Re: Black Label Tone Sucker Chorus
I use a pretty straight forward setup. I have a Dunlop 535Q -> Tubescreamer -> 10 Band EQ -> the Chorus -> MXR Smart Gate. I use DiMarzio jumper cables for the pedals, and 18.6 ft Tweed Fender cables. That goes into a Peavey Windsor that I had rebiased for 6L6's (I like to have my distortion come from the box, so I can get really clean sounds from a one channel amp).
When I use the chorus in my chain, it almost forces me to keep it on all the time, because when it's bypassed, it gets this horrible noise that sounds like rushing water as well as sucking out all the mids. I literally had my 10 Band set for everything in the the mid range to be boosted while cutting all the treble and bass, and even then there was still no mids to be spoke of in my signal.
Also, according to Dunlop's most recent bypass list, the chorus is buffered.
Here's the link. Scroll all the way down, and there should be a picture that says expand. It's the list of all the Dunlop Electronics and what sort of bypass they have.
http://www.jimdunlop.com/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-true-bypassing/
As a side note, I would use the Smart Gate just after the Wah and, set up to minimize the noise with your guitar's volume at full but iddle status (don't playing, hands off your fretboard, rest of pedals off).
At the end of your chain, it can be gatering your signal and then, sucking your tone.
About Chorus and other modulation and filter pedals, since they affect phase signal and some bands of frequencies, I've found absolutely a must to have a LEVEL or VOLUME control that allows you to restore the loudness after the effect. I am not talking about the mix or blend control that allows you to choose the mix of dry and wet signal, but the overall output loudness.
This kind of pedals often sound to us as if they were lowering the input dry volume at their wet output. Maybe it's just a psycho-accoustics thing but, it's usual.
By example, when you switch on an EH Small Stone, the volume seems to notablely drop.
An awesome Chorus true bypass, not tone sucker and with a level control is the Wampler Nirvana Chorus, not cheap, BTW.
Considere also to upgrade your guitar's cables (guitar-> pedalboard and pedalboard->amp).
Probably, those Fender Tweed cables are removing lot of high end that is being suddenly revealed when you switch on the buffered chorus. Since the buffer restores the signal strength and high-end content, if you had set up your up to enhance (the lost) high frequencies, when switching on the chorus' buffer you will have an excesive amount of high end that will make your sound thinner, tinner and hollower.
You can make your own awesome guitar cables with reasonablely priced and second to none Mogami 2524 bulk cable and some Neutrik jack plugs.
Those are in the same sonic ballpark of Evidence or Vovox cables but, way cheaper.
