FX68 Super Stereo Chorus

I bought this pedal to sweeten up my clean sound as I find that it's not my Marshall JCM800's strong point - rather than run a separate amp for my cleans.  It's hooked up in my signal via a True Bypass loop in a  self-modified footswitch so that the effect loop is only engaged on my clean channel.  Therefore the pedal is always on and the footswitch bypasses it in tandem with channel switching on the amp. When I've briefly used the pedal outside of the loop I've heard no noticeable tone suck or popping/clicking from the FX-68's switch, but I haven't used it extensively in this manner due to the pedal being bolted onto my pedal board for semi-permanent road usage. Before I bought this pedal I tried out some digital chorus pedals but being a sucker for analog tones this little DOD came home with me instead.  I had previously owned another DOD Chorus pedal when I was a teenager (the FX-65) and had such a nostalgic feeling when I heard this pedal that just crushed the other pedals I tried out.

I got this pedal used and it no longer has it's knobs, so it looks like it's taken its share of road wear.  I've owned a few DOD pedals in the past and while they've taken their share of cosmetic damage (often the plastic battery cover goes missing) I have yet to have one fail on me.  I bought the aforementioned FX-65 back in 1991 and it survived in functioning order until it was lost about two years ago in 2006.  I don't expect much difference from the FX-68 which appears to have had a similar well-gigged life from its cosmetic appearances.

The FX-68 has four knobs controlling (from left to right) Level, Speed, Delay Time, and Depth which is quite simple to get a wide variety of good chorusing sounds. While the Level knob hones in how much of the effect is mixed with the dry signal, the other three knobs can quite simply be adjusted to suit your tastes.

Never dealt with DOD/Digitech, but since Digitech has scaled back much of its DOD pedal production in favor of branding the Digitech name on things, I doubt they'd be much help to me with this aging chorus pedal.

While DOD for some reason seems to have a spotty reputation in some circles, I never really understood why.  While they're more prone to cosmetic damage than say Boss pedals, I've yet to have one fail on me, and I'll take metal housing over plastic any day. Due to most of the DOD line being phased out years ago, most of these pedals can also generally be found quite cheaply in the used market and are an exceptional deal compared to contemporary analog chorus units.  I'd definitely urge players to try out an old DOD pedal first if you can find them used for a good price.

Now to really understand your pedal do the following: Set the "Intensity" knob fully clockwise in order to get the full effect; set "Width" to zero, `cause we´ll look at the modulation thing a little later on. If you´re now working the "Delay Time"  knob back and forth you´re doing the LFO´s job thereby exploring the subtle differences in sound this pedal has to offer. Now set "d.-time" and "speed" to zero and "width" to max. The LFO is now going through the full spectrum at a low frequency. As you increase the "speed" the sound gets crazier; if you back off with the "intensity" knob you get back into musically useful territory- a pretty decent rotary speaker simulation. Get the "intensity" knob back to full on and back off with the "width" (modulation depth) instead- again the result is musically useful. Remember: Speed and Width were the only two controls on early choruses; so there used to be just two general chorus settings: fast with little modulation (also called "Ensemble") and slow with more modulation (the pseudo- phaser sound). Now lets get this "d.-time" control back in: set "width" somewhere left of the middle and speed say at about one o´clock; start with the "d.-time" at zero and slowly increase its value. Since you´ve raised the pitch of the delayed signal about a fixed value your overall chorus sound gets brighter. This option yields many variations on those two standard chorus settings that are utterly useful. Keep in mid: the more you increase "d-time" manually, the less room remains for the LFO to do the same thing. Also try this with varying LFO speeds. While on some occasions a rather in-your-face chorus sound is what you want and need, many times the opposite will be true- which is where the "intensity" knob comes in most usefully. Whatever basic chorus setting you´ve chosen here´s your key to giving it a more or less obvious taste. All BBD based units do hiss a little, may they be delays, choruses or flangers. This unit makes no exception to this rule, however it´s neither worse nor better than comparable Ibanez or Boss products. The actual sound of the chorus is excellent and right up there with those overprized vintage Boss units. Believe me: I own all four of the Boss CE´s (including the big old 1 and, actually, the rack mount CE 300), as well as the TC Electronic Chorus/Pitch Mod/Flanger. I says: the DOD FX68 is the guitarists best chorus for the least money.

Mine never had a battery cover. Seems to be a usual problem with those old DOD units; don´t worry: gaffer will do the job. Other than that I have no complaints at all.

Four knobs and an on/off foot switch, still it took me a while to figure out how each knob would affect the sound of this here pedal. If I recall this correctly they are from left to right: Intensity - Speed - Delay Time - Width. Well, this had been my first chorus pedal and back then when I bought it I just didn´t have too much of a clue about the fact that an annalog chorus is really just a special kind of analog delay. Owners of analog bucket brigade delays will know that if you mess with the delay time knob, not only the delay time changes but also the pitch of the delayed signal. In a chorus unit this "messing with the delay speed" is done automatically by means of applying a constantly changing control voltage delivered by a low frequency oscillator (LFO). So the "speed" knob sets the frequency of said LFO, while the "width" knob sets the actual modulation DEPTH or, as it´s often labeled: intensity. Many early choruses (e.g. the Boss CE 1, 2 & 3) featured no more than those two controls. DOD gave us two more very useful features. The "intensity" knob controls the dry vs. effect mix, hence with that knob turned fully clockwise you get the full, deep chorus effect while backing down counter-clockwise yields subtler results. The "Delay Time" control may be used to add an amount of constant control voltage to the varying one of the LFO (a function that is also known under the name "manual").

I´ve said it before, I´ll say it again: this chorus is excellent and costs you next to nothing. Don´t let them fool you with market trends and hip labels. This unit sounds just as good as comparable others and has the benefit of being more useful and more versatile. And while I have those more glamorous horses in my stable I return to my trusty old DOD again and again.