Boss CE-1 Chorus

Easy to use,overloads quite easily.It's easy to get a good vibrato sound out of it but the chorus is not that good defiently not the "Best Ever". To me the Chorus side sounds like the depth is turned up too much and why they never put a depth control like they have with the vibrato side I'll never know-mabye theres a way to turn down the depth internally??? Don't know if all Ce-1's sound like this.

I have no guiar amp at the moment so I'm going through a trace elliot bass amp with an Americian deluxe strat.It's not that nosey-
The Vibrato sounds nice but the chorus depth is too high and you can't change it so your limited a lot. I prefer my 1970s Guyatone analog chorus as you have more control over the sound which make it a lot more vesatile.

old mains powered pedal-I've only just got it so Can't realy say.

LOL this was made in the late 70s!

This pedal is very much overated-Or mabye mine is just crap-whichever it is DON'T BELIVE THE HYPE!

See my review below somewhere

It Seems that the Roland Company hears the faint cries from their vintage gear users in the crevasses of Europe.
I received an e-mail that they are busy to put all info, manuals, and so on, in pdf-files on their websites.
The moment this happened, and any user worldwide has an open acces to this info, to get their beloved vintage gear serviced, the 1 for this support changes into a 10, and i take back my complaint about this topic. (that means not the one about using cheap electronics and plastic casing to obtain a profitmaximalisation by sacrificing the quality) by now they have got halfway by being so respectful to reply to my e-mail.
You're on the good way Roland

This pedal is pretty easy to use. Some analogue choruses have really wild, almost unusable settings. For my taste, the CE-1 can't be dialed wrong. The only difficult thing to deal with is the input trim. The pedal gets a bit muddy and (I may only be speaking for the the pedal I own ) has a white noise oscillation if the trim is too low. The sweet spot is a little quieter than the dry signal.

The chorus and vibrato effect on this is classic...beautiful. Too bad the pedal is a bit noisy. I hear a present white noise oscillation when the pedal should be silent with certain amp settings on a couple amps. It loses it's brilliance as a result. The warmth and musicality of both effects make up for this. Close to perfect.

brick ****house and thensome... drop it and you'll break the floor. SM57 of pedals (I think you understand me...)

This pedal will outlast me...I don't think I'll need support. No Opinion.

Sounds so good, but it is not as versatile as my higher-end mu-tron and TC Electronic units. Solid 9 if there ever was one. Even worth the price if you have an amp and guitar that work well with it.I found fender amps sound better than Vox and Marshall amps. This is my opinion based on experience with one pedal. Find one and try it yourself...

Not an easy pedal to live with compared to modern units. I bought mine new in 1978, sold in at the end of the 80's and bought another in the mid 90's, which I sold on quite quickly when I reaffirmed all the pedal's drawbacks. The main problems are the quirky input and output facilities and levels.....old design that is useless for effects loops and has to be integrated with other pedals with care. As it's mains powered hum can be a problem and definitely a problem if used with 2 amps. The circuit is the same as that in the original JC120 combo but to get the same sound it's no use playing in mono thro' one amp.

Sound quality is ok but nothing special in my opinion, there's other new pedals just as good some better.....Retro Sonic being the main contender.....CE-1 is overated and overpriced and can overload very easily.....not the holy grail its made out to be.

Mine were always very relable, as is the case with Boss, no complaints and neither of them ever went faulty.

No support at al for this product from Boss.....some companies are doing Retro fit kits of the Facias and Knobs etc if you want to renovate an older example....electronic support in the event of a circuit failure would need specialist engineer support and would probably be expensive.

Overall the CE-1's main claim to fame is that it was the first Chorus pedal available and at the time was unique, new, exciting and good....but like old cars time moves on and technology improves the product and now I think the CE-1 is a very overpriced average pedal that lot of people fool themselves into buying in the belief that the legend is fact...it's ok but there are much better pedals available from a whole host of manufacturers that offer better sound, better facilities, more options and cost less with manufacturer's backup and service.....I'd only buy one again for nostaglic purposes and if I wasn't bothered about putting a load of cash into something that I know I wouldn't use and would keep at home a bit like a pet.

I presume it isn't easy to get a whack sound out of it, unless the unit is broken, or you are a fool!!
I had it serviced right away when i got it.

Can ANYONE put a pdf-manual online please?, in Europe you can't log in in the RolandUS site to obtain one. or e-mail it to me?

The first time i put it through my Marshall 6100 LE, and my Les Paul Studio, i cried!
This is the chorus i looked for all my life! I want to marry it, and ditch my wife.
It goes smooth like babyoil on Beyonce's A**.
Rich, deep,and WARM, even though the unit is 32 years old!
now i now why i had to fight for it on Ebay.
Ignore the 10 below, it has to be an 11!

I think they cut up old Sovjet T-34 tanks to build the cover, it is undestructable.
Boss had in mind that it had to be on the floor, and some rockers had to step on them, so they made it rugged. (in those days companies went for quality, in stead of profimaximalisation by using crap materials, that b******t started in the mid 80's).
Also the electronics inside seem to have this Sovjet quality, my electrodude only had to screw one knob a little tighter, and do some cleaning, after it has been on pubfloors for 3 decades.

Absolute NONE for Europe, not even a pdf manual! (see above)
I still don't know why Roland/Boss doesn' make a re-issue of these pedals (not only the CE1, but also Phase5 , AP7 Jetphase,ect), like they did with the RE-201 Space Echo, but not with a crappy alu- and plastic body, (and probably a lot of cheap and crappy electronics inside), but a full clone!
Now they left it for Universal Audio to make it a plug-in. suckers!
But service for their own vintage material seems to be a not for a lot of companies. (EXCEPT FOR MARSHAL, and i love em for that!!!)
With this they don't get goodwill from their clients, who start to buy even more vintage gear.

except for the service of Roland/Boss US,( and a whole lot more moneywolves) a total 10!

You can't make a bad sound with the chorus or vibrato on this thing. The challenge is setting the input gain for the best possible signal without overloading the pedal and creating a truly horrible distortion. Like others have noted, with this unit, at least when stock, you have to accept there will be a compromise to be made in terms of signal strength.

The CE-1 is probably the best sounding chorus unit when played in mono that I've come across. The Boss DC-2 is still tops in stereo - the more units I try the more I come to realise that pedal is unique - but I don't have a permanent stereo rig. I've been through a ton of chorus units and they all sound great in stereo, but have all come up lacking in mono - until it got my hands on a CE-1 that is. Compared to the DC-2 in mono, the CE-1 has a much fuller sound, and it handles gain much better. Compared to the Boss CE-2, which seems to have really risen in popularity in recent years, the CE-1 doesn't have that boosted mid-range that makes your tone a little honky, and whilst having a classic sound, I don't feel it has as much of an 80s vibe as the CE-2. I think it has a low-mid or high-bass boost though, because it sounds a little thicker when the effect is engaged, though this may just be a natural result of the doubling effect. The chorus side of the CE-1 is similar to the CE-2, but gets significantly deeper. On the vibrato side you can get a much faster LFO than the CE-2 offers, and the depth control has much more of an impact on the effect. That said, I was a little disappointed by the vibrato - it's not a true magnatone pitch shift vibrato like the Boss VB-2 or EHX Clone Theory, but simply picks up where the chorus finishes in terms of rate (i.e the slowest vibrato setting is about the equal to the chorus maxed), and doesn't sound too dissimilar in tone (the wet/dry mix is probably more weighted to the wet than in chorus mode, but there's no fully wet warped record tones to be had). It's nice to have two settings to toggle between, but claiming they're two different effects seems to be a bit of a farce - I've played many conventional chorus pedals that get into the CE-1's so-called "vibrato" territory.

Well, it's 30 years old and still going strong. The power switch died at some point so the unit is wired to switch on the moment you turn it on at the wall.

This pedal has a rep for being something of the holy grail of chorus pedals, and is usually priced accordingly. When you consider you're getting two chorus pedals (or at least two switchable settings) in one the price doesn't seem as bad. I paid about the cost of two CE-2s, and you can do more with one CE-1 than you can with two CE-2s. The CE-2 is close to the chorus on the CE-1, close but no cigar. A CE-2 can get anywhere near as fast as the CE-1 vibrato. If you're only interested in a very light, slow chorus you may be better off settling for a CE-2, which can be found much easier and cheaper, and is much smaller and can't be overloaded as easy. That said, if lost or stolen I'd definitely track down another CE-1.

very easy to get a good sound out of it, no single setting will make this Gem sounds bad

Brilliant Vibrato, Chorus to die for....
Lush, and thick and warmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

I set the Volume knob at arround 2 o'clock and the signal strength of the guitar is maintained. run it through rOLAND JC 120, man... what a warm sound.

people who gave the sound quality rating of this thing 1, they may be have their CE 1 put by the previous owner in a Rontgen Room for years, constantly radiated by those machines, and have the internal circuit changed in someway. may be the previous owner is also a Doctor in a Hospital somehow.
somehow.

it was made in 1976 +/-, and still running flawlessly, what more can I say? I love Boss

never need one

if Stolen, I'll buy 2 more, (if i have the money)

Got TOP of the line gears, PRS, Fender, Mesa, Many high end pedals, Fulltones, SIB, Voodoolab, etc been playing for 8 years now

this thing can warm up your Loneliness at Night

Well the only thing that takes some time is setting the input sinal slider and level control just right so that your signal is not distorting and is not too low on volume. Once you get your settings right you can leave them there forever, it takes some very carefull tweaking but once set you (I) really feel no need to have the input modified (and maybe taking some of it's warmth and MOJO away) One control for the chorus, 2 controls for the vibrato, easy as can be.
You don't need a manual but if you really want it you can find it on Rolandus.com

My... God... It's... So... WARM and LUSH it almost makes me wet my pants. When i stumbled upon this thing WOW the first chord i played brought a huge smile upon my face. Mine was allready modded for true-bypass and from what i understand this is a real must for this pedal due to the supposed worst bypass ever. Therefore my CE-1 is only noisy with the effect turned on when your not playing(and who could care less). It's anything BUT transparent but that's just what's so cool about this pedal, it takes your sound to a complete different warm, buttery level when kicked in, almost like you would go from a clean sound to a distortion sound. That's what i call an EFFECT. If you set the chorus intensity to zero it does a great analog flanger too. If you just want to add a little effect to your sound look further, the CE-2 might fit your needs. It sounds equally good through my Diezel VH4 or Marshall DSL100, with my LP or my Strat.

Well since it's 30 years old...

Never tried it.

It's great for adding more versatility to your clean sound. I started off with multifx units like ValveFX, Intellifex etc. and was never really happy with the metallic ping and fake sounding effects they produced (Exept for some great reverbs,delays and pitch-shifting) So i went stompboxes and after trying the poor sounding CE-5 and CH-1 i got in the analog territory, first a CE-2 which was very good and transparent, only a bit too mild for my taste, up untill recently i've been using a DC-2 which also is fantastic, but more for a stereo setup and non-tweakable. It's hard to believe that after 30 years no one ever managed to make a pedal just as good, though the Retro-sonic comes close from what i read. But i got this one fore less money and it will only go up in price. To bad big company's like Boss don't make pedals quite like these anymore.

Medium easy .. because the High input cuts the high frequencies. but the low input makes it a lot more friendly to guitar players.. you have to make sure you don't overload the input..

if i could go higher than 10 , i would..this is the best chorus i have ever tried. it nails the guitar's accents at the right frequency. It's so lush, i can't believe my ears.. i have tried LOTS of choruses out there..
I did enjoy the Maxon chorus (large box) but this one kicks them out of the door. It mot noisy at all. I am using it in a marshall plexi that i run pretty much clean . i use a Zakkwylde MRX and a Fulltone OCD and they both sound great with this one..
i tried, just for fun , putting a 'The police' record and tried to match Andy summers' sound and i got damn close with the bridge pickup on my strat.
if you overload the input easily on this thing, try using a limiter/compressor pedal in front and just cut the top end of the signal..

built like a tank. no need for batteries as it uses the 120v plug in.

this thing is close to 30 years old!!

i play lots of types of music..but i do enjoy playing Deep purple or led zep.. some Police stuff too.

IF this item would en up stolen, i would cry because they are getting really rare to get by. last time i checked on EBAY, there were none for sale..

Mine is pretty beat up..it probably went through a dozen world tours but it keeps on rocking.. some paint is missing on the edges and 2 knobs are not original.
I seriously suggest anyone out there looking for a chorus to look at this one if they can find one. There is something special about this one that makes them unique and sought of by pros..

it's quite easy to use, but the volume knob controls the whole volume of your Rig...not good ( a bit hard to adjust the true guitar volume level(to be unbiased)), the rest are Ok

i compared it with Boss Ce2, DC3, CH1, but CE1 is the best in my opinion, very lush sounding, and so warm, second best is Boss ce 2(japanese), which is also very nice and warm, much smaller design,can be external adaptor and battery operated which make it more flexible, then Boss DC3 for its crystal clearness

The Ce 1, change your tone a little, my ce 2 is much more transparent
but CE 1 sounds beautiful and worth every peny

the switch feels a bit fragile compared to newer Boss pedals

BUT no problem till now

the LED, also winking at all time it's on, just worried that it will die sometime, but i think its replacable

if the audiences are not musicians,....they will not be aware of the change in the tone, and will just enjoy the sense of vintage sound it produces, so i'll give it a 10, hehehe:)