob assigns (bit of an over site there SA). I went for a Lunar as it offered more useful controls than the Gemini (mix and tone? Really?) and the Mercury. I've had it about a year and my conclusion is the hardware is amazing and sonically superior to the Strymon Mobius. To the point, I would say that this digital device sounds more analogue and a lot of analogue pedals. The stock phaser and flanger sounds are top drawer out of the box, no edits needed. However, the Chorus' effects...less so.
But I don't think this is a fault of the device or a fault of SA's coding. They are pretty close emulations of the source pedals, it's just that those pedals aren't great on bass to start with. CE-1, CE-2, Dual and Quad Chorus' seem to struggle on bass, and are very difficult to get them wet enough. There is so little treble on bass that there's much to affect. I don't think the designers had bass in mind when they designed their circuits. Adding a parallel mixer may be great for guitar but it's awful on bass. While it can clumsily dial in low end, I find that by the time I've dialled in enough low end...I've totally lost the effect's wetness. What's needed on bass is either a fancy low retain mixer (a parallel mixer that dials in the very low end dry) or a solid bass boost control. The great thing about the SA Modulation pedals is that you have both (and a lot more) in the neuro app.
I've basically spent the last year tweaking my chorus models to work in a fashion that really works for bass. The SA's 4 band semi-parametric EQ allows a lot of tweaking. Plus you have a low retain and mix control. You also have 4 chorus models to choose from, an optional tremolo and you change the modulation shape too. If anything was going to nail Chorus on Bass, the SA gear was going to be my best shot.
So I've settled on a pair of patches, one based on "Phrs82"' "Dimension M ish" patch. It's a classic Flange / Chorus model (think CE-2) but pretty much nails the lush and expensive sound that I was looking for. I also found that a bit of low retain and bass boost helped the low end a lot and a massive 16db boost at 3Khz seemed to add all the lushness I could want (in fact this seems to be the magic source for Chorus on bass). The other patch is a modified "Nikopappas" "Purple Rain" patch, based on a Quad Chorus model. Again, I applied the low retain, touch of bass boost and the magic 16db at 3Khz and voilla...a Chorus that sounds great on fretless, great on it's own, stacks with an OC-2 and / or Gated Muff. I finally think I've found what I've been looking for. Patches will be on the Source Audio Cloud later today and I might even get around to recording some sound bites. "GMC Purple Rain" and "GMC - Mild CE-2", if you search under "gazzajagman" you should find them on the could easily enough.
Several Years ago I went on a Quest to find a Chorus pedal to replace my Boss CE-2 from the 80's lost to a "friend" that "Borrowed" & never returned it!so bummed! I ran across a Tech21 Boost Chorus that I fell in love with, Im surprised it never gets much love at all! its kinda big so im looking to replace it with something smaller
Is it the T21 Bass Boost Chorus or the standard one? The Bass one is great because of the detune function. Well really it’s just great all-around. I’ve never had another chorus pedal that I preferred for bassSeveral Years ago I went on a Quest to find a Chorus pedal to replace my Boss CE-2 from the 80's lost to a "friend" that "Borrowed" & never returned it!so bummed! I ran across a Tech21 Boost Chorus that I fell in love with, Im surprised it never gets much love at all! its kinda big so im looking to replace it with something smaller
Tech 21 Bass Boost Chorus is what’s on my board now. Lush, wet and has the controls to adjust for what I need. It replaced the Jam Waterfall Bass (wonderful itself), which replaced a TC Corona (okay IMO), which replaced a MIJ Boss CEB-2 (too subtle for me).Several Years ago I went on a Quest to find a Chorus pedal to replace my Boss CE-2 from the 80's lost to a "friend" that "Borrowed" & never returned it!so bummed! I ran across a Tech21 Boost Chorus that I fell in love with, Im surprised it never gets much love at all! its kinda big so im looking to replace it with something smaller
The ubiquitous Boss chorus sounds great. I tried long and hard to kick that thing off my board because I foolishly thought it was generic. The cross over feature keeps thing from getting muddy, there’s nice top end, and can get some lush sounds.
The only thing that I found that I enjoyed more is Keeleys Seafoam+. Guitar and bass modes have their own functions/settings. Almost too feature rich but super versatile and hard to get a bad sound out of.
The only thing that I found that I enjoyed more is Keeleys Seafoam+. Guitar and bass modes have their own functions/settings. Almost too feature rich but super versatile and hard to get a bad sound out of.
A chorus plays the same audio, but with a variable delay. A thread about chorus that repeats itself is completely on point.
Keeley Seafoam is my fav and the only chorus (of many) that I kept. It is a great chorus for bass!
I know old post.
In my case I love chorus on bass--and I use it often.
But I use it on a subtle setting, nothing crazy--so I have a basic chorus (Danelectro Fab Chorus)--it will do a bigger chorus, but I don't set it there.
It's subtle, but I notice when it's not on.
(For bigger chorus on guitar I use a TC Electronics Corona pedal)
I have used and still have many of them TC SCF, CEB3 Gemini, EBS etc . But the WATERFALL is all you need.
So I looked it up, here in the Uk it’s £220…that’s a bit much for a simple 3 knob analogue chorus pedal!
Over the years, I have had lots of chorus pedals. After buying and selling a bunch of them, I found that the Boss CE-2 circuit is my preferred chorus tone. I built a clone using high quality components and it is awesome. I also built a BYOC Analog Chorus from a kit that I use for electric guitar and I have a Homebrew Electronics THC on my acoustic board. I no longer even read reviews or search for something that might be better for me.
There are so many options available nowadays that it is kind of daunting to sift through them all. The other ones that I really liked when I had them were the Digitech Bass Multi-Chorus and the BBE Mind Bender.
There are so many options available nowadays that it is kind of daunting to sift through them all. The other ones that I really liked when I had them were the Digitech Bass Multi-Chorus and the BBE Mind Bender.
It's the tone and the build quality that give it the price, it uses vintage style BBD chips for that classic tone (it even used NOS Panasonic chips).
I have tried so many choruses. My favorite is the Tech 21 Bass Boost Chorus. Second place is the EHX Eddy. Both have crazy low end and give that nice warble that arent too extreme unless you want them to be.
The Strymon Zelzah is definitely worth a play, whilst it’s a phaser pedal, they have added some additional features to include delay modulation, allowing the pedal to smoothly transition from phaser, through flanging all the way to chorus. An unique design and is a lot of fun in practise, and sounds great with all sources I have tried it with including bass.
I've been on this quest lately too. I want a flanger that can do chorus because I think the sharper edges of flanging makes a better bass chorus than a regular chorus. The MXR 117 reissue does this perfectly but it's too big for my small board atm.
JAM Pedals Bass Waterfall just arrived. Early impressions are good.
