Arion SCH-Z

This is the latest update of the Arion SCH1 Stereo Chorus pedal; it is extremely easy to use and has an excellent 'ready-to-go' all-purpose chorus sound. Now made in Sri Lanka; still available to buy new, still cheap, still plastic. Very easy to use. The 'manual' is hilarious. And it came with a battery, too.

I tested this with a modified Strat System 3 against an old Arion SCH1 (made in Japan), into a modified Vibrochamp. Sound really is identical except that the old pedal has more treble in the tone control; where the new SCH-Z has tone full up, the older pedal has it on about 3/4. Takes away the harshness. It is not noisy and there are a range of useful settings/sounds - easy to get an Andy Summers-type sound, and with a compressor in front those clean L.A.session sounds are there too. Putting an od/dist in the middle of the chain didn't do it for me, there are other choruses that go better with distortion I would think. So if you are after the SCH-1 chorus sound, here it is. It doesn't get a '10' but that's sort of the point - this is a workingman's chorus!

Buyer beware; it's all plastic and a size 12 tripping over or stepping on this on a darkened stage will very likely break it. You can wiggle the pots/knobs from side to side, but don't. It's a bit fragile and in fact I will be taking a (metal case) backup to the gig. As for reliability, see above - it's going to break eventually, and sooner if you don't treat it well. This pedal is worth it for the sound and because the plastic casing makes it cheaper to manufacture and buy. It's built well enough for what it is, but don't sell your other chorus either. Can I mark it down because it's not in a metal case? I guess I have to. But it hasn't gone wrong on me yet.

When you buy from a retailer in the U.K. there is still often a 1 yr guarantee on most things, however these days you have to read the small print. There's no warranty or guarantee slip with this and I would expect no more than 60 days warranty from the retailer, although it might be possible to email the company and deal with their rep if it went wrong. As it's cheap it would not be worth getting it repaired anyway, you might as well buy a new one.

I play jazz, rock and blues in a covers/function band and have a couple of improvisation projects; I have been playing over 33 yrs and like most guitarists have been through quite a bit of gear in that time. I currently use Fender amps and guitars for the most part. If this was stolen or lost I wouldn't necessarily replace it at once, but buying a new one is so cheap that you can afford it. As far as (analog)stereo choruses go, I also have the 2 DOD ones, the MXR re-issue, a Peavey bi-chorus, a Marshall Supervibe and really they're all different, and all have their strengths and weaknesses. This is a very good generic chorus and I'd grab this or the DOD65 in a hurry as the others take more time to set up. My Boss choruses are in an SE50 and SE70, i.e. digital with menus.

Can take some time to dial in just the right sound, but not to hard to tweak once you have it set up.

This this is awesome, let me tell you, it's better than the Korg chr-1 (see my review on it), the Boss ch-1, the Boss CE-5, the Electro-Harmonix Clone Theory, the Electro-Harmonix Small Clone, the Electro-Harmonix Small Clone Nano and the Ibanez cs-9. It's so nice and sweet and mysterious sounding and can go from dark and smoky to very bright sounding. It is very comparable to the original SCH-1 which is the pedal that made me interested in checking it out. Arion went out of business shortly after I bought my first Arion (the HU-8500 tuner pedal) and I found this on ebay (shipping included) for $60, back when you could get these from Musicians Friend they were $25 a pop, but this is still a better deal than any of the pedals listed above (even though the Nano is $53). If you are fortunate enough to find a NEW one on ebay or elsewhere buy it, I wouldn't suggest buying a used pedal, my first chorus was a Korg Chr-1 and it just dyed, that's why I got this one, stomp boxes have a relatively short life for audio equipment so you shouldn't buy them used!

Don't know about the specific quality of this one, but my Hu-8500 tuner pedal has held up well so far and the man who inspired my to get into Arion has a SCH-1 & a HU-8500 (check my review on it) that are roughly 15 years old. No worries for reliability here as long as you don't abuse it.

Can't find anything on customer service, but Arion makes quality products.

Incredible I haven't found a unit that compare to the sound quality this thing produces, the closest I've come is the ch-1. Get One!

I think it is a very easy unit to get a great sound. It just takes a little time to adjust your settings and the tone knob. The manuel is
useless and has no sample settings at all.I may get it upgraded to the sch-1 and would like it to have two switches for the different
speeds,since it is very leslie like.

the sound quality is very good and I owned one eions ago(remember when
chorus was cool)and from what I remember sounds a lot like the sch-1.
It seems they changed the tone control and I remember the sch-1 being a little fatter at 12,oclock but also got a lot muddier with the sch-1.The unit seems just as quiet as the original and has a little what they call a zipper effect but no more than any other chorus.The thing I hate compared to the original is the slight volume boost but is great for the distortion,as it puts the effect out front of you.I am running it with a jackson dxmg with all AMERICAN electronics and Duncam pickups.I also have a okay crate gt1200h and old carvin 4-12
with celestions in it.I am putting together a new board at present time and have a line 6 uber metal,arion chorus and a guyatone delay.
I like real transparent effects and into gilmours clean sound with the
delay and chorus.I have just ordered the maxon od881 and hoping it will make my distortion more natural and transparent.Love the old ts-808 and the sd-9 but always hated the mid hump and the feeble tone knob,so hoping the 881 will give me these sounds as well as new ones and have better control over the sound with a real tube and better eq.

It seems dependable and if it is like the original will not need a backup.I have not gigged with it but assume it will be fine.The thing that really bothered me was people here said it would not run on a power brick,well mine does just fine and seems to be smoother being regulated properly.

never have and from what people said,could contact George Bush easier,lol.

I play progressive type metal,with pink floydish clean sounds and need a chorus for mainly broken chord work.It seems to work great and will be better I think with the od881 as the uber metal colors your sound too much and has the crappy mids that are like the metal zone and I just hate.I may have it modded to the sch-1 but seems okay to me
at the present time and only hate the volume boost but seems clearer than the original tone circut.Having the bbd chip I can get just about any old chorus sound.Think the secret is the tone knob,even though the boss ce-5 and ch-1 have one,just seems thin all the time.
Have owned almost any chorus you can think of and can get ce-2 boss chorus with the tone backed at 12 or 11.Prefer the tone at 1 o'clock
as it clears it up and most chorus pedals sound like 12 0'clock to me
with ethier to much high end or not enough.I feel like full circle as this was my first chorus pedal I bought and have tried evrything but the ce-1 just about.I love old rush and alex had one and can get that sound with a little tweaking,think hemispheres very inspiring for me growing up.No pedal is perfect,so I will give it a 8 because of the slight boost but for the money no complaining here.I think it is the best chorus out there and even though I have never played the ce-1(rarer and more expensive like a binson echo)have supposedly heard it on rush albums and sounds like this and the ce-2.Just use the tone knob to make it unclear and grainy like most boss choruses if you want.

It's not hard to use ... just a few knobs. It's just not easy to get it to make any decent sounds

I'm have a Jazzmaster, Jagmaster, and two Teles ... all but one of the Teles outfittted with Seymour Duncans. I'm playing through either a Traynor YCV-50 w/EL34s swapped for 6L6s and retubed with Groove Tubes 12ax7s or a Blues Junior with a Jensen.

Yeah, this thing makes a chorus sound, but the net effect is a thin lifeless sound, not the full, rounded effect I'm looking for.

Maybe some day I'll find a reason to use it ... I'm certainly not reaching for this pedal when setting up for a gig.

three knobs easy

Shit! It cut's out your notes while playing. Haven't any of you guys noticed that? Or did I just get a lemon? It doesn't let the note sing out, it cut's it in and out, no matter what setting I gave it. it was driving me nuts so I got a dana electro milk shake and that chours just blows this Arion SCH-Z
away HANDS DOWN! I am happy that you all like it and it works for you,
but I have to say this is without a doubt the worst chours I have ever heard.
I also bought there mte tubulator and that thing is fantastic way better than this unit. Sorry arion you need to work on this unit.

throw it in the trash.

Easy to use chorus pedal. Just take some time to turn the dials and experiment with the different types of chorus you can get with this pedal.

What a pedal. I have not tried the original SCH-1 that everyone loves, but I sure do love this pedal. It gets several different chorus sounds. However, I leave mine set on a leslie type vibe all the time. It nails "Cold Shot". For $30, there is no reason you should not have 2 of these for different settings. There is no signal loss with this pedal. It actually boostes my sound when engaged. I find no fault with the sound of this pedal.

??? Plastic? Come on. I am afraid everytime I play with this pedal. When I am flying around clicking this pedal and that pedal, I don't have time to think about being careful with the Arion. If this think was built like a tank, it would be a perfect 10. But it's not.

Never needed them, but I don't think I could find them either. I have never seen a website for them. So, I don't even know if they still make pedals.

If this pedal was lost or stolen, I would cry. But then I would realize that it only costs $30 and would go buy another one. It is an important part of my sound. If you want a great chorus, don't worry about being hip and having the older one. This pedal is a great value and sounds great. I have a $100 Boss Chorus that sits next to the Arion on my board that wishes I used it half as much as the Arion.

Its a chorus, Rate, Depth and Tone, with extra high boost and mono/stereo switch, it doesnt get more easier than this

I used mine , used i will explain later, with this config: either a leas paul copy, ibanez strat copy or iceman to a morley bad horsie , boss ds-1, ibanez tubescreamer, arion sch-z chorus, arion digital delays, peavey bandit 112 . Let me say this pedal amazed me , it had a great sounding chorus, very deep and lush it was beautiful while it worked.

Unreliable as heck, this is a piece of shit pedal made of plastic that crapped out on me after a couple of months and after the musiciansfriend warranty expired, i had waited for it for a whole month because of the back order and after 46 days it crapped out on me, so if you can buy something else because it may happen to you.
If your wondering what the problem was with it, it woulnd mix the dry signal with the wet signal no matter the position of the depth control, and since it was so cheap, i didnt even care to fix it, got me another pedal:)

I dont even care to deal with the company , its japanese and their website is almost imposible to find , i found it once i think and that was it, anyways i put my miserable pedal to sleep a long time ago.

This pedal may sound awsome, but what good is an awsome sounding pedal if it doesnt work? , so do yourself a favor and steer away from it unless your a qualified technician, and you want to spend money trying to make it more dependable, which is simply stupid with the amount of used and in good condiotion choruses on ebay.

wow to eas-z to use. great sound. go's great with my chaine of pedals .manual really don't need it.this pedal is great for what i use it 4.

ibanez scream demond-mt2-dan-e.q-flanger-sch-z.dd-3-marshalljcm2000 dsl-marshall cab 1960.all i can say that this pedal is great i love it.. it is made of plastic but not worried about that .. the sound that counts to me..ok u can get a lot of sound out of this baby- great pedal got mine from musicans friend -on friday of june10-05-killer pedal ....

i can depend on this not a problem ...no need back up

never delt with them . some people said that u can't get a hold of them at all . so not really worried. for 29.99 can't go wrong.

i play metal -jazz progrestion - and lead and i find this pedal to be up there with the big ones..i tried this pedal out before a while back and i think this pedal is just as good as the boss pedal and some others- it do's make a diffrence in your sound to get a great sound of the chorus- i think for the price u should grab it .. and 4 the sound - o-yea...great pedal....just get this pedal -and try 4 your self ...

3 knobs-tone for the tone, the rate for the speed of the chorusing and depth for the thickness or wideness of the chorus. There is a stereo switch which gives you stereo chorus (suprise). This sounds good with headphones and with an amp capable of stereo (makes the chorus nice and spacial). For this you have to change the output (one for direct, one for stereo) as well as using the direct:stereo switch on the unit. Could be confusing, but you get use to it.
There are four main sounds in this thing:-
1)A shiny tone- With rate at nothing and depth at full
2)Light chorus- Rate and depth at half way
3)Chorus- Rate at half depth at three quarters
4)Psychedelic chorus- Rate and depth and full
I have the tone always at halfway

Peavey raptor special into Crybaby-big muff(russian)-boss Ds1-Arion schz-zoom 505 11 into an mg series marshall. Good sound- best on a clean tone. Not a beautiful warm chorus, but warmer than the one on the zoom 505 11. Kind of brittle in tone, which you might like or dislike. Beautiful for arpeggios (the best use for a chorus). Better than the Boss ce-5, and you can nail some pretty good eighties chorus sounds. Good with a light distortion on the bridge pick-up-very Pretenders like. Nice with the wah done slow-a very unique-phase like effect. With a heavy distortion (DS1) and the tone rolled down on your guitar, you can get some cool space like effects. Makes the flanger effects on the zoom nice and luscious and thickens them up. I use a power supply - this thing eats batteries for breakfast.

The battery case on mine is broke and the plastic would not survive any one who stomps too hard. Although i tend to find you only stomp distortions and overdrives hard (you can't help it - it just comes naturally!). Not the most dependable box, but probably reliable enough to gig without a backup. Definately not up to the standard of a boss.

Never used them.

It suits my tastes just fine, as i mentioned it is perfect for arppeggios and contempary chorus, although you can combine pedals to make unique tones. If i lost this, i would probably replace it (hopefully at a cheaper price, as i naively bought this when i couldn't be bothered to wait). I wish it was slightly warmer but after all it is digital (or at least it sounds it). Indeed, analog choruses tend to be warmer. Best used on the neck and middle pickups for the 'warmest' tones. I tried a boss after i bought this one(thinking my naivity was a mistake) and found little difference and that i personally prefered the Arion. Still good for the money (although i bought it second hand at a first hand price).

This unit isn't that difficult to use, it's got a one input, and 2 outputs for "stereo". It's got a switch for "direct" (mono) or "stereo". I think it's got 3 knobs, depth , rate and tone. The tone knob is interesting in that it either add's bass or add's treble, so it's pretty suggestable you can match your tone. the effect does have manual with everything you need to know including the specs, etc.

For the value, this is the best chorus pedal i've found. I've got a original Ibanez CS-9, BC-9, and this arion model sounds pretty good in comparison. I've also got a Johnson chorus, that's not bad , but the arion kicks it's butt especially for the value. I found this chorus to be a really nice lush sound, classic japan like engineering. It almost sounds like a Roland/Boss chorus, but I like it better. It has a incredible stereo pan field , if you use the stereo option. However, the caveat is the amount of signal boost the pedal will exhibit, it will boost your sound , so the sound tech is going to go nuts if you don't use it all the time. The effect is not noisy, and sounds really crispy and clean, alot of sparkle. I still like my original Ibanez CS-9, but if I didn't have it, I actually would prefer this chorus. I tested mine with a Roland Cube 30's run in stereo, very impressive chorus , better than the roland stock chorus on the amp which is still good in my opinion.

Again, the Arion stuff is high impact plastic, so it's not going to be banged around , and inserted and re-inserted the inputs alot. I recommend using a pedalboard if you're serious for effects, it also drops set up time tremdously! A seven rating for average

I'm sure Arion is probably pretty good , most manufactuers will stand by their products. 7 for average rating

Great effect for the value, it might even be the key to your sound, very crisp, clean sparkle with lush sound, there's not alot of "de-tuning" like in other chorus pedals, nice balance. Beware of the signal boost. However, the stereo application is impressive to say the least. Nice to have the tone feature as well to match the sound. If you want a nice inexpensive chorus , this is a good place to start.

I really relish chorus for my sound and I think If I didn't have the Ibanez CS-9 original pedal, I probably would lean for this pedal or a Boss.