Making the Most Out of Simple Gear

After too long a respite, I’ve been playing music with people again lately. Last weekend I jammed with my co-worker Chris, and I brought almost all of my effects pedals. It was a mess! Too many wires, too much complexity, not enough reliability. Part of the problem was that I had them all loose, not mounted on a pedal board, but the rest of the problem was just the sheer number. Like Floyd Rose wang bars, that kind of setup is for people with roadies!

Then today I was jamming with a new group, and I brought only a fuzz box, my tuner, and the venerable Boss PS-2 Pitch Shifter/Delay. Three pedals feels about right. Then this evening I rolled them all up into a proper pedal board. I was thinking, “Perfect... But a chorus pedal would be nice.”

Then I realized that with the pitch shifter, I can get a chorus effect. I put it into manual pitch shift mode, then dial up the fine-tuner knob to unison harmony. Then, extremely carefully, I dial it ever so slightly flat. It’s easy to dial it a hair too far and get a deep warble swim effect (also cool).

For non-music-nerd readers, you’ll likely recognize the chorus effect as the sound Nirvana used in their song “Come As You Are”. I recorded a snippet of it without chorus, and then chorus kicks in halfway through.

http://www.noncombatant.org/audio/come-as-you-are-excerpt.mp3

Here is another, more complete example (an excerpt from the song “Nouvelle Chanson” by my old band Boshuda), again with chorus off at first and then on:

http://www.noncombatant.org/audio/nouvelle-chanson-excerpt.mp3

So now the Pitch Shifter/Delay is really three effects: echo, harmonizer, and a credible chorus. Three is a good number!