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In July a local shop had their annual super sale. Along with a Gibson Buckethead Les Paul Studio, I picked up a few other smaller items. A used BBE Opto Stomp compressor. And a Boss CE-20 chorus.
I checked out the CE-20 a bit more last night. The Dimension chorus setting is a nice subtle flavor. The CE-1 setting adds a little more movement. It's very sweet and liquid sounding. Very pleasing. There is also a lush setting, which evokes a very cool Robin Guthrie type chorus - a little more haze. Really nice!
There are also voicings optimized for bass and acoustic guitar. I haven't explored those yet.
One cool thing that I found out last night is it's possible to mute the dry signal on the CE-20!! This is great news for me since when recording a clean part, I like to put a chorus in the parallel effects loop of the amp, and control the amount of effect heard by setting the mix knob. It allows the pure, straight guitar signal to be recorded, and at lower settings of the mix knob, I can dial in a very subtle, tasteful chorusing that is just enough to add a little motion to the track.
And now the times 2 part: Yesterday I stopped at my local GC and used a $10 off coupon toward a Digitech Hard Wire chorus. The price they gave me was already less than the $139.95 it's listed at on their site, and my coupon took another $10 off. Plugged it in and tried it out last night too. Wow!! The audio quality is pristine. This unit has a 7 position rotary switch to select 7 (!) different chorus voicings. Among them: Studio, Multi(8 voice), modern, analog, boutique, vintage. Like having 7 different chorus units to play with!
My favorites, not surprisingly, are the more subtle ones. Analog is SO SMOOTH and subtle. It's my favorite. Vintage is a close 2nd - also warm and smooth. Studio and Modern are clean and neutral and don't have as much character as some of the others. Boutique has TONS of character, and seems to have a wider depth range than other voices. It gets warbly with fairly low depth settings. I was not able to dial in a swirly, hazy Robin Guthrie-type sound with the Hard Wire unit, but for subtle, liquid clean tones like those used by Eric Johnson and Allan Holdsworth, the Hard Wire chorus can get you there easily.
My clean tones have never sounded better!
I checked out the CE-20 a bit more last night. The Dimension chorus setting is a nice subtle flavor. The CE-1 setting adds a little more movement. It's very sweet and liquid sounding. Very pleasing. There is also a lush setting, which evokes a very cool Robin Guthrie type chorus - a little more haze. Really nice!
There are also voicings optimized for bass and acoustic guitar. I haven't explored those yet.
One cool thing that I found out last night is it's possible to mute the dry signal on the CE-20!! This is great news for me since when recording a clean part, I like to put a chorus in the parallel effects loop of the amp, and control the amount of effect heard by setting the mix knob. It allows the pure, straight guitar signal to be recorded, and at lower settings of the mix knob, I can dial in a very subtle, tasteful chorusing that is just enough to add a little motion to the track.
And now the times 2 part: Yesterday I stopped at my local GC and used a $10 off coupon toward a Digitech Hard Wire chorus. The price they gave me was already less than the $139.95 it's listed at on their site, and my coupon took another $10 off. Plugged it in and tried it out last night too. Wow!! The audio quality is pristine. This unit has a 7 position rotary switch to select 7 (!) different chorus voicings. Among them: Studio, Multi(8 voice), modern, analog, boutique, vintage. Like having 7 different chorus units to play with!
My favorites, not surprisingly, are the more subtle ones. Analog is SO SMOOTH and subtle. It's my favorite. Vintage is a close 2nd - also warm and smooth. Studio and Modern are clean and neutral and don't have as much character as some of the others. Boutique has TONS of character, and seems to have a wider depth range than other voices. It gets warbly with fairly low depth settings. I was not able to dial in a swirly, hazy Robin Guthrie-type sound with the Hard Wire unit, but for subtle, liquid clean tones like those used by Eric Johnson and Allan Holdsworth, the Hard Wire chorus can get you there easily.
My clean tones have never sounded better!
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