Chorus for bass:
a thicker tone without losing the lows

A chorus blends your sound with a slightly detuned copy that keeps wavering. The bass gets thicker and shimmers, as if two instruments were playing together. The secret on bass: keep the low end solid, with a moderate mix.

What it does to your sound

A chorus makes a copy of your sound and delays it by a tiny amount, a few thousandths of a second. That delay isn’t fixed: an oscillator keeps changing it, slowly. As it changes, it nudges the copy’s pitch up and down ever so slightly.

Blended together, the original and the copy are never quite in tune: that’s what happens when two musicians play the same note, or in a choir, hence the name. Your ear hears a wider, richer sound that shimmers.

On a bass, that slight detuning gets in the way in the low end: a very low note that wavers loses its footing and seems to float. That’s why you keep a good share of dry signal.

What it’s for on bass

• Pop and new wave: a bass that shines and sings, on lines in the mids.
• Ballads and arpeggios: a softer, wider sound under the vocals.
• Jazz-rock and fusion, especially on a fretless, where it goes with the singing quality of the note.
• Chords and harmonics: high up the neck, it opens up the sound.

The controls, one by one

A starting point

1. Set RATE slow, around 0.5 Hz, DEPTH in the middle and MIX low.
2. Play a line in the middle of the neck, then raise the MIX until you hear the thickening.
3. Then play on the E string: if the low end floats, bring the MIX or the DEPTH back down.

For comparison: the UnitBasse Synthwave factory preset sets its Chorus to RATE 0.4 Hz, DEPTH 50 % and MIX 40 %, after the Synth and before a Delay.

The pitfalls

• Floating lows: too much MIX or DEPTH and the low notes lose their footing. That’s the number one trap on bass.
• A sound that goes soft: a strong chorus left on all the time takes the definition out of your attack. In a busy band, save it for certain parts.
• Seasickness: a fast RATE with lots of DEPTH gives a vibrato that quickly gets tiring.

Where to put it in the chain

After the amp and the drives, with the other modulations, and before the delay and the reverb. After a drive, it modulates a sound that’s already rich; before one, the drive flattens its wavering. That’s its place in the classic order.

In UnitBasse

The chorus is called Chorus, nicknamed Lagoon, in the Modulation family, along with the Flanger, the Phaser and the Tremolo. Its screen shows the oscillator over two seconds: you see the speed and the width of the wavering. It has no feedback control: it’s a true bass chorus, not a flanger. You’ll find it in the Synthwave factory preset.

Frequently asked questions