Ten days ago I talked about analog vs. digital guitar effects, and how in blind tests, people can't figure out which is which. Confirmation bias becomes the biggest factor in people's arguments.
There's a very vocal subsection of these groups that argue over this with regards to the chorus effect (the shimmery, "underwater" sound that Nirvana featured as the intro for "Come As You Are"). This always spirals into which company makes the best chorus device, and which specific product by that company is the best one.
By watching a number of videos where people test chorus devices (almost never blind tests!), I've realized that many people making the videos have no idea how to use the options given to them. They invariably set all the knobs to "noon" (the middle setting), thinking this is going to provide some baseline sound across all the pedals.
Time after time the Boss CE-5 gets poor reviews when reviewed like this, people claiming the effect isn't pronounced enough. This is because, by design, it isn't pronounced with these settings.
There are two knobs people are not using properly. The first is all the way to the left: the effect level. This is neither a volume knob nor a "blend" knob. What it does is take the chorus effect that is being created via all the other knobs, which is then applied, at the rate dialed in via effect level, to the original guitar signal. So if this dial is set to noon, the chorus effect is only getting partially applied. If fully counter-clockwise, the chorus effect is basically at zero (as if the pedal is off). So for full effect, and to be more in line with older chorus pedals that don't have this knob, crank it all the way clockwise.
The other knob people misuse is all the way to the right: filter. This is in fact two knobs stacked on top of each other: one controlling treble frequency, the other bass. People mistake this for a type of EQ, thinking if they set these knobs in the middle, they're getting a balanced sound. However, this is incorrect. What the knobs do is apply the chorus effect to the treble and bass frequencies based on how far clockwise the knob is turned. So at noon, it means the chorus effect is only being partially applied to the respective treble or bass frequencies (and all the way counter-clockwise, it's effectively off). To achieve the sound of older pedals that don't have this adjustment, filter must be turned fully clockwise.
If these rules are applied, then the chorus "magically" has the body, saturation, and depth that are in highly regarded classic analog chorus pedals like the Boss CE-2. Additionally, with the extra controls, one also gets ways to shape the sound that simply aren't available on the older pedals.
The moral of the story? Just because someone has a YouTube video that draws conclusions about a thing doesn't mean the conclusions were arrived at with proper methodology.
