What's up KDH! I'm the guy playing in the opening video :) I'm so glad to hear that you liked it a lot! The real "secret" behind achieving this sound is to first and foremost nail the dry tone. It has to absolutely crystal-clear and HI-FI sounding before you add anything else. I find that using active pickups helps with this. Another thing you can try is to eliminate the speakers entirely and go DI to your soundcard (without any IR's or cab sims). Doing this will give you that bell-like clean tone. As far as effects go I'd say that using Detune is very important too. Something like a +11 cents (L) and -13 cents (R) detune will do the trick. The Yamaha SPX90 is an affordable way of getting that rack detuned tone. If you have any questions other questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to help out! Also, check out some of my other tri stereo chorus videos if you liked my other video :)
Finally! Years of searching are finally over. Ever since I head this song: ruclips.net/video/4bJnj68CBoU/видео.html I wanted to achieve this exact chorus sound but up until now, I never came even close. The trick was to just disable the impulse response/cab. Everything else fell into place naturally from this point and I am happy. Thank you, Mr. Larsen.
@@flapjack413 no but it was play by jimmy hedrix's cousin on the floor where the beatles stood before they were famous only ONE TIME and they also used the backline amp which was ONCE used by dave grohl. Therefore, it's gonna cost you 500k
It amazes me that more people don't use chorus. I usually add just a dash to my lead tone to get a bit of oomph, and a bit more to my clean tones to get a fuller sound.
There are several reasons why. Many production reasons but also in a live setting. For starters, the base effect of the chorus is to split the signal, then send one signal out of tune by X cents depending on settings and merge them. It's a modification of 5-90 cents depending on settings. It's a cool "effect" but it is essentially just creating the out of time and out of tune effect blended together. Second, there is a slight reverb sound due to the split signal with modulation(again a slight timing difference). You aren't getting a "fuller sound." You're just adding an ambience and pushing it back. Blurring the edges. It's not adding any "fullness" other than that slight room. The sound is a very short decay room sound. And it starts pushing the guitar back(due to the slight reverb feel to it), the wetter you make it, the farther back the guitar goes. This is why you usually only hear it where the guitar rhythm isn't prominent. The guitar will sit back and create an ambience(80's). Your drums will need to be pushed back to compensate or else you have the instruments floating in space and it's just "off." This is why you had so much chorus mixed with very reverbed drums in the 80's. It's ok for a lead since you will typically boost leads anyways and the slight pitch modulation will make it the focus. If you're throwing chorus on too much(in either live or studio) and where is the focus? Everything? Confusing. Want to be in the background with your guitara nd create ambience? Use your chorus. Want to be tight and focused? Take it easy on the chorus. As for live, as an example: Too much chorus ends up sounding like a Nirvana show and that was a mess. Kurt made his chorus WAY too wet and when Krist would also use chorus, something just sounded off. They made it their style but unless you try to make it your gimmick, it sounds really amateur. Take 2 guitar players, have one tune 10 cents down or up, have them play the same riff, and boom, you have a chorus effect without the pedal but it doesn't sound good to you then does it? Because it's just out of tune. Make it too wet, or have both using chorus, and you have a confusing and slightly out of tune sounding mess. Even if it's only 1 guitar in your band, you're still playing with the bass. It will sound confusing for the listener if you have too much. Just because something sounds good solo does not mean it will work in a mix(live or studio). With production of overdriven guitars, you typically double track at the very least. And the 2 separate performances also create a slight chorus effect(the widening sound). If you start stacking choruses as well as double or even quad tracking, it becomes a convoluted mess. It's amateur. If your music is guitar driven, it's ok for leads but bad for rhythms. If you're doing a clean section and want the ambience, then it's ok in moderation. If you listen to 80's productions, there was a lot of reverb but also a TON of gating. And the gating was to maintain clarity in deep wet effects. tldr: it's adjusting the tuning, with a slight room sound, and when your focus is tightness or grit, chorus ruins it. What sounds good solo doesn't always work in a band setting. Been a sound engineer since 98.
When I was younger I always thought of chorus as ''That 80s effect'' since I did not know what a chorus was. Chorus just makes me think of the 80s and somewhat the 90s. Songs like You can't bring me down by suicidal tendencies is a chorus to die for.
Stacking 3 choruses is actually overkill, if you want the tri-chorus effect. The tri-chorus is dry signal + 3 copies of the dry with vibrato and delay, each one with slightly different delay and modulation (and panning if in stereo). So the ultimate goal is dry + 3 modulated signals. A regular chorus is dry + 1 modulated signal. If you stack two choruses, you get dry+wet going into dry+wet...the result should be dry + FOUR modulated signals actually (because the second chorus delays and modulates the original dry+wet signals). So even just two chorus pedals, I believe, would be a "Quad chorus".
Nope, it's 3 lfo's... The second chorus modulates only in one of its 2 signals (output A gives lfo1 from first chorus+lfo2 generated from itself)... While output B gives the "dry" signal which is the dry+lfo1 from the first chorus (so on this signal the second chorus doesn't apply again its lfo).
i bought a ce-3 awhile back for like $70 as per your recommendation and i’m in love w/ it! the stereo-into-mono vibrato thing is now a staple part of my sound
honestly i think you’d get closer by running the mxr after the ce-3 instead of before. the allure of the tri-chorus is that it’s three completely separate delay lines modulating the signal and blended together in parallel, rather than in series, so while the mxr after the ce-3 wouldn’t get you that three signals in parallel, it would still give you two completely separate delay lines in parallel, which would be closer than having two in series
TC used to sell a tri-chorus pedal, think it’s discontinued, but tone prints may still be available for newer pedals. For truly stunning chorus, a Roland JC amp is hard to beat. The re-released versions are even better than the originals. They also have two inputs now, so that as well as using their internal stereo chorus, you can plug your own stereo effects into them. Although a lot of bands still use them (often off stage and mic’d) because of their stunning clean tones, bands like the Police, the Cure, XTC, the Cult owe everything to the amazing stereo chorus built in
I remember I was chasing a vintage chorus tone once. I wanted a late 90s chorus that I used to hear from Mark Tremonti of creed in songs like Arms Wide Open. I have a boss katana mark II. 100 W. I was able to get the tone I wanted by using a harmonizer, a delay and a chorus together. I used one of the choruses and set the modulation just right. Then, I got the harmonizer to play the same note in unison instead of actually harmonizing it. Sounded great but not quite where I was headed. I had a quick think and a beer and then came up with a solution that finally gave me what I wanted. I set the delay to really quick tempo so that it almost sounded like it was echoing the notes instantaneously. It made it sound like there were three guitars going through the same chorus. That did the trick. It was full and robust and sounded fantastic. Highly recommended.
Still sounded great. There's more ways of stacking chorus pedals, I'm wondering how would it sound If you had stereo pedal first, then another chorus on the left and another on the right. Or maybe different stereo pedal (not chorus), they two different choruses, one on the left and one on the right. Or dry signal from stereo Boss CE3 to another stereo Boss CE3, then wet signal from first CE3 to left channel and wet signal from the second CE3 to the right channel.
Chorus pedals created some of the best 80's tones especially Peace Sells...But Who's Buying. Just listen to the beginning of Good Mourning Black Friday to hear the chorus of an rockman x100.
I have a MXR stereo chorus and it's great. Now I have an old Peavey stereo chorus 2x12 combo and that has an amazing chorus, because it's literally 2 separate amps they put into one, giving you a true stereo chorus effect! Very underrated amp, and extremely loud, 130 watts a side, and when you turn on the chorus it's amazing.
I'm also a huge fan of running random pedals together and trying to emulate effects, so this was a great video. Definitely surprised the 3 in a row didn't turn into an unusable mess. Seriously though, that OG Trichorus though. WOW. What a tone.
I feel like something like the wetter box, that allows you to blend pedals in parallel, is probably what you'd want to get closer to that sound. Maybe I'm wrong, but that might help with muddiness. One thing I really like for chorus is vibrato in parallel. It's an option on the mooer mod factory MKII, and I kinda like it more than normal chorus. The modulated signal isn't delayed, so the effect is more pronounced/clear even on more subtle settings. I find it just sits in a mix better too, makes chords sound lush, and with slower rate settings can almost sound like old tape warble or something. Maybe mixing something like that with another chorus might help get the sound you're after. I'm thinking maybe getting rid of the muddiness might have something to do with not having so many delayed signals put together.
Love this video so much. I always wanted to see videos of people coming up with creative ways to sound like a specific effect unit that’s rare and it too expensive. My favorite example which lead to a new sound was running two amps one with a Behringer vibrato and one unaffected to replicate a boss CE-1. While it was a failure, it did lead to a new sound I liked and with the other amp I added a delay set to one repeat around 30 ms and that was a huge sound. I feel bad for guitarists who don’t run stereo rigs
That Rockman sound was *fundamental* to 80’s rock. Leave it to a master engineer/guitarist/organist/producer/engineer/composer to somehow figure out exactly what everyone desperately needed, but didn’t even know they wanted. When you sit down and really dig into just how many hit records had a Rockman (rack OR mini) at their heart, it’s impressive.
The MXR M134 Stereo/M234 Mono Analog Chorus is a as what you want if you're going to stack them. The MXR M134/234: Has a low-pass switch. It'll take low frequencies from your guitar and send them directly to the output bypassing the modulation, similarly to how a Klon does with the lows. Normally chorus will make the low end loose and muddy, the low-pass will keep the bass tight. Besides this it has an dual active (I believe) bass and treble tone-stack that let's you dial it in to different guitars or amps. This makes it stack well with other modulation effects. You can change the order of them to get them to interact with each in different ways. That said the low-pass works great for solos, especially if you're using a lot of gain, this by far is what most players will use this for.
This is why I love modern modeling. I'm only 27, but I grew up with a very crappy-sounding BOSS Gt-6. Just got a Line 6 HX Stomp XL and recreating something like this is not only easy, but it sounds authentic.
You might like the Boss Dimension pedals. They do what the Tri chorus rack units do. The CE3 isn't the best sounding chorus. I personally like to use an old Ibanez analog chorus set to a detune type of setting into an old Ibanez Flanger set to more of chorus setting. It's like water in sonic form.
Can also try a a dual chorus with the MXR to get tri. The dual choruses normally have 2 to 3 controls or more for each of the 2 choruses, speed depth level etc. So more options on control. Not a lot of them but out there. Ibanez made one Great video
I know nothing about this but I do stack chorus pedals on my synths. It's grimy but it's incredible! My tone feels so small when I punch out the pedals. I'm ruined! I'm using $20 Chinese analog mono chorus pedals, and an analog delay & a phaser, into a Boss SE-70 with some classic 70's keyboard patch that's probably more light phaser & a hall reverb. I'm frankly shocked how little the signal degrades. The sound in your first experiment - you seem to have nailed the Alex Lifeson clean tone from the "Discovery" section of 2112. Rock on, Brother! This was fun! That dark grimy tone sits GREAT under vocals.
Controversially, I don’t think tube amps work for this tone. One of my favorite things about the 80s clean sound, exemplified beautifully in that old video, is the complete lack of breakup. I think something like a Rockman would help here. That clean sound is essentially direct, and super bright. Perfect base for this sort of tone.
I see people recommending JC 120s, which was the sound of many '80s bands. The amp (and re-releases) are still in common use. The list of people who use them is immense. Even metal bands use them, but often off stage since the look of a combo amp doesn’t suit the look of the stacks they are trying to achieve. The re-releases have some improvements, including the chorus coming alive at much lower volumes (all of these amps can be played amazingly loud) the re-releases (not sure about the 20?) but the 40 definitely has stereo inputs. So as well the internal stereo chorus, you can plug your own stereo effects into the front end (or effects loop)
I found a sound that I liked by using one CE-3 in full stereo with a slower shallow depth setting, then mixed in a mono Small Clone chorus at a moderate speed with a bit more depth through a mixer. Adjust to taste with the mixer. The Small Stone give a shimmering tone, while the CE-3 gives a subtle stereo ambience. I do this with keyboards and guitar.
Well about a year ago I got a Maxon bi-mode chorus which is basically 2 choruses stacked in one pedal and that did the job you are after, it's a pretty good sounding pedal
Your best bet for getting a true trichorus sound using the gear you have here would be to run the first CE-3 in wet/dry mode with the wet output going into a “middle channel” (either an amp that’s panned dead center in the mix, or just to both amps at once in a two-amp setup), and then have the dry output running into the second CE-3 in stereo mode with the left output going to an amp panned hard left and the right output going to an amp panned hard right in the mix. What you wind up with would be most similar to a try trichorus since it would have three chorused signals in parallel, rather than any in series, which is essentially just flanging (not really, but sending one chorus into another is somewhat similar to the regeneration and feedback that makes a flanger a flanger).
Use a stereo chorus, rate set low, not too mad on the other settings, then use two more chorus pedals, one on each output, again subtle on all settings with a mid- and faster- rate setting on each respectively. By the time all three are fired up there won'y be a lethal signal degradation and there will be some crazy interesting deep chorus dynamics going on. The key is the (very) slow- rate of the initial stereo chorus, and then the mid setting left / fast setting right on the following two. Two amps, obviously; or two modelling channels or whatever you're doing. This, anyway, is one of the 'tri-chorus' techniques I've used in the past, playing with other spaced-out lushes.
Is that an algorithm thing? I did it because there was talking between some of the clips in the video so it made sense to put them together without interruption for comparison.
I have the TC Electronic Nova Modulator which comes with a tri chorus. It also allows you to stack two effects at once, giving you six choruses at once! A hex chorus!
I know this is an older video, but I think you could retry this with a mixer like the EHX Parallel Mixer and do some sort of parallel routing with the pedals. Essentially, you run your guitar into a splitter, one end goes to the dry amp and the other to the input of the mixer. From there, the FX sends of the mixer go to each of the pedals separately (only wet) and output of the mixer goes into your wet amp, giving you better control over each pedal and more clarity, reducing noise and artifacts due to the inputs not getting slammed into each other. Hope you can give it a shot. Cheers!
Some multifx did that, marshall jfx-1 and yamaha spx90. The trick is a chorus with more than 2 paths, 3 or 4. The modulated paths are modulating at different phases and/or different speeds. Playing with that is har with pedals. Chorus in series have a tendency to kind of neutralise mutualy, sort of. It should be intersting to use the chorus pedals in parallel: with a mixer or with a boss LS-2 in A/B parallel mode. It should be more dramatic.
The MXR EVH Tri-Chorus and the Neunaber Inspire Tri-Chorus are both fantastic pedals and not too expensive - about $200-250 each new. Great video too by the way.
run the stereo into a mixer delay one side .5ms 100% wet. boom huge stereo sound plus the awesome chorus effect. and some eq on each stage most likely what they did inside for the 'magic'.
Bro you should really check out some modulated reverbs :D very commonly used in shoegaze or alt rock, there are also many post metal bands that use these to create textures. I think mixing these along with your chorus pedals might help to get you to that tone. Reverb has an important role in helping our head create this “modulated”/motion type of feel. Try that if possible (: I recommend the Digitech Polara if you’d like.
I use the boss ce3 in stereo with the mooer pitch box on the dry output and it gets me pretty close to the 80s "schmoo" sound. Alot of the time when you hear it, it has the eventide style pitch shift of roughly +/- 10c each side. That's the key to giving the chorus or trichorus even more depth and width
Try MXR into CE3, wet signal straight to amp, dry into the 2nd CE3, wet into 2nd amp. That (theoretically) should give stereo chorus that matches on each output.
The missing ingredient in this multiple chorus pedal experiment is an EHX Tri-Parallel Mixer or something similar. I'm pretty sure that rack unit from the 80's is running its chorusing circuits in parallel.
I'd completely forgotten about this fab '80s effect. I can't find a schematic for it but I see that each of the three chorus signals shares a master speed control. So all three are on the same clock. That could be why you can't replicate this with stacked pedals. Each pedal would have its own clock and no matter how much you try, they will be out of synch which would make it sound muddy as signals collide.
Fulltone offers a reproduction tri chorus rack for $1500. Though for my 80's fix, I like the Arion stereo chorus; best chorus pedal I've ever owned, and I only paid seven dollars for it.
have you considered running the three choruses in series then summing the three modulated signals back into mono? Ideally you would use a 1 to 3 input cable splitter (not sure if they make these) but then you could set the choruses at slightly different rates and those differences could be summed into something quite nice. IF the original rack's were two boss ce-2 circuits im sure you can find the schematic and trace the routing. To me what stood out about the rack clip at the beginning of the video was the slow modulation and overall brightness and looooonng dwell (probably reverb in conjunction) Dont give up you can get there!
Source audio makes a chorus pedal that does quad chorus called the Gemini. I also used the Roland VG-99 modeler to do a tri-stereo chorus emulation (my demo is out on soundcloud, search my alias there to hear it - it's pretty close) and found that the more chorus units you added there was sort of make or break effect - the sweet spot was between 3 and 5 chorus units. There was a remake of the rackmounted tri-stereo chorus version a few years ago but they only have so many of the old parts to make them. I believe those were made by Fulltone and were about $1500 and they called it the TERC ("That Eighties Rack Chorus"). I think their custom shop still makes them on demand but $1500 for a chorus unit might make you have second thoughts.
There's is at least one other tri-mode chorus available; the Ibanez TC7 Tri-Mode Chorus from the Tone-Lok series. They can be found fairly easily on the online second-hand market.
Yooooo I’ve been chasing this sound for the better part of two years now. The importance of pickups and compression can’t be understated. I can get pretty close using heavy compression (two compressors in the chain In my case) as long as I’m also using the out of phase position on a guitar with either SSS or triple P90s. In terms of chorus, I use the line 6 pod go, which has a trichorus setting. That by itself isn’t enough so I either run it before or after their 70s chorus (based on one of the boss CEs I think). Works pretty well, especially if I skip the amp/cab modeling and just use an EQ on the DI sound. That said, if ever there’s a chance to get ahold of a rack trichorus for a reasonable price, I’d jump on it in an instant
Worth noting, if you’re into plugins and sims (I’m not really, plugging guitar through computer doesn’t really suit my workflow), Eventide makes a trichorus plugin. I can’t speak for it’s accuracy but I think people like it
i like to use a memory boy with the switch set between chorus and vibrato, it gives you some of both effect. gotta dial it in super fine, it is easy to overdo it, but when you use it subtly with a little bit of delay to add depth, it's a huuuge effect
I like to hook pedals up to see how they sound & have a beer. Somehow I took a stereo Boss pitch shifter/delay and rerouted it back in to it self. Must been the beer thinking. It sounded pretty cool. I have a Line 6 MM4 pedal that has the Tri Chorus. It sounds pretty close.
Strymon Ola. Nuff said. (tc electronic includes a pretty nice tri chorus effect on several of their pedals. Flashback Triple Delay can also do three stacked choruses with feedback between em)
Oh yeah I've been stacking chorus pedals for years. It's the best. Of course I love shoegazer and goth music so it goes without saying. And that rack clearly sounds like multiply modulated signals. It has the multiple wobbles. I think part of the problem is the MXR does not offer much control. It also sounds like you didn't have your depths up very far, or perhaps those CE-3s don't have the depth that I remember them having. I use a Boss ME-X that has an analogue chorus sim in it, along with a Digital Dimension DC-3, plus I can add on my BF-2 Flanger or my PH-2 Phaser, or ALL OF THEM. And none of that fancy ass guitar / amp stuff. I'm just playing a Jazzmaster Player model into a Peavey 1x12 combo. I play effected 99.9% of the time and have no need for anything beyond solid-state. That and on my bass I have a wonderful analogman chorus and a digitech digidelay with a nice modulated delay and together they make a nice tone, not to mention once you add in the MXR flanger.
Christian Larsen from sweden hes a legend. If you need 80s than you will have to get the cs 5 or a songbird or a shiva the wave or fulltone that 80s rack terc which based off from the my dyno piano 610
The Tri Chorus Racks is my favourite dinosaur
you just have no shame...
take that like
Best chorus sound, should be a stand alone chorus pedal
Eventide H9 does a really good clone with the Tricerachorus.
@@joeyskar but that pedal is really expensive, it would take us awhile to save up for one.
TC Electronic also have their Stereo Chorus Flanger (SCF) pedal that a lot of people swear is the 80's in a box...I disagree.
What's up KDH! I'm the guy playing in the opening video :)
I'm so glad to hear that you liked it a lot!
The real "secret" behind achieving this sound is to first and foremost nail the dry tone. It has to absolutely crystal-clear and HI-FI sounding before you add anything else.
I find that using active pickups helps with this.
Another thing you can try is to eliminate the speakers entirely and go DI to your soundcard (without any IR's or cab sims). Doing this will give you that bell-like clean tone.
As far as effects go I'd say that using Detune is very important too.
Something like a +11 cents (L) and -13 cents (R) detune will do the trick.
The Yamaha SPX90 is an affordable way of getting that rack detuned tone.
If you have any questions other questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to help out!
Also, check out some of my other tri stereo chorus videos if you liked my other video :)
Finally! Years of searching are finally over. Ever since I head this song: ruclips.net/video/4bJnj68CBoU/видео.html I wanted to achieve this exact chorus sound but up until now, I never came even close. The trick was to just disable the impulse response/cab. Everything else fell into place naturally from this point and I am happy. Thank you, Mr. Larsen.
Thanks for that feedback,,man. Great advice.
@@riokinsey2134 You got it!
You should hit up Essex recording studios, they might have one lying around for 100k or so
Yes! Jimi hendrix's friend's, uncle's cousin's, brother-in-law once drove by their studio, so it surely would be worth 100k!
Legend
@@flapjack413 no but it was play by jimmy hedrix's cousin on the floor where the beatles stood before they were famous only ONE TIME and they also used the backline amp which was ONCE used by dave grohl. Therefore, it's gonna cost you 500k
You’d want his supermodel wife too for that price
It amazes me that more people don't use chorus. I usually add just a dash to my lead tone to get a bit of oomph, and a bit more to my clean tones to get a fuller sound.
Used a lot on bass as well for choruses (in songs) to add lift in the studio. Picked up that trick from Andy Wallace.
Leads it's obvious, but I use it on rhythm guitars.
Maybe Im weird, but I like chorus on rhythm parts, and like to turn it off for soloing to get a more direct, in your face sound.
There are several reasons why. Many production reasons but also in a live setting. For starters, the base effect of the chorus is to split the signal, then send one signal out of tune by X cents depending on settings and merge them. It's a modification of 5-90 cents depending on settings. It's a cool "effect" but it is essentially just creating the out of time and out of tune effect blended together.
Second, there is a slight reverb sound due to the split signal with modulation(again a slight timing difference). You aren't getting a "fuller sound." You're just adding an ambience and pushing it back. Blurring the edges. It's not adding any "fullness" other than that slight room. The sound is a very short decay room sound. And it starts pushing the guitar back(due to the slight reverb feel to it), the wetter you make it, the farther back the guitar goes. This is why you usually only hear it where the guitar rhythm isn't prominent. The guitar will sit back and create an ambience(80's). Your drums will need to be pushed back to compensate or else you have the instruments floating in space and it's just "off." This is why you had so much chorus mixed with very reverbed drums in the 80's. It's ok for a lead since you will typically boost leads anyways and the slight pitch modulation will make it the focus. If you're throwing chorus on too much(in either live or studio) and where is the focus? Everything? Confusing. Want to be in the background with your guitara nd create ambience? Use your chorus. Want to be tight and focused? Take it easy on the chorus.
As for live, as an example: Too much chorus ends up sounding like a Nirvana show and that was a mess. Kurt made his chorus WAY too wet and when Krist would also use chorus, something just sounded off. They made it their style but unless you try to make it your gimmick, it sounds really amateur. Take 2 guitar players, have one tune 10 cents down or up, have them play the same riff, and boom, you have a chorus effect without the pedal but it doesn't sound good to you then does it? Because it's just out of tune. Make it too wet, or have both using chorus, and you have a confusing and slightly out of tune sounding mess. Even if it's only 1 guitar in your band, you're still playing with the bass. It will sound confusing for the listener if you have too much. Just because something sounds good solo does not mean it will work in a mix(live or studio).
With production of overdriven guitars, you typically double track at the very least. And the 2 separate performances also create a slight chorus effect(the widening sound). If you start stacking choruses as well as double or even quad tracking, it becomes a convoluted mess. It's amateur. If your music is guitar driven, it's ok for leads but bad for rhythms. If you're doing a clean section and want the ambience, then it's ok in moderation. If you listen to 80's productions, there was a lot of reverb but also a TON of gating. And the gating was to maintain clarity in deep wet effects.
tldr: it's adjusting the tuning, with a slight room sound, and when your focus is tightness or grit, chorus ruins it. What sounds good solo doesn't always work in a band setting. Been a sound engineer since 98.
Hello. My clean tone is chorus
When I was younger I always thought of chorus as ''That 80s effect'' since I did not know what a chorus was. Chorus just makes me think of the 80s and somewhat the 90s. Songs like You can't bring me down by suicidal tendencies is a chorus to die for.
I always think of Lullaby by the Cure or Message in a bottle/Murder by Numbers by The Police. Or Come As You Are and Aneuryism by Nirvana.
@@Trepidateousflesh anuerysem is really underrated it has a amazing clean and distorted tone
Stacking 3 choruses is actually overkill, if you want the tri-chorus effect. The tri-chorus is dry signal + 3 copies of the dry with vibrato and delay, each one with slightly different delay and modulation (and panning if in stereo).
So the ultimate goal is dry + 3 modulated signals. A regular chorus is dry + 1 modulated signal. If you stack two choruses, you get dry+wet going into dry+wet...the result should be dry + FOUR modulated signals actually (because the second chorus delays and modulates the original dry+wet signals). So even just two chorus pedals, I believe, would be a "Quad chorus".
I was wondering about this TJ, thanks!
Nope, it's 3 lfo's... The second chorus modulates only in one of its 2 signals (output A gives lfo1 from first chorus+lfo2 generated from itself)... While output B gives the "dry" signal which is the dry+lfo1 from the first chorus (so on this signal the second chorus doesn't apply again its lfo).
I laughed pretty heartily at your 3 chorus diagram. That was pure gold.
I liked how the sound enters a new dimension after the first pedal. A universe where waveforms are not limited to one wave.
i bought a ce-3 awhile back for like $70 as per your recommendation and i’m in love w/ it! the stereo-into-mono vibrato thing is now a staple part of my sound
Best pedal ever
Try it with some single coils. I feel that that's the sound you were aiming at.
Yeah that signal was way to hot going in
The chorus is only a tiny part of the puzzle. A lot of these players were using micropitch (+9/0ms -9/25ms.), delay, reverb as well as compression.
TC Electronic Corona Chorus, editor, tri chorus, pretty neat
The Rockman Stereo Chorus Delay is the best sounding chorus unit I’ve ever heard. Definitely worth the investment
honestly i think you’d get closer by running the mxr after the ce-3 instead of before. the allure of the tri-chorus is that it’s three completely separate delay lines modulating the signal and blended together in parallel, rather than in series, so while the mxr after the ce-3 wouldn’t get you that three signals in parallel, it would still give you two completely separate delay lines in parallel, which would be closer than having two in series
TC used to sell a tri-chorus pedal, think it’s discontinued, but tone prints may still be available for newer pedals.
For truly stunning chorus, a Roland JC amp is hard to beat. The re-released versions are even better than the originals. They also have two inputs now, so that as well as using their internal stereo chorus, you can plug your own stereo effects into them. Although a lot of bands still use them (often off stage and mic’d) because of their stunning clean tones, bands like the Police, the Cure, XTC, the Cult owe everything to the amazing stereo chorus built in
Great video and the two pedal thing worked pretty good if you ask me. I really liked it.
I think to get that effect, running the three choruses in parallel through a mixer pedal would work
That's exactly what the Tri Chorus is doing.
The three choruses would have to be good sounding I’d imagine ?
All three together sounds heavenly
I remember I was chasing a vintage chorus tone once. I wanted a late 90s chorus that I used to hear from Mark Tremonti of creed in songs like Arms Wide Open. I have a boss katana mark II. 100 W. I was able to get the tone I wanted by using a harmonizer, a delay and a chorus together. I used one of the choruses and set the modulation just right. Then, I got the harmonizer to play the same note in unison instead of actually harmonizing it. Sounded great but not quite where I was headed. I had a quick think and a beer and then came up with a solution that finally gave me what I wanted. I set the delay to really quick tempo so that it almost sounded like it was echoing the notes instantaneously. It made it sound like there were three guitars going through the same chorus. That did the trick. It was full and robust and sounded fantastic. Highly recommended.
Detune -> Chorus -> Delay works pretty well too
Still sounded great. There's more ways of stacking chorus pedals, I'm wondering how would it sound If you had stereo pedal first, then another chorus on the left and another on the right. Or maybe different stereo pedal (not chorus), they two different choruses, one on the left and one on the right. Or dry signal from stereo Boss CE3 to another stereo Boss CE3, then wet signal from first CE3 to left channel and wet signal from the second CE3 to the right channel.
Chorus pedals created some of the best 80's tones especially Peace Sells...But Who's Buying. Just listen to the beginning of Good Mourning Black Friday to hear the chorus of an rockman x100.
That multi-colored explorer in the backround is beyond amazing!!!
oh man..that chorus schematic is just brilliant 😆👍
Still my favorite effect type, and not just because '80s.
I have a MXR stereo chorus and it's great.
Now I have an old Peavey stereo chorus 2x12 combo and that has an amazing chorus, because it's literally 2 separate amps they put into one, giving you a true stereo chorus effect! Very underrated amp, and extremely loud, 130 watts a side, and when you turn on the chorus it's amazing.
I'm also a huge fan of running random pedals together and trying to emulate effects, so this was a great video. Definitely surprised the 3 in a row didn't turn into an unusable mess. Seriously though, that OG Trichorus though. WOW. What a tone.
That diagram is the closest to perfect I've ever seen
I feel like something like the wetter box, that allows you to blend pedals in parallel, is probably what you'd want to get closer to that sound. Maybe I'm wrong, but that might help with muddiness. One thing I really like for chorus is vibrato in parallel. It's an option on the mooer mod factory MKII, and I kinda like it more than normal chorus. The modulated signal isn't delayed, so the effect is more pronounced/clear even on more subtle settings. I find it just sits in a mix better too, makes chords sound lush, and with slower rate settings can almost sound like old tape warble or something. Maybe mixing something like that with another chorus might help get the sound you're after. I'm thinking maybe getting rid of the muddiness might have something to do with not having so many delayed signals put together.
That initial soundclip whisked me away to Twin Peaks. Good times.
Love this video so much. I always wanted to see videos of people coming up with creative ways to sound like a specific effect unit that’s rare and it too expensive. My favorite example which lead to a new sound was running two amps one with a Behringer vibrato and one unaffected to replicate a boss CE-1. While it was a failure, it did lead to a new sound I liked and with the other amp I added a delay set to one repeat around 30 ms and that was a huge sound. I feel bad for guitarists who don’t run stereo rigs
I doubt it’s a tri-chours but the chours on the rockman x100 is amazing.
That Rockman sound was *fundamental* to 80’s rock. Leave it to a master engineer/guitarist/organist/producer/engineer/composer to somehow figure out exactly what everyone desperately needed, but didn’t even know they wanted.
When you sit down and really dig into just how many hit records had a Rockman (rack OR mini) at their heart, it’s impressive.
@@DemoDick1 Def Leppards "Hysteria" album for one.
@@tater7363 That was first on my list. That sound is unmistakable.
The MXR M134 Stereo/M234 Mono Analog Chorus is a as what you want if you're going to stack them.
The MXR M134/234: Has a low-pass switch. It'll take low frequencies from your guitar and send them directly to the output bypassing the modulation, similarly to how a Klon does with the lows. Normally chorus will make the low end loose and muddy, the low-pass will keep the bass tight. Besides this it has an dual active (I believe) bass and treble tone-stack that let's you dial it in to different guitars or amps. This makes it stack well with other modulation effects. You can change the order of them to get them to interact with each in different ways.
That said the low-pass works great for solos, especially if you're using a lot of gain, this by far is what most players will use this for.
Love the cleanish "no chorus" sound.
I really like how you illustrated the pedal circuits, it would be cool if you did a full video like that explaining effects pedals
That “schematic” drawing was genius. Best laugh I’ve had in a while. Great vid!
Boss ce3 sounds so good!
This is why I love modern modeling. I'm only 27, but I grew up with a very crappy-sounding BOSS Gt-6. Just got a Line 6 HX Stomp XL and recreating something like this is not only easy, but it sounds authentic.
You might like the Boss Dimension pedals. They do what the Tri chorus rack units do. The CE3 isn't the best sounding chorus.
I personally like to use an old Ibanez analog chorus set to a detune type of setting into an old Ibanez Flanger set to more of chorus setting. It's like water in sonic form.
Can also try a a dual chorus with the MXR to get tri. The dual choruses normally have 2 to 3 controls or more for each of the 2 choruses, speed depth level etc. So more options on control. Not a lot of them but out there. Ibanez made one
Great video
That is the greatest sound I have ever heard. Thank you.
I know nothing about this but I do stack chorus pedals on my synths. It's grimy but it's incredible! My tone feels so small when I punch out the pedals. I'm ruined! I'm using $20 Chinese analog mono chorus pedals, and an analog delay & a phaser, into a Boss SE-70 with some classic 70's keyboard patch that's probably more light phaser & a hall reverb. I'm frankly shocked how little the signal degrades. The sound in your first experiment - you seem to have nailed the Alex Lifeson clean tone from the "Discovery" section of 2112. Rock on, Brother! This was fun! That dark grimy tone sits GREAT under vocals.
Controversially, I don’t think tube amps work for this tone. One of my favorite things about the 80s clean sound, exemplified beautifully in that old video, is the complete lack of breakup. I think something like a Rockman would help here. That clean sound is essentially direct, and super bright. Perfect base for this sort of tone.
Roland JC-120/160... pristine cleans, huge sounding built-in chorus... it's the way to go.
@@richardharrold9736 Best amp ever
@@reverbchorusdelay BB King's Gibson/Moog Lab Series amps weren't bad either...
I see people recommending JC 120s, which was the sound of many '80s bands. The amp (and re-releases) are still in common use. The list of people who use them is immense. Even metal bands use them, but often off stage since the look of a combo amp doesn’t suit the look of the stacks they are trying to achieve.
The re-releases have some improvements, including the chorus coming alive at much lower volumes (all of these amps can be played amazingly loud) the re-releases (not sure about the 20?) but the 40 definitely has stereo inputs. So as well the internal stereo chorus, you can plug your own stereo effects into the front end (or effects loop)
I use a JC-77 and stack the amp's chorus with a Keeley Seafoam Plus Chorus and a bit of reverb. My favorite guitar tone ive ever had.
Bro, try the FreeTheTone Tri-Avatar Stereo Chorus!
You know what has a great chorus? The old school rockman’s
The Stereo Chorus Delay module is one of the best pieces of equipment I’ve ever purchased. The absolute best chorus sound
I love my chorus and what could make it better? 3 chorus pedals?! You sir are a genius for posting this vid
the dan electro fab chorus is also very underrated the mix knob is perfect
I found a sound that I liked by using one CE-3 in full stereo with a slower shallow depth setting, then mixed in a mono Small Clone chorus at a moderate speed with a bit more depth through a mixer. Adjust to taste with the mixer. The Small Stone give a shimmering tone, while the CE-3 gives a subtle stereo ambience. I do this with keyboards and guitar.
Well about a year ago I got a Maxon bi-mode chorus which is basically 2 choruses stacked in one pedal and that did the job you are after, it's a pretty good sounding pedal
Your art needs to be sold on Reverb.....
Your best bet for getting a true trichorus sound using the gear you have here would be to run the first CE-3 in wet/dry mode with the wet output going into a “middle channel” (either an amp that’s panned dead center in the mix, or just to both amps at once in a two-amp setup), and then have the dry output running into the second CE-3 in stereo mode with the left output going to an amp panned hard left and the right output going to an amp panned hard right in the mix. What you wind up with would be most similar to a try trichorus since it would have three chorused signals in parallel, rather than any in series, which is essentially just flanging (not really, but sending one chorus into another is somewhat similar to the regeneration and feedback that makes a flanger a flanger).
Use a stereo chorus, rate set low, not too mad on the other settings, then use two more chorus pedals, one on each output, again subtle on all settings with a mid- and faster- rate setting on each respectively.
By the time all three are fired up there won'y be a lethal signal degradation and there will be some crazy interesting deep chorus dynamics going on. The key is the (very) slow- rate of the initial stereo chorus, and then the mid setting left / fast setting right on the following two. Two amps, obviously; or two modelling channels or whatever you're doing.
This, anyway, is one of the 'tri-chorus' techniques I've used in the past, playing with other spaced-out lushes.
I like how you added the sound clips again on the end for the algorithm 😉
Is that an algorithm thing?
I did it because there was talking between some of the clips in the video so it made sense to put them together without interruption for comparison.
@@KDH Oh 100%. I just looked at the video length and assumed you were also trying to get it over the 10min mark. I really enjoyed it either way :)
Ah ok, it changed from 10 minutes to 8 minutes a few months ago. It’s a lot easier to get monetised now
I think to get closer to the tri-chorus sound you'd want to do something like guitar -> CE3 in Stereo -> MXR and CE3 both in mono on separate channels
I wanna hear how this sounds
Came here to suggest the same thing.
I have the TC Electronic Nova Modulator which comes with a tri chorus. It also allows you to stack two effects at once, giving you six choruses at once! A hex chorus!
I know this is an older video, but I think you could retry this with a mixer like the EHX Parallel Mixer and do some sort of parallel routing with the pedals.
Essentially, you run your guitar into a splitter, one end goes to the dry amp and the other to the input of the mixer. From there, the FX sends of the mixer go to each of the pedals separately (only wet) and output of the mixer goes into your wet amp, giving you better control over each pedal and more clarity, reducing noise and artifacts due to the inputs not getting slammed into each other.
Hope you can give it a shot. Cheers!
Wow I'm on the same quest, Drab Majesty indirectly brought me here, ...instant sub btw
Some multifx did that, marshall jfx-1 and yamaha spx90. The trick is a chorus with more than 2 paths, 3 or 4. The modulated paths are modulating at different phases and/or different speeds. Playing with that is har with pedals. Chorus in series have a tendency to kind of neutralise mutualy, sort of. It should be intersting to use the chorus pedals in parallel: with a mixer or with a boss LS-2 in A/B parallel mode. It should be more dramatic.
The MXR EVH Tri-Chorus and the Neunaber Inspire Tri-Chorus are both fantastic pedals and not too expensive - about $200-250 each new. Great video too by the way.
run the stereo into a mixer delay one side .5ms 100% wet. boom huge stereo sound plus the awesome chorus effect. and some eq on each stage most likely what they did inside for the 'magic'.
I had a DOD stereo chorus pedal in the late 80's early 90's that sounded sweet.... I'm gonna have to find another one
The Danelectro Cool Cat gets you very close to this sound.
I have an ADA Multi Verb from the 80s and the chorus is so fucking killer on it. Sounds awesome with my ADA MP1.
Bro you should really check out some modulated reverbs :D very commonly used in shoegaze or alt rock, there are also many post metal bands that use these to create textures. I think mixing these along with your chorus pedals might help to get you to that tone. Reverb has an important role in helping our head create this “modulated”/motion type of feel. Try that if possible (: I recommend the Digitech Polara if you’d like.
Cool little experiment. Definitely inspired me to play around more with my pedals, and do weird combos to see how it sounds.
I recently picked up a TC Electronics Corona chorus, for
Those pedal drawings are killer, I will seriously buy that picture if you sign it.👍
CE3 is my favourite chorus pedal. Thanks for the chorus science fam, good video. I'm trying to find my own version of a tri-chorus sound too.
Think outside the rack unit
Brilliant
I use the boss ce3 in stereo with the mooer pitch box on the dry output and it gets me pretty close to the 80s "schmoo" sound.
Alot of the time when you hear it, it has the eventide style pitch shift of roughly +/- 10c each side. That's the key to giving the chorus or trichorus even more depth and width
Try MXR into CE3, wet signal straight to amp, dry into the 2nd CE3, wet into 2nd amp. That (theoretically) should give stereo chorus that matches on each output.
try the dyno my roto tri chorus flange, also some earthquaker pedals can do what ur lookin for
The missing ingredient in this multiple chorus pedal experiment is an EHX Tri-Parallel Mixer or something similar. I'm pretty sure that rack unit from the 80's is running its chorusing circuits in parallel.
What might work is something like the tri parallel mixer, to maintain a clean signal and dosing the different chorus types
I get hysterical, hysteria
I'd completely forgotten about this fab '80s effect. I can't find a schematic for it but I see that each of the three chorus signals shares a master speed control. So all three are on the same clock. That could be why you can't replicate this with stacked pedals. Each pedal would have its own clock and no matter how much you try, they will be out of synch which would make it sound muddy as signals collide.
You could do some signal splitting and run the choruses in parallel. You could get crazy and add a filter or eq to one or more of the 3 pedals.
An EMG 60 clean chorus is one of my favourite clean sounds
The James Hetfield tone
@@Max_94 through Roland JC 120
@@andrijasentic9702 you know!
I like the Aqua man star shaped guitar that’s behind you at the right
Fulltone offers a reproduction tri chorus rack for $1500. Though for my 80's fix, I like the Arion stereo chorus; best chorus pedal I've ever owned, and I only paid seven dollars for it.
You could use the tri-parallel mixer by electroharmonix to preserve the clean signal.
Try the two Bosses together! You should be able to keep a clean/dry signal all the way through?
have you considered running the three choruses in series then summing the three modulated signals back into mono? Ideally you would use a 1 to 3 input cable splitter (not sure if they make these) but then you could set the choruses at slightly different rates and those differences could be summed into something quite nice. IF the original rack's were two boss ce-2 circuits im sure you can find the schematic and trace the routing. To me what stood out about the rack clip at the beginning of the video was the slow modulation and overall brightness and looooonng dwell (probably reverb in conjunction) Dont give up you can get there!
Very useful vídeo, thank you for share this!!
The trichorus rack unit sounds like there’s reverb in there too, putting a reverb after the CE3 might help you get even closer to that sound.
I love the drawings that you did thank you
Chorus is the most important effect for a good old 80’s porn film vibe
Fax lol
I can hear it coming closer...
Don't forget the wah too.
You sicken me.
@@vhsorion LOL!
actually I liked the three stacked choruses the best, using an eq in post would probably smooth the different frequencies out
Source audio makes a chorus pedal that does quad chorus called the Gemini. I also used the Roland VG-99 modeler to do a tri-stereo chorus emulation (my demo is out on soundcloud, search my alias there to hear it - it's pretty close) and found that the more chorus units you added there was sort of make or break effect - the sweet spot was between 3 and 5 chorus units. There was a remake of the rackmounted tri-stereo chorus version a few years ago but they only have so many of the old parts to make them. I believe those were made by Fulltone and were about $1500 and they called it the TERC ("That Eighties Rack Chorus"). I think their custom shop still makes them on demand but $1500 for a chorus unit might make you have second thoughts.
There's is at least one other tri-mode chorus available; the Ibanez TC7 Tri-Mode Chorus from the Tone-Lok series. They can be found fairly easily on the online second-hand market.
The Boss MD-500 has a tri chorus mode and the model just says 80's tri chorus, always sounded nice.
Yooooo I’ve been chasing this sound for the better part of two years now. The importance of pickups and compression can’t be understated. I can get pretty close using heavy compression (two compressors in the chain In my case) as long as I’m also using the out of phase position on a guitar with either SSS or triple P90s. In terms of chorus, I use the line 6 pod go, which has a trichorus setting. That by itself isn’t enough so I either run it before or after their 70s chorus (based on one of the boss CEs I think). Works pretty well, especially if I skip the amp/cab modeling and just use an EQ on the DI sound. That said, if ever there’s a chance to get ahold of a rack trichorus for a reasonable price, I’d jump on it in an instant
Worth noting, if you’re into plugins and sims (I’m not really, plugging guitar through computer doesn’t really suit my workflow), Eventide makes a trichorus plugin. I can’t speak for it’s accuracy but I think people like it
I really liked sound of triple stacked choruses. Need to experiment with digital choruses to avoid signal's high end loss.
I’ve experimenting running a CE2 into a Keeley 30 ms. It produces a brighter more 80’s tone.
i like to use a memory boy with the switch set between chorus and vibrato, it gives you some of both effect. gotta dial it in super fine, it is easy to overdo it, but when you use it subtly with a little bit of delay to add depth, it's a huuuge effect
I like to hook pedals up to see how they sound & have a beer. Somehow I took a stereo Boss pitch shifter/delay and rerouted it back in to it self. Must been the beer thinking. It sounded pretty cool. I have a Line 6 MM4 pedal that has the Tri Chorus. It sounds pretty close.
You need to check out the TC electronic's old school eighties chorus It sounds very very very similar to that
Strymon Ola. Nuff said.
(tc electronic includes a pretty nice tri chorus effect on several of their pedals. Flashback Triple Delay can also do three stacked choruses with feedback between em)
Oh yeah I've been stacking chorus pedals for years. It's the best. Of course I love shoegazer and goth music so it goes without saying. And that rack clearly sounds like multiply modulated signals. It has the multiple wobbles. I think part of the problem is the MXR does not offer much control. It also sounds like you didn't have your depths up very far, or perhaps those CE-3s don't have the depth that I remember them having. I use a Boss ME-X that has an analogue chorus sim in it, along with a Digital Dimension DC-3, plus I can add on my BF-2 Flanger or my PH-2 Phaser, or ALL OF THEM. And none of that fancy ass guitar / amp stuff. I'm just playing a Jazzmaster Player model into a Peavey 1x12 combo. I play effected 99.9% of the time and have no need for anything beyond solid-state. That and on my bass I have a wonderful analogman chorus and a digitech digidelay with a nice modulated delay and together they make a nice tone, not to mention once you add in the MXR flanger.
Christian Larsen from sweden hes a legend. If you need 80s than you will have to get the cs 5 or a songbird or a shiva the wave or fulltone that 80s rack terc which based off from the my dyno piano 610
Just get a Tom Shulz Rockman....:-) Actually that Neunaber one you showed is really good and just over 200 bucks, well here in the US that is.