Chorus Effect - Electronic Effect

Electronic Effect

The chorus effect can be simulated by signal processing equipment. The signal processor may be software running on a computer, software running in a digital effect processor, or an analog effect processor. If the processor is hardware-based, it may be packaged as a pedal, a rack-mount module, a table-top device, or built in to an instrument amplifier (often an acoustic guitar amplifier or an electric guitar amplifier). Some keyboard instruments have an electronic chorus effect built in, such as some electronic pianos and some Hammond organs.

Regardless of the technology or form factor, the processor achieves the effect by taking an audio signal and mixing it with one or more delayed, pitch-modulated copies of itself. The pitch of the added voices is typically modulated by an LFO, which makes the overall effect similar to that of a flanger, except with longer delays and without feedback.

Stereo chorus effect processors produce the same effect, but it is varied between the left and right channels by offsetting the delay or phase of the LFO. The effect is thereby enhanced because sounds are produced from multiple locations in the stereo field. Used on instruments like "clean" (undistorted) electric guitar and keyboards, it can yield very dreamy or ambient sounds. Commercial chorus effect devices often include controls that enable them to be used to also produce delay, reverberation, or other related effects that use similar hardware, rather than exclusively as chorus effects.