Bass chorus, anyone?

notCardio

I walk the line
I don't know why, but Pat Travers' Crash And Burn popped into my head today.

And while I think that particular one is probably a flanger, it got me in the mood again for a bass chorus.

I'm one of those weirdos that got into the chorused fretless early ambient jazzy stuff way back when.

Anyone have any opinions on good/bad/flexible/noisy/quiet units?

It doesn't even have to be a standalone, it could be a feature on a modeler of some sort.

And yeah, it's all opinion, but I'd like to hear yours.
 
I particularly like chorus on a bass. I'm just using stock Protools plug ins.

Usually I'll have a center panned, mono, unprocessed bass track. Then I'll copy that and run it into some gain to crunch it up a bit (sansamp plug), then feed that into a stereo chorus.

Blend the three tracks to taste, and when subtly done you get a huge fat bass tone.
 
So youre interested in playing, rather than for recording, correct?

With my limited experience on bass, seeing how I only really play bass for recording purposes, I've found the boss CE2 chorus pedal works well for bass also, despite being a guitar pedal.

One pedal that is extremely versatile and super quiet is the Strymon Bluesky reverb pedal. Yeah, i know it's a reverb.......but you can get all kinds of chorus sounds out of it.

You can even get 'synth' sounds.
 
I always thought a chorus on the bass would bring it out more and add some depth to it. I've tried it a few times and never really got what I was looking for. Always kind of muddy for me. What are you doing to get it to sound good?

I have the Digitech BP355 bass amp sim stomp box and it has a chorus box sim. It's a little expensive just for the chorus effect, though. :p
 
To me, the key to it sounding good is a subtle use of the effect.
Barely noticeable. But if it wasn't there you'd notice something was off.
 
To me, the key to it sounding good is a subtle use of the effect.
Barely noticeable. But if it wasn't there you'd notice something was off.
I agree with this. when I comes to chorus on bass guitar a little goes a long way. If there is enough on it that you can tell there is a chorus effect on it...there is too much on it.
 
Tried several in the 80s. The one I liked the best was the MXR Bass Chorus Deluxe. When I went to find a picture of one, it was the wrong color. Apparently Dunlop is making them now and they're blue instead of teal...don't know if any of that makes a difference, but that was the hot box in the 80s.

As a suggestion, go sit at GC or equivalent locally and try a few.
 
Fwiw, many (most?) guitar chorus pedals should work with a bass guitar. Not sure I would limit myself to what pedals have been developed specifically with "bass" on their sticker. There's a bunch more guitar pedal options. Some may not work well with a bass guitar due to frequency sweeps that are pre-programmed, but most will be fine since the audible range you're looking to effect overlaps with the lower end on a standard 6 string. If you want to get any fancier (or want to apply effects those lowest frequencies) use plugins.

My $0.02

Most of my bass tracks have a hint of chorus applied to help them fill more of the stereo sound field. I don't particularly care for the 'wet' bass sound I've heard others use, but it does help the instrument jump out of a track. I'm more a fan of adding grit/distortion for definition than phase or chorus.

Like others have said, IMO if you can hear the effect there's too much being applied.
 
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Not to insult your intelligence*, but you may be looking for the sound of a phaser that makes bass have that ringing, musical top end...i.e. Tai Anderson from Third Day (well, not any more, but that's not the point). Try a few of those while you're at it.
*I'm assuming you know the difference, but both sound pretty similar on them low notes. :)
 
Not to insult your intelligence*, but you may be looking for the sound of a phaser that makes bass have that ringing, musical top end...i.e. Tai Anderson from Third Day (well, not any more, but that's not the point). Try a few of those while you're at it.
*I'm assuming you know the difference, but both sound pretty similar on them low notes. :)

Not sure who that reply was for, but I did actually mean phaser in my prior post (correcting it now). :)
 
Well, everyone's talking about chorus on a bass, and it's not as popular as a phaser, but I haven't listened to Crash & Burn in 3 decades, so ...
 
I particularly like chorus on a bass. I'm just using stock Protools plug ins.

Usually I'll have a center panned, mono, unprocessed bass track. Then I'll copy that and run it into some gain to crunch it up a bit (sansamp plug), then feed that into a stereo chorus.

Blend the three tracks to taste, and when subtly done you get a huge fat bass tone.

I always thought a chorus on the bass would bring it out more and add some depth to it. I've tried it a few times and never really got what I was looking for. Always kind of muddy for me. What are you doing to get it to sound good?

I have the Digitech BP355 bass amp sim stomp box and it has a chorus box sim. It's a little expensive just for the chorus effect, though. :p


I have often done very similar to what RFR referred to. Use the chorus as an effect or as a parallel group. I have never had good results using a chorus as an insert. I also like to alter the sound and chorus that. Then blend it in. The key is 'not much' is better than 'too much' IMO.

With the modulation of the low end frequencies that inserting a VST or using a stomp box on the way in creates, that can cause the muddy or inconsistent low end. Need that direct tone prominent.
 
Well, everyone's talking about chorus on a bass, and it's not as popular as a phaser...
IDK about that. Chorus on bass can be heard kind of all over in a lot of different genres.

My approach to most modulation effects in most cases is to set the two knobs (rate and depth) opposite one another. If it's going really fast, it should be really shallow, and if it's really deep, it should go as slowly as possible. As you turn them away from the extremes, they tend to converge on middle of the road, but that's usually too much of one or the other for me. Just a starting point, really, but it has worked well as a rule of thumb for quite a while.

I also tend to stack them in order to get more complex modulations. Like, I'll have a chorus and a phaser in series. A single cyclic effect can get repetitive and boring sometimes, but the interaction of the two out of sync LFOs adds a subtle but important sense of unpredictability.

I mostly end up using ITB plugs for modulation now, but I have always been perfectly happy with my Boss CH1. It's a pretty straight forward, standard sounding chorus, maybe nothing particularly special, but it does have that tone control to add or remove treble from the modulated part of the signal and also that mix knob which gives a different way of calming things down a bit compared to trying to change depth or whatever.

Another cool thing about it is the way it makes the stereo signal: When you plug into the second output, the dry signal goes out there, but is disconnected from the first output, so one side is just the straight dry signal and the other is only the pitch modulated vibrato type sound. This can very easily be exploited to use it as a vibrato on its own, so it's like two pedals in one. My bassist does this all the time, but we figured out that the Mix knob becomes simply a volume for that vibrato signal. We've had troubles in the past where he just wasn't coming through anywhere near as strong as he should. Checked all the cables and even tried troubleshooting a pedal downstream before I realized that knob was most of the way down.

FWIW - In the box I usually end up reaching for Melda's MVibrato and then adjusting Reaper's Wet/Dry mix to taste. I know have they have a Chorus too, but...
 
Ash! Sorry if that sounded like fake news. :) I listened to Crash and Burn yesterday, and I'm still pretty sure that's phaser. I could be wrong. That's kind of what I was trying to say...it just didn't type like it was in my head. Thought speed vs typing speed is one of my biggest problems in life...
AFA Chorus on bass: I already do crossover around 1500 Hz on my bass with the bass left baby bottom smooth and the top saturated a bit to a bunch. Paralleling the top of that through a chorus may yield a pretty nice effect while leaving a solid bass line. I think it would be good to keep the mud out of the bottom. I'll experiment with that. :cool:
I like to do what RFR recommends, but with phaser.
Ash's idea about using both at different speeds is very intriguing...I will spend some time with that as well. One more blade on the ol' Swiss Army Knife of mixing. :D
 
I don't have any idea what song you're talking about, but IIRC the OP said they thought it was a flanger. Now that's an effect I have trouble using for much other than extreme noise! I want to like it, other people use them to tasteful results. I can't ever find a setting that I can stand.
 
If you're still looking for a bass chorus I have the Boss CEB-3 for sale. It has optional stereo output and comes with a power adapter. I'm asking $40 US.

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