Is Chorus "Cool" again? ASK ZAC EP 37

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask Zac hope you're doing well
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today we're gonna answer the ques the
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question
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of uh is it safe to use chorus again
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is it cool to use chorus and uh
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maybe answer the question isn't the
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exact right phrase i really want to have
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a discussion about what you all think
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because this is something that i've kind
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of been doing battle with for a while
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because of the past and the overuse
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usage of of course so first of all
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you're thinking about it if you haven't
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subscribed already
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go down the corner hit the button
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okay chorus first off uh what is chorus
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well it takes your signal and
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and splits it into two well kind of yeah
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and one side stays dry and the other
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side gets modulated
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and then it mixes it back together and
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then of course the speed and the depth
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controls are controlling how much
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it gets uh you know modulated and how
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fast that is
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now the difference between that and like
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a vibrato pedal
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would be that there's no dry signal
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so in vibrato it's just going in and
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getting modulated
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okay so what makes it coarse is the fact
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that you have dry signal and you have
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modulated signal
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together okay so
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what happened with chorus well
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chorus got really heavily overused
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of course in the 80s and 90s it uh
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you know it was used on everything um
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you know people were it was on vocals it
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was on drums it was on guitars
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and even as a child of the 80s and
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getting my first chorus pedal
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you know i would play clean with the
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chorus pedal on and then when i want to
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do a drive sound i would turn the chorus
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pedal off
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but following the uh you know guitar
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tones of the 80s which of course
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you know in later years i was able to
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really uh you know
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decipher this more uh
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course was on all the time even with
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distortion and drive
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i mean it was on all the time so i'm
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talking about
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hard rock guys uh lukather
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landau I mean everyone was using chorus
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with drive and you know dirty amps
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uh there's a one of the great you know
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kind of treasures
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of the guitar world is a gentleman named
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James Santiago
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and he's you know worked for line six
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and for voodoo lab
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and he's worth he's working with
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universal audio and helped develop the
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aux
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and uh years ago he did a video showing
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how
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the early Van Halen sound was so
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dependent on using
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the phaser along with the drive and then
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how the later sound
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was having chorus on most the time so
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even with like Eddie Van Halen
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uh chorus was just it was ever present
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so what happened was is like
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tremolo in the 50s and 60s and like wawa
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petals and
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phasers in the 70s uh you know chorus
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was
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so overused in the 80s and 90s
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that uh everyone got sick of it
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uh and got to where they you know they
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took their course pedals off
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and uh and and wouldn't touch them
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uh you know it just became a joke you
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know if you if you turned a chorus pedal
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on i remember
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you know taking a course pedal to a
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session you know back in around 2000
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and and you know the engineer and the
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producer were just like dude don't
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you know pull that off your board don't
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use that one and they just started
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laughing
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you know it's like that's been there
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done that
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so i guess my question is it's been
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almost 20 years
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since you know the epidemic and it feels
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like the
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the course pedal has been quarantined
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for last you know
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almost 20 years and uh you know is it
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time that uh
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you know can we can we release the
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hounds can we start using chorus again
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and it not just
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sound like a throwback so anyway
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so that's that's our discussion and i
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hope you will comment
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you know below about uh you know what
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you think about
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chorus's validity in the in the modern
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age or is it just something to replicate
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older sounds all right so
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chorus um i
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tend to lump chorus pedals into one of
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two categories
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one is transparent or kind of clean
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pristine chorus which i know that's kind
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of a
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transparent is especially a strange term
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to use when you're talking about chorus
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but uh that's what i think of when i
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think of the the tc
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chorus and that's actually what I'm
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using today
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so i have a an original early 1980s
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all black tc chorus
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and funnily enough you know
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I wasn't using it very much but another
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reason i wasn't using it was because of
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the power supply it had a hard
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wired ac cable well in learning about
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the circuitry
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i found that internally it quickly turns
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the ac
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into you know around 20 volts or 18
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volts dc
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and that's what it uses in the circuit
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actually
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so i took it to my buddies at exact tone
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solutions
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Greg and Barry and they modded mine
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to where you know they removed ac cable
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and just has a
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18 volt dc jack on there and so now
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you know it's very easy for me to use
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you know I can just uh
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you know set one of the outputs on my
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little uh
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cs6 one spot power supply to 18 volts
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and i can use it when i want to and
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while we're at it I'll just
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tell you you know the rest of the stuff
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that's on my board today because this is
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not my usual board so I'm using the
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mirage compressor like I normally use
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I have a karma copy of a mostorsion
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I have a arion sch1
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that i haven't turned on yet
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and then i have a an old boss dd2
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which which is on and then of course the
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old
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black tc chorus so back to my
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you know lumping into two categories so
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of course
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to me the tc is in the more transparent
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and the other ones I'd put there that uh
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that i like
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would be the boss dc3
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uh that's the digital dimension it's
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kind of a pink pedal
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there's also the dc2 which is the push
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button analog
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one uh I would put that one also in the
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transparent category but
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uh it's definitely warmer sounding and
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but the the dc3 has a mix
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knob on it and that really gives it a
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lot of
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versatility and that sound was used a
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lot I don't have one of those pedals but
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uh I'm going to put it on the back two
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pickups
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Brent Mason really used the dc3 a fair
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amount or at least it sounds like he did
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um so you have uh like on Allen
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Jackson's gone country i think it was
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his
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his telly but he was mixing in a fair
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amount of middle pickup and then he was
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using the
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the dc3 which I'm you know I'm using the
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the tc today but but to get this kind of
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and uh yeah so then of course you have
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the d the boss dc2 which of course
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there's a wazacraft version now
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and that is a little bit warmer sounding
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because it's analog and it's a it's a
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little fatter sounding
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then the other category of course petals
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to me
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is the fat and chewy which they tend to
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boost a lot of base
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and they really are a huge
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thickener so to me that
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that would be you know the boss ce1
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boss ce2 um and the arion
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sch1 and a lot of the chorus pedals
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tend to be in that category and again
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they tend to have
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uh some type of gain boost to them when
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you turn them on they tend to get a
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little louder
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they tend to have more bass to them and
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they tend to have a lot more of that you
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know kind of chewy thing
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so uh underfoot you know I've got the uh
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I've got the tc chorus that I've been
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using and that's what i used at the
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beginning of the uh
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of the show playing a little bit of that
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uh you know crowded house don't dream
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it's over which I'm
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guessing Tim Pierce played that
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um yeah so why don't we uh you know
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compare the sounds
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of the uh of the you know the more chewy
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chorus
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and and the transparent so you just kind
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of hear that so
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so this is the uh um
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this is the tc
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put on the middle pickup
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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and here's the arion
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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now the reason why i still have the
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arion is because of that
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you know the the almost tremolo kind of
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thing that has going on
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um you know that great uh you know
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modulation speed where you know it
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replicates
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you know more of a uh a leslie type
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effect and uh
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you can you know you can set it lower to
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get you know less of that
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but uh man I love it that's one of the
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best things about it and
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it mixes well with uh with drive so I'm
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going to turn the old
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karma most copy on and
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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hey
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[Music]
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that's a that's a great sound and of
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course
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that's a kind of in the vein of the way
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uh you know mike landau and others
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have used it but uh yeah it's a great
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chewy
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chorus i'm gonna turn the rate down a
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little bit so again you get
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you know more of that
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and you can hear when I turn it off and
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on that it's boosting the game
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well if you hit the tc
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it doesn't do that so
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those are uh those are kind of you know
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the the two
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you know kind of types of chorus
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that uh that I like and then the way i
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kind of categorize them
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uh yeah and either into the transparent
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or
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the uh thick and fat and chewy
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kind of category so um
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yeah so i don't tend to like the the ce2
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kind of
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sound as as much anymore because to me
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it's so typical of that 80s 90s thing
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I tend to like either the transparent
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thing or I want the arion
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thing where it's got more uh
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more interest you know to it it's got
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that it's got that you know kind of
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tremolo thing going on where uh you know
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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[Laughter]
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it's got a lot of cool character to it
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so well
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you know in the comments below tell me
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what you think
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you know tell me you know is it is it
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safe you know to your
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to start using trump you know uh chorus
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again
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you know is it uh you know or is it
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still just pass a
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and any time you turn on a chorus pedal
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you know it sounds like the 80s and 90s
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so yeah tell me what you think and uh
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tell me what course is that you like
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and uh yeah all right guys well thank
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you so much i hope you have a great week
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and I'll see you next time