Chorus
Chorus makes one voice or instrument sound like several playing together — richer, wider, "shimmering". It works by blending in a copy of the sound that's continuously, subtly drifting in pitch, the way two people singing the same note never quite match perfectly. Subtle on vocals, lush and obvious on synths and guitars.
Reach for it when:
- a single voice or instrument feels thin and you want to thicken it without adding a second real take;
- you want width and movement without the more dramatic "jet" sweep of a Flanger.
FX inserts can be added and set up on Free, but they only affect the sound with Premium.
Adding it
On a channel's FX tab, click + Node ▾ → Modulation → Chorus. It drops into the chain just after the selected node. To edit it, pin one of the dock's two panels to it with ⇅, or set a panel to ⟳ Follow FX tab selection and click the node.
In Simple mode, add it from the Effects block's ⚙ instead — see Simple mode.
Where it sits in the chain matters: like the other modulation effects, place it after tone-shaping and dynamics, near the end of the chain — it's a colour/texture effect, best applied to an already-shaped sound.
Reading the panel
The graph plots delay time against time — the continuous back-and-forth motion that gives chorus its shimmer. Left and right are modulated a quarter-cycle apart from each other, which is what gives the effect its sense of stereo width rather than sounding like a single mono wobble.
FEEDBACK doesn't reshape this curve — it controls how much of the effect repeats and thickens rather than the timing of the modulation — so it gets its own readout next to the graph instead.
This panel is compact enough that it has no ⛶ maximize button; it always shares the dock.
Controls
| Knob | Range | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| MIX | 0…100 % | 50 | How much of the effect is blended in against the original. |
| RATE | 0.1…5 Hz | 0.6 | Speed of the shimmer — how fast the pitch drifts back and forth. |
| DEPTH | 0…100 % | 50 | How wide or strong the shimmer is — a bigger pitch drift. |
| FEEDBACK | 0…95 % | 10 | Adds resonance for a more intense, swirly tone. A little richness at low values; higher gets more pronounced and colored. |
A good starting point
- Add it near the end of the chain and start with MIX low (20–30%) — chorus is easy to overdo on a voice, where subtlety usually reads better than an obvious effect.
- Set RATE and DEPTH for the character you want: slower and shallower for a gentle thickening, faster and deeper for a more obvious, wobbly shimmer.
- Raise FEEDBACK a little if you want more resonance and richness; keep it low for something cleaner and more natural.
A vocal chorus that's too obvious can start to sound artificial or "underwater" — for speech and podcasting, a light touch (MIX under 30%) usually reads as pleasant thickness rather than an obvious effect.
Presets, bypass and reset
- PRESET ▾ in the panel header applies a saved setup, or saves the current one under a name. Once one is applied the header shows Preset: name — see Knowing what preset is applied. Ready-made setups can be found in the Workshop — Workshop ▸ Browse, filter chip Chorus.
- ON / OFF bypasses just this node — the quickest way to hear whether it's helping.
- RESET returns every knob to its default.
Related
- Flanger — a more dramatic, jet-like sweep built the same way (a modulated delay), but with a shorter, unipolar sweep and mirrored L/R phasing.
- Phaser — a similarly swirling effect, but built from filter notches rather than a modulated delay — a smoother, more "underwater" character.
- Effects Rack — adding, ordering and rewiring nodes.