Chorus Effect

Chorus is a standard guitar effect. It is meant to simulate the effect of a chorus, which is a shimmering sound that occurs due to slight variations in pitch among multiple voices. However, this effect can be taken much further.

On older records, some of the guitar chorus sounds you hear may not have been made with a pedal at all. They used to use a Leslie organ cabinet to play through, and the rotating speakers inside generated the effect. As you can imagine, this approach is cumbersome, expensive, and just not practical. This is why it was turned into a guitar effects pedal.

The shimmering sound generated can be manipulated by controls for depth and rate on most units, similar to a flanger. However, some units have extra features, such as stereo outputs. With stereo outputs, two signals can be sent from the pedal to two different amps or speaker cabinets. This is a method of enhancing the chorus effect, and can also be used in some pedals to make the sound seem to move from one speaker to the other.

The chorus effect is one of the most popular effects for many players, because it can make the guitar sound bigger, like there are many of them. Also, this effect, like others, can be taken to extremes and achieve some really weird sounds. Popular brands for choruses are Electro Harmonix and Boss, so you may want to start your search there if you are interested.