noob questions

[dt200]

1. if i have a battery in a pedal but i use a power supply unit, does the pedal draw power from the battery or the power supply?

 

2. some chorus pedals have a 'delay time' control, what does that actually do? how does it affect the sound? (ive only used choruses with speed, depth and mix controls)

 

3. on eq pedals that dont have a master volume (like mxr 6 band) would having all the sliders up/down work the same as a master volume?

 

cheers

[cloudscapes]

1. usually not (at least if it was designed properly)

2. chorus is actually a very short modulated delay effect. so "delay time" thickens the sound somewhat, kidn of hard to put in words without hearing it.

3. usually

[bieke]

those are good questions
in fact, I'm not even sure if I can answer these correctly, but I'd say

1. pedal that uses a battery and a power supply unit, well, at some point your battery will be drained

2. well, chorus is a kind of short doubling delay effect, so the delay time control shortens or lenghtens time between this doubling, it's a very short delay effect though, typical delay times range between 10 and 30 ms.
short delay gives that typical airy chorus sonds, longer delay times give that throbbing, wobbly chorus

3. well it will boost those frequencies, not really like a master volume, unlike the boost slider on the GE-7 for example.

[bisticles]

To expand on the chorus question, think of a real-life chorus of people. Even when they're singing the same note, you can hear many voices within the mix. That's because each person has a slightly different timbre and tonal characteristic. The effect is a richer fuller version of the original.

To duplicate this in as an effect, a Chorus pedal will take the original signal and mix it in with an oscillated version of itself. The oscillated signal is slightly modulated (detuned) and slightly delayed. It tends to fill out a sound a little bit.

Increasing the delay will result in a richer, lusher chorus, although it can start to get a little bit weird sounding. Just like if you set the depth too high, you can start to sound out of tune.