Ugly Guitar Truth: TC Electronic 3rd Dimension Chorus

TC Electronic showed us the next line of their smorgasbord line of effects. There were several interesting things to note. Probably the most noted was the chorus. We are so used to looking pedals with some arrangement of knob that when we see something the 3rd Dimension it is quite striking. A pedal with the non-familiar shape and size of the new TC boxes with four push buttons instead of our trusty knobs. Is this a better way to do chorus? Maybe, maybe not, but let's take a look at it.

Reboxed Behringer?


At first glance, this pedal looks to be a direct reboxing of a Behringer Chorus Space-C with one glaring exception that we'll talk about later. TC is now owned by Behringer's parent company, so they have been put to task taking care of the most repeated complaint of the Behringer effects, their plastic boxes. So now these pedals have a case that, along with a poster a Raquel Welch, could easily aid your escape from prison. To me, the new box seems to be a serious upgrade to the Behringer. Maybe "upgrade" it too strong a word...

Where's the Stereo?


Both the Space-C and the BOSS DC-2 it was based off of took a single input and provided two outputs. However, the 3rd Dimension doesn't provide the 2nd output. Personally, I don't run a stereo rig or stereo effects, so it doesn't really effect me much, but many people do, and those people would benefit from a faithful reproduction of the classic chorus. However, let me remind you that TC teased a Juno-106 type chorus, and people lost their minds. That pedal was also mono.

Limited


The first question I asked when I saw a push button pedal was, "But, how do I dial-in my tone?". Watching the video the TC put out, Tore talks about spending hours fine tuning a chorus sound. Help me out here, but has anyone spent hours doing this? Most of chorus experience has been CE-2 based, so there wasn't much to mess with. I'd think that four buttons lacking any label, other than being numbered, would be harder to tune than clearly labeled knobs, but that would be an unforgivable deviation from the classic... shm.


Conclusion


To the average player who is not worried about the heritage of there chorus, this is a very interesting pedal. The demo that TC did sounded fine. I'm not a huge chorus user, but it can add a little complexity to your sound when needed. I probably won't pick one of these up. Not because I don't like the 3rd Dimension, but because my Lyon (by Washburn) chorus is meeting my chorus needs. Plus... it's Stereo.

Ugly Truth: Digitech Nautila Chorus/Flanger

Digitech has announced a new pedal in the expanding line of compact effects. The Nautila is a chorus and flanger. One at a time that is. Their are You add 8 chorus voices or 4 flange voice and blend the waveforms to your hearts content. Stereo I/O and foot-controllable speed feature are packed into this slim package. Not only that, but this pedal leaves nothing to be desired as far as looks either. Like most of the pedals in this like, it has a 'boutique' vibe and solid feel.

This pedal has impressive features for such a compact pedal. Boasting "never before heard Tidal Swirls", this pedal seems to pretty proud of its self. With controls for Mix, Drift, Voice, Emphasis, Speed and Depth, it is anything buy simple. There is a clear nautical theme with this pedal. This leads me to believe that they had wet, oceanic sounds in mind when designing it. If that sounds exiting to you, then you might want to give this pedal a try. However, with all the combination capable of this pedal, you might want to give it some considerable time.

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The Ugly Truth About The Electro Harmonix Nano Clone

If you were like me, I've heard chorus in a ton of classic songs, but I had no idea what the sound was much less called. Those that use this effect will add it to make a subtle effect, others will add chorus to make a spacey, trippy type effect. I fall into the first category. I don't typically play big swells and soundscape type stuff, but it is something that mess with in a bedroom type setting. Delay, Chorus, and Vibe are some of my favorite thing to experiment with. So when I sat down with the Nano Clone I had some ideas of what it should sound like. What I ended up with was a little surprising.

One Knob Does It All

The first thing that you notice about this pedal is that it has a single knob. So if you want to control the depth, you are out of luck. However, the Nano Clone is a direct descendant of the Small Stone, which is legendary in it's own right. This translates into familiar, usable tones. This pedal is a great option for anyone getting into chorus and wants something simple and usable. When I started playing with this pedal, I felt like I needed more knobs to get anything desirable. Despite first impressions, There are many settings that are pleasing. However, the experienced player looking for particular tones might be disappointed with the lack of control.

There Is a Limit

Given my choice of playing, it is not a surprise that my favorite settings are on the lower end of the pedals settings. Everything that I could see using would be set before Noon. Up to that point, everything is pretty chill. When the knob get much past 12, the pedal develops a metallic sound that is somewhat unmusical. These setting might compliment certain styles of music, but they are diffidently outside my comfort zone.

The Result

In all honesty, this is a reboxing of a classic pedal. There has been changes to bring the massive Small Stone into today's compact pedal market. The original also had a strange power supply. Many of the quarks of the original have been brought into today's standards. EHX's standard Aluminum case, true bypass, and decals are present. What else is appealing is that it is less than $50 USD. So it might be the right solution for someone looking to get into chorus and doesn't want to invest a great deal of money. This pedal is not the best chorus I've ever played through, but it definitely brings a lot of good things considering the price.