reverb vs chorus

[bcdon]

(sorry, a tad chatty tonight)

I played a couple chorus pedals today and, although I didn't like the pedals per se, I did like the vibe. Playing tonight I have the reverb on my Boogie and began wondering, does reverb give the same feel as a chorus pedal? Perhaps the store/pedal I played today didn't cut it, but my reverb gives me that chorus feeling. Am I off kilter? Perhaps it's the 3 Monts .. what say you?

 

[Bookkeeper's Son]

No. Chorus involves a pitch shift.

 

[bcdon]

No. Chorus involves a pitch shift.

Okay, so the pitch of E is shifted...how?

 

[Bookkeeper's Son]

I can't give you a technical explanation, but disn't you see/hear Ch0jin's recent thread about chorus?

If you want technical, I'm sure it'll be addressed by one of the more technical guys.

 

[marnold]

IIRC chorus takes your signal, delays and detunes it depending on how the pedal is set and then mixes it back in with your original signal. The original goal, as I understand it, was to imitate the sound of a 12 string guitar.

Reverb on the other hand tries to imitate the sound that you would get if you were playing in a large room.

 

[deeaa]

Correct. I'm not a tech but they are pretty simple devices.

A chorus does take a part of the original signal, detunes it and sums it back to the original, creating a feel of another instrument ghosting the original. Often there is also a low band oscillator to give it variation. It was indeed devised to mimic a 12-string but then current technology did a poor job at it and accidentally created what we hear as a classic guitar chorus now.

If you add a delay circuit to the chorus, the detuned signal will vary in phase with the original and you get a flanger, where alternating frequencies are out of phase, cereating a swirling feel.

Reverb basically just takes the signal and delays it and mixes back to the original, the difference between a reverb and delay/echo is in that a delay basically delays the entire signal, but a reverb again takes a part of the original signal and sends it a longer route, mechanincal ones quite literally thru long wires (spring reverb) or thru a huge long metal plate (plate reverbs), and sums it back with the original.

So verb and chorus at a very mild setting can indeed sound a bit alike, especially plate & spring verbs IMO. Both add a delayed signal mixed with the signal and while only chorus detunes it, reverb may also get some similar variation.

 

[Ch0jin]

I had a few beers over lunch so I'll leave the tech out and just say Deeaa is spot on.

I'm surprised you thought they sounded similar though, Reverb generally just emulates being in a big room, where as chorus adds modulation. Then again, I tend to play more with the extreme settings so I might have missed the subtleties.

Just me, but I only really like chorus on clean guitar.

 

[markb]

I had a few beers over lunch so I'll leave the tech out and just say Deeaa is spot on.

I'm surprised you thought they sounded similar though, Reverb generally just emulates being in a big room, where as chorus adds modulation. Then again, I tend to play more with the extreme settings so I might have missed the subtleties.

Just me, but I only really like chorus on clean guitar.

Or, chorus goes whoosh and reverb goes boing

A favourite do it all time machine http://www.visualsound.net/index.php/products/guitar_effects_pedals/v2_h20. The Boss DD-20 is pretty cool too but much more hi-fi than the Visual Sound.

 

[bcdon]

I had a few beers over lunch so I'll leave the tech out and just say Deeaa is spot on.

I'm surprised you thought they sounded similar though, Reverb generally just emulates being in a big room, where as chorus adds modulation. Then again, I tend to play more with the extreme settings so I might have missed the subtleties.

Just me, but I only really like chorus on clean guitar.

Well, I had a few myself. That said, both were in small rooms, low volume and super clean settings. I just thought they had similar vibe, but it could have been the beer hearing.

Thanks for the explanation, dee!

don

 

[cebreez]

I know what your saying bcdon. I have a chorus pedal but usually keep the effect fairly subtle. Therefore when the reverb is up and I'm firing on both bucks on a clean channel I get a very similar sound. Different but similar. I can play 5 songs with chorus on then play the same 5 with the chorus off and could not tell you which I prefer. I use the chorus more towards my mood than the actual sound of the song.

 

[Bookkeeper's Son]

I'm pretty new to effects, having only had the Roland Cube for a year or so. Chorus is becoming a favorite when I'm playing and singing alone; it helps fill up the dead space, if you know what I mean, what with the tonal overlap and the sustain. And thanks to another thread here, I really like the combo of chorus and delay, which is even more better.

 

[bcdon]

Thanks, cebreez. At least I'm not alone, or at least I'm not the only one drinking. ;-) :dude

 

[cebreez]

I agree Bookkeeper's Son... Although I don't have a delay at the moment. That will certainly be one of my next pedal builds. As soon as I quit destroying boxes by misdrilling the holes!! Online now to order a couple more victims.. I mean boxes.

I would actually use the delay more than I would the chorus. I mean the chorus works really well on some of the Keith Whitley stuff I do but not really anything else. SRV sounds much better with delay and reverb.

 

[FrankenFretter]

I run my stereo chorus as a splitter for my two amps, the Vox Night Train and the Blackstar HT-5. Run that way, it adds a lot of depth to the tone, making it sound very big, for lack of a better word. Oversimplified, I would say chorus adds depth, reverb adds space. This coming from the guy that only plays in his attic, so YMMV.

 

[Katastrophe]

I dig chorus as an effect for clean tones. A touch of chorus, a little delay, and it sounds great! Chorus is tricky, though, as too much can turn a tone into a warbly, detuned mess. Every once in a great while I'll get the urge to add some chorus to a distorted tone for that Zakk Wylde sound. The urge usually disappears after about a minute, though.

Reverb (as others have said) just sounds like playing in a big room, or an empty room with shiny surfaces. Don't know why the two sounded similar, except that it had to be the 3 Monts!

 

[cebreez]

Don't know why the two sounded similar, except that it had to be the 3 Monts!

And I fail at trying to explain it. But here is what I run normally: Peavey T-60 both bucks on, phase switch off... into a BBe Main Squeeze at 3 and 12, a Fender Volume Pedal at 15%, then a BBe Sonic Stomp at 3.5 and 2.

My amp is a Peavey Classic 30 set as follows'
Normal - 5.5
Reverb - 9
Bass - 8.5
Mid - 5.5
Treble - 9.2
I do keep the eq of the guitar leaning more toward the mid to high so lingering around 4-6 but the volume higher on the neck than bridge.
ALLLL that being said.... I get a very open airy chimey kind of ring especially with playing rolls or modulating a run up the neck. Very reminiscent of a subtle chorus. Very similar to SRV's sound when he plays Lenny. The cool thing about it is when I play down on the neck I get some clean thumping bass notes but when I ride up the neck the high notes really sing!
My point to all of this is I keep the wet/dry level of my Chorus set below half almost down to a quarter and the rate slowed down a bit. Sounds better when I'm playing chords down the neck and really gets lost when I go up the neck. I never did like the detuned sound.. Its like something broke and I couldn't fix it.