Chorus only begins to tell the tale—this machine is overflowing with modulation voices.
EarthQuaker Devices announces the newest addition to their lineup of aural accouterment. The Aurelius is not your run-of-the-mill chorus pedal. Choose from Vibrato Mode, Chorus Mode, or Rotary Mode and manipulate their Width, Rate, and Balance to achieve your ideal sound. Shift seamlessly from one mode to another to cop a blend that is all your own. One simple tap of the Preset switch and you can summon up to six settings of your choosing at will.
Inspired by the 1970s CE-1 Chorus Ensemble pedal, this digital unit has been tirelessly tweaked and fine-tuned to give you an all-encompassing chorus and vibrato experience like nothing else. EQD Founder Jamie Stillman took it way back to the 1940s and the advent of the Leslie speaker to boldly capture the sound of its rotating baffle system for the Rotary Mode. He studied the way that the horn and the rotor moved on Leslie speakers and emulated the phasing and speeds of the low-frequency oscillator, exaggerating the hell out of them to make it suitable for guitar, bass, or your instrument of choice.
The Aurelius is equipped with an expression control so you can use any TRS expression pedal to manipulate the Width, Rate or Balance. Put it in Vibrato Mode and you’ll have a really subtle chorus with a seasick vibrato and alternate quickly between the two seamlessly. And that’s only one mode. The possibilities are endless.
Each and every Aurelius is hand-crafted in Akron, Ohio, USA, and is inspected by the spirit of speaker innovator Donald Leslie.
Learn more here.
A feature-filled pitch-shifting delay meant for maximum weirding.
Wide-ranging and unique functionality. Envelope settings and momentary switches lend extreme interactivity.
Steep learning curve. Stereo input/output is only via TRS stereo cable.
$299
Red Panda Raster 2
redpandalab.com
You could call the Raster 2 a delay pedal with a pitch shifter and modulation, but that would set up inaccurate expectations about the pedal’s sound and function. Instead, like many modern algorithm-driven glitch pedals, the Raster provides a way of interacting with sound. In that way, the Raster 2 is as much synth as tone augmenter.
The Raster 2 offers an intimidating set of controls: six knobs, six switches, two buttons, and two footswitches which have multiple functions. I started simple, only employing the delay, which offers 1600 ms of delay time. At its fastest settings, I added micro-pitch shifting to produce flanger and chorus sounds. Bigger pitch shifts (the control ranges up to an octave in each direction) revealed my favorite sound—a full wet blend and a momentary setting on the pitch shifter footswitch that added percussive, noisy, arpeggiated explosions.
Red Panda Raster 2 Review by premierguitar
All clips recorded using Creston T-Style and Fender Champ, with an SM57 into an SSL 2+.
- moderate delay time, moderate descending pitch shifting, ramp up and down.
- long, moderate, and short delay times, infinite feedback with low blend setting, moderate ascending pitch shifting, square ramp.
- short delay settings with ascending pitch shift set to momentary switch, reverse envelope modulation.
- moderate delay time, slight ascending pitch shifting, envelope-controlled modulation.
The modulation function has seven waveforms plus envelope and reverse envelope settings, the latter two of which are very interactive. At long delay settings and high feedback settings, each of these waveforms can take on a life of its own, oscillating into controllable infinity.
There are nice conventional delay and modulation sounds in the Raster 2, but its most exciting and unique settings are the craziest. There’s cool stereo functionality, but it requires a less-convenient TRS stereo breakout cable instead of simpler separate left/right outputs. And, as with any advanced-level digital pedal, there’s a lot to learn to get the most out of the Raster 2’s capabilities. Even so, the Raster 2 offers quick rewards, too, and is more user-friendly in that respect than it first appears. Most important, it’s so much fun, you’ll want to keep digging in.
Chorus, vibrato, and easy-to-program presets in an elegantly simple design.
Deep and varied chorus and vibrato sounds that are easy to manipulate and access via presets. Nice presence in top end.
Switching between chorus and vibrato can sometimes feel a touch clumsy.
$239
NativeAudio Pretty Bird Woman
nativeaudio.com
NativeAudio’s Pretty Bird Woman chorus and vibrato makes for a nice study in economical design. There are just two knobs for modulation rate and depth, a footswitch that saves and scrolls presets, and a bypass switch that doubles as a vibrato/chorus switch when you hold it down for a few counts. These simple functions govern two very rich and varied modulation voices. And it only takes a little time to see, hear, and feel how the PBW’s design economy and intuitive controls would make it invaluable in a live setup.
PBW’s chorus voice is present and cutting. At minimum depth settings, it dishes very nice 12-string approximations—shimmering sounds that are a touch more thrilling for the clarity in the top end. Middle-of-the-range depth settings, meanwhile, evoke an EHX Small Clone’s queasy wobble. And advanced depth and slower settings give the pedal a lo-fi rotary speaker feel. On the vibrato side, the PBW does a nice, if somewhat brighter sounding, take on a Boss VB-2. But lower depth settings and middle-fast rates yield swampy tremolo-like pulses, while slower rates and advanced depth settings generate molasses-y warped-record oscillations that would be killer in layered guitar mixes. Any four of these divergent sounds can be saved as a preset easily and on the fly by holding down the right footswitch. Scrolling is a piece of cake, too. Taken together, Pretty Bird Woman’s combination of simplicity and range is impressively practical.
Test Gear: Fender Telecaster, Fender Telecaster Deluxe with Curtis Novak Wide Range pickups, Rickenbacker 330, Fender Tremolux