10 Chorus
chorus was used on just about every guitar track during the 1980s
Don’t bore us, get to the chorus! Well, okay, then. Often unfairly maligned as ‘the 80s effect’ owing to its use on just about every guitar track during that decade, chorus is designed to imitate the shimmer-y sound of a chorus of singers trying to pitch the same note. Essentially, it splits your guitar signal into a ‘dry’ half and a duplicate ‘wet’ signal, which adds a series of short delays and pitch variations. The wobbled signal is then blended back with the dry signal (if you remove the dry signal entirely, you get a vibrato effect instead).
Without getting too tech-y, the differences between the two sounds produce a ‘comb filter’ effect, a series of harmonically-ordered notches in the frequency spectrum of your guitar tone. These differences can then be manipulated by rate and depth knobs, while many choruses also offer level and EQ settings, too.
The original choruses, such as Boss’s much-lauded CE-1 Chorus Ensemble, were based around analogue ‘bucketbrigade’ delay chips and are famed for their deep, syrupy tones. Modern digital units, such as TC Electronic’s Corona Chorus, offer increased clarity and versatility, including multiple choruses at once, as well as stereo outputs and increased EQ options.