CE-3 Chorus

Ok, let me first say that I had little desire to own a chorus pedal and this one was given to me by a guy in my office who found out I was looking for gear.  Didn't even charge me for it, so after playing it for a couple of months I think I'll have a pretty un-biased opinion about it.  I ran the serial number and this one was built in Japan in late 1983.  Here's my setup: 2007 Gibson Les Paul Standard > Dunlop GCB-95 > Boss OC-2 > Boss MD-2 > Boss BD-2 > Boss CE-3 > Line 6 Echo Park > Traynor YCS-100H > Traynor Y-212.  This pedal along with my Echo Park are on the Traynor's effects loop.  Everything except the Echo Park is plugged in via a 1-spot (although I have plugged this pedal in separately, and used batteries) To my ear it's a pretty standard chorus, although may lean to the slightly metallic side of things.  It's got a nice lush sound when engaged and works really nicely alongside my Echo Park.  As with a lot of these types of pedals the sound is all preference.  I will confess to thinking it was an 80's sounding chorus the first time I heard it, but after dialing back the rate and depth to the 10-11 o'clock area tended to make it sound more appealing to me, but again this all comes down to preference.  Through my clean channel it makes everything have a nice soft feel to it, with a bit of delay you've got a really nice workable sound. Here's the problem with this pedal: When engaged there's a noticeable drop in my signal.  No matter how I plug it in, either in series or in the effects loop the issue is the same.  It's especially noticeable when you're using any kind of mid to high gain.  It just seems to cut the balls right off everything.  Now, when using a chorus I would want it to flatten the tone a bit to make things sound a little more dreamy, but this thing takes it to an uncomfortable extreme.  Over time I've found a way to deal with (the only distortion I run it with is my MD-2, and I have the volume up a bit higher to compensate).  When I do get it dialed in right I can get a really nice Jane's Addiction style sound, which the flattening effect of this pedal seems to work really well creating that muddy early 90's alt-rock tone.  But be warned by the other reviews who've mentioned this problem, this pedal (or at least some of them, because other reviews do not mention this issue) does need a bit of work to get the most out of it. 

The one I have it nearly 30 years old, granted it spent a great deal of the last decade and a half stashed in my co workers crawl space collecting dust, he gigged it before that and I've had zero problems with it

This is about as easy as it gets, two outputs for stereo (although I've never tried this so I can't comment) and a depth and rate knob.  Just hook it up and go.

Never had to deal with Boss on anything

I'm your standard blues-rock-metal dude, with a bit of jazz, I've played for about 13-14 years.  I've used a few choruses over the years and this one is, while flawed, still a good pedal.  I doubt I'd replace it with this exact pedal if I lost it, I'd probably want to try something else.  But for me, it's good enough to have on the board just for something to screw around with.  I've definitely heard better chorus pedals, but I've also heard way worse than this one.  I do find myself using it most often just noodling around with my delay pedal on creating trippy soundscapes.

I've used this pedal in the effects loop of my Marshall 3203 head. There is a slight boost in volume when using this effect but if I pick or strum a little lighter it balance well in the mix. I used this pedal with and older Carvin X60 head as well and there was a slight increase in volume as well. It must be the inherent nature of this pedal. It's not annoying or anything but it kinda wakes you up a little if you forget to expect it. HA. There is no noise or swirling/swishing sound when engaged with out playing. Even at higher gain settings the pedal is quiet.

Boss stuff is durable and road worthy. No back ups needed.

Very easy to dial in a good sound from this pedal. I like the fact that I can dime the rate and depth knobs and still get a usable effect. I also love that I can switch the dry sound to the left or right to my liking. The one thing that Boss goofy was to mount the middle knob so that it blocks the L.E.D. light. I just turned my pedal 90 degrees when I mounted it to my pedal board. problem fixed.

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I use 2 of these in my effects chain. The sound the CE-3 makes with the rate and depth knobs maxed out is unique to this pedal. I've owned the CE-2, the CE-5, and the CH-1(I think) Super chorus and none of these pedals make that particular sound. The other one I use with the knobs at 12 o'clock for the perfect chorus. I've been playing over 20 years and I have expiramented with lots of pedals over the years. These older boss pedals really do sound better than the new ones. The newer pedals are grainy and digitized sounding. Older Boss pedals are to the new ones like Coleco Vision is to the Playstation 3..HA. I wish it had stereo inputs. If it was stolen or lost I would be dissapointed but not too distraught because there are plenty of these on the used market for 50-60 bucks. Both of mine are made in Japan. One with a black label and the other has no label (came off). I paid $53.00 for one and $32.00 for the other. Still very affordable for a great sounding pedal.

In my opinion this is the chorus of choruses.  I got this in the 1980's and have used it since.  Its tone - very thick Bossy chorus is very 80's.  Very yummy and colorful.  Combined with a Memory Man delay all is perfect in the universe.

Worked for me since what? 1983?

It first look it appears complicated due to all the settings.  But once you plug in you figure it out pretty quick.

Never needed

Play all kinds.  My modeling amp handles my chorsu needs so this pedal sits idle.  Getting a tube amp just to use my vintage pedals and get rid of all this digital crap....