Fender Chorus Pedal review

Board-friendly stereo chorus

  • £81
  • €95
  • $99
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In addition to the usual speed and depth controls, you also get a mix knob to control the wet/dry blend

MusicRadar Verdict

If you like chorus, you'll find plenty of variations on the theme here.

Pros

  • +

    Straightforward operation. Good feature set.

Cons

  • -

    Nothing new.

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Part of the new Fender Competition Series, this chorus pedal has small footprint and a price to match.

Fender isn't really known for its effects pedals. Sure, there have been some in the past, such as the Blender fuzz, and there were a bunch of re-issues that we reviewed in 2008, but they were all one-offs and nothing like this new homogenous range.

"The Chorus can give you a straight mono output or stereo if you insert jack plugs into both outputs"

Where previous Fender pedals have eaten up floor space, the Competition Series is 'board-friendly with a similar footprint to Boss compacts, and competitively priced - under £50 at many retailers.

The Chorus pedal takes a standard mono input but can give you a straight mono output or stereo if you insert jack plugs into both outputs.

The stereo signal consists of dry sound from the mono output and the modulated sound from the stereo, which, if you have the luxury of two amps, could offer a spacious width.

As with any chorus pedal, you get knobs for the speed (linked to the LED, which blinks in time) and depth of the modulation, but there's also a mix knob here to set the balance of effect and dry signal. This allows subtle blends to be dialled in for a bit of subliminal ear candy if you don't want your core sound to be overly effected.

This is a chorus box that does everything that you could reasonably expect from it, and has a speed and depth range that covers a lot of ground, from subtle doubling to very obvious sweep effects and rotary speaker-style fast warbles.

Trevor Curwen

Trevor Curwen has played guitar for several decades – he's also mimed it on the UK's Top of the Pops. Much of his working life, though, has been spent behind the mixing desk, during which time he has built up a solid collection of the guitars, amps and pedals needed to cover just about any studio session. He writes pedal reviews for Guitarist and has contributed to Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Future Music among others.