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Replicating a tri-stereo chorus with pedals


petejt

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Has anyone tried to replicate a tri-stereo chorus by arranging chorus pedals together?

 

I guess you could do it by running one mono chorus pedal into a stereo chorus pedal that sends a chorused & dry signal to BOTH sides.

 

 

 

This is why I am getting into this craziness....

 

I remember reading some literature on the Dyno-My-Piano Tri-Stereo Chorus (can't find it, blast :( ) where it started from two Boss CE-2 units wired together, one for each channel (left, right).

 

The Dyno-My-Piano was made for keyboards (notably the Fender Rhodes), that has these metal string things called 'tines', that get hit by the keys to electrically produce the notes. I think there are three tines per key, Left for left channel, Right for right channel, and a "centre" channel. The Left tines are all routed to the left channel, Right tines for the right channel, and the Centre tines down the middle, I guess split half for each side.

 

There is one rate control, and each channel (left, centre, right) has its own intensity control, or the width I think.

 

 

I'm not sure if there's some weird phase things going on, such as flipping the phase 90 degrees on one side, and -90 degrees on the other side, or doing a 180 degree phase flip for one side, or different waveforms (e.g. logarithmic, triangle, sine, saw etc.).

 

I'll say more soon.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, has anyone done a pedal setup where they have a chorus on one side, a chorus on the other, as well as a chorus down the middle?

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Re the Fender Rhodes: to my knowledge, there's only one tine for each note. Most of the Stage Pianos had a simple mono out, while the Rhodes Mark II suitcase models had a "vibrato" (tremolo?) effect which fed a stereo power amp. But the raw signal from the pickups is always mono.

 

To replicate the Tri-Chorus, I'd try using three separate mono choruses. Feed them from the same mono source (using some sort of split), and bring their outputs together in a mixer (panning one hard left, one in the middle and one hard right).

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Re the Fender Rhodes: to my knowledge, there's only one tine for each note. Most of the Stage Pianos had a simple mono out, while the Rhodes Mark II suitcase models had a "vibrato" (tremolo?) effect which fed a stereo power amp. But the raw signal from the pickups is always mono.


To replicate the Tri-Chorus, I'd try using three separate mono choruses. Feed them from the same mono source (using some sort of split), and bring their outputs together in a mixer (panning one hard left, one in the middle and one hard right).

 

 

I'm thinking of buying three Visual Sound Liquid Chorus pedals to do something just like that. I reckon those plus a mixer, might do the trick?

 

 

About the Rhodes & Dyno-My-Piano, I found the info I couldn't find before.

 

Yes you're right- there's just one tine per key, so the output is mono as you said.

 

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The idea behind the Tri Stereo Chorus started out as a mod DMP did on Rhodespianos in their earlier days... If someone wanted an onboard chorus paired with the DMP Pro Piano preamp, they usually mounted the board of a Boss CE-2 chorus in the namerail. A bit later DMP designed their Dual Chorus which was basically two CE-2 style units wired together but worked in stereo where the signal was routed left/right. Then, the last step of this mod was to take 1/3 of the 73 (or 88) pick-ups in a Rhodes piano and route them into one chorus unit, then then 1/3 of the pickup to the other chorus unit and then they left the last 1/3 of the pick-ups unprocessed thusly creating a "Tri Stereo Chorus" effect. This idea was later made even better in the DMP Tri Stereo Chorus 618 with three choruspaths with individual intensity.

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Ah... so the tri-chorus was originally intended to chorus three separate sections of the keyboard (so you could have different chorus settings for the bass keys, compared to the mid and treble range). I wonder if the three signals were then routed to separate amplifiers, or mixed toghether in a stereo setup?

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Ah... so the tri-chorus was originally intended to chorus three separate sections of the keyboard (so you could have different chorus settings for the bass keys, compared to the mid and treble range). I wonder if the three signals were then routed to separate amplifiers, or mixed toghether in a stereo setup?

 

 

Nah, I think it means 1/3 of each pickup- basically the output of each key's pickup was split into three, with one third going to the left chorus path, one the the centre chorus path, and one to the right chorus path.

 

And after the chorusing, I think it's just a stereo output configuration. So the centre chorus path must just be split between the left and right channels, I guess making it 1.5 choruses on each side. That's probably why it's so thick & liquid-sounding.

 

I'm not sure how it works for guitar, I think it's just a stereo input? Weird hey...

 

 

 

About the bass, midrange & treble, I think there are some choruses that apply the chorusing to various degrees depending on the pitch of the note, so I think more bassy notes get less chorused than the highs? I dunno, I need to read up on that one, or hopefully someone more knowledgeable chimes in, so to speak.

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No, I think it was actually the keyboard itself that was divided into zones.

 

Then, the last step of this mod was to
take 1/3 of the 73 (or 88) pick-ups
in a Rhodes piano and route them into one chorus unit, then then 1/3 of the pickup to the other chorus unit and then they left the last 1/3 of the pick-ups unprocessed thusly creating a "Tri Stereo Chorus" effect.

It seems they had some keys feeding a chorus in the right channel, other keys feeding a chorus in the left channel and the rest of the keys left unprocessed in the center. Later, a third chorus section was added for the keys in the center path as well.

 

When running this in stereo, though (with the same signal feeding all three chorus paths) I'd imagine things getting a bit blurred up. Which is probably why it sounds the way it does in people's guitar rack systems :D

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  • 11 months later...
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Re the Fender Rhodes: to my knowledge, there's only one tine for each note. Most of the Stage Pianos had a simple mono out, while the Rhodes Mark II suitcase models had a "vibrato" (tremolo?) effect which fed a stereo power amp. But the raw signal from the pickups is always mono.


To replicate the Tri-Chorus, I'd try using three separate mono choruses. Feed them from the same mono source (using some sort of split), and bring their outputs together in a mixer (panning one hard left, one in the middle and one hard right).

 

 

Great idea, I like it :phil:

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I have tried before. I did it a way's back with onw stereo chorus and an echoplex and A/B box. It was really cool but not as good as you have in your head. its one sound. If your tasteful it only impresses if used sparingly. it gets old and kinda muddy after a song or two.

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i've been fortunate to never own 3 chorus pedals at once.. but i'm interested to know what the outcome would be since i'd like to try something similar with phasers.

i have 3 chorus pedals, 2 are stereo, but i only have one amp so i won't get very far :(

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  • 4 weeks later...
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What chorus pedals are they?

back when i posted that i had a tc stereo chorus/flanger, an ibanez rc99 and the zcat chorus/hold/delay

 

now i have a tc scf, rc99, digitech pds 20/20 and a yamaha fx500. and i guess the arion flanger and boss ps-2 can be set to chorus sounds as well :facepalm:

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