how do i get a stereo chorus effect from a single track? Panned left and right. not center.

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damianhk

Member
Probably a newbie question. I know how to record a stereo track with my behringer v amp; I just record the stereo tracks at once. Nice sounding chorus. I know how to record another guitar track and pan to get a chorus sound that way. I'm without my v amp, so I'm wondering how would i use a single guitar track and get a stereo chorus? I think i can leave it in the middle and the chorus would be in stereo, but i'd like to duplicate the track, pan them hard left and right, then apply a stereo effect. I don't know how to do that. I can choose a chorus effect in reaper for one track, but i'm stuck on how to apply to both tracks to get stereo effect.
 
Drag both guitar tracks into the "Folder" of the Chorus track. However you'll really want to record the guitar track twice, not just duplicate the track and pan them... that's pointless and all you're doing is making the Mono track louder.

Stereo Chorus FX
- Guitar 1
- Guitar 2

Or just add the Stereo Chorus FX to both tracks...
 
Functionally, reaper treats a mono track panned center and two copies of a mono track panned hard left and right identically.

You could put the two copies of the track into a folder and then apply a single chorus effect to the folder, but you would need to make sure to apply a stereo chorus effect, or it will be identical to the mono signal in the end. And also, you could just apply the stereo chorus effect to the single, center-panned version of the track. It will be identical results.
 
Copying and panning one track gives you the same basic result as panning a single track to the center, so there's not much point in that.

A chorus effect used on an effects bus normally has no original signal in it, just several pitch modulated copies of the signal. If it's a stereo chorus, those copies are panned across the stereo field. That should make your guitar have a stereo sound to it.
 
ReaPitch can do something similar to the classic Eventide H3000 chorus effect. Use two pitch shifters - one at +20 cents panned hard to one side and one at -20 cents panned hard to the other side. However, to completely emulate the Eventide you would need to delay the shifted sound too.
 
As James said, you can recreate the effect yourself, but you can get the best results with plugins designed for that function. Two examples:
- Waves doubler.
- Soundtoys Microshift: this is awesome.
 
I’m sure this doesn’t actually help, more just trivia…

The most iconic ”stereo chorus” effect for guitar is probably the one in the Roland JC amps which is basically the same as the old Boss Stereo Chorus. Both of these create their stereoness by running one side completely dry and clean and applying a vibrato to the other side. The chorus sound comes from the combination of the two in the air, but if you isolate just the wet side, it is in fact just vibrato and can be used as such.
 
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Why not just use a stereo chorus pedal? I have both Boss and Strymon stereo chorus pedals. Instead of just running a mono guitar into the daw, take the stereo out from the pedal into two channels.

The Boss is good, but the Strymon Ola is better. Very clean, as in noiseless.
 
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