Boss CE-2 Chorus

very easy

This is a subtle pedal and one of the best choruses I have ever heard. I use this through > Strat/Electra/Kramer/Carvin> Danelectro FAB Distortion> Boss Chorus> Ibanex FL9> Ibanez AD9> Ibanez Turbo Screamer> Boss Super Phaser> Boss noise Suppresor>Dunlop cry-baby> Boss stage tuner> Randall RG100SC/Randall 2x12 Cab. Silent Pedal. Through an effects loop it's less noisy ( it's not that noisy though) and from guitar dirset to amp it's more noticeable but you get that "analog scream" ( thing Prince- purple Rain solo).

I severly abused this pedal since 1982. This was my first pedal and it stopped working around 1997. I recently found an excelent Luthier and he repaired it in 2 days for $30. This was a mirical to me! Boss boxes are tough and can be used for commercial construction and endorsed by the DOT for any heavy machinery applications. An insider at Nasa's propulsion labs told me that unwanted Boss units are used as anti- heat tiles for re-enrry units. Boss pedals do suffer from exterior oxidation and this can eventually affect jacks.

u dun knu

metal/blues/prog 28 years - ebay sells these units for at least $120 in decent shape. I would succumb to that if the untimate sacrifice was made by this pedal. I love the subtile otherworldly-ness and organic realness of this unit. Choruses are definantly a pedal where there are differences in tastes. Do you want an obvious 1980's overload, a 1970's background flavor or a now and then swooshiness. The Boss CE-2 is classic in its subtleness and beauty. I own 15 pedals, some mentioned here and some I don't use that often and this is the classiest. I'm sorry but when it's the best, 10's are all around.

2 knobs, can't be that hard

Well, I have a Japanese Black Label which is in almost perfect condtion! the guy I bought it off has looked after it so well! anyway, I installed the CE-2 mod from www.Monteallums.com and this pedal is the ultimate, its so warm and clear, your guitar tone shines through so natural. I don't know if you can get any better than this? well, I dont think about getting another chorus, put it that way

Mine is the Black Label so its old! pushing 30!! and it works perfect, you have to give a pedal 10 for this

Such a smooth, warm, clear chorus with and without a mod :) the mod I got, gives the pedal more clarity and increases the higher speed rates but keeping the slow areas as the original. Even as the stock version, its still a top notch pedal :) I just wanted an extra sparkle

Two knobs, stomp on-off. Not much simpler than that.

Mainly use this before a reverb (either RV-2 or modified RV-5) after distortion (modified SD-1, Fat Cat, MT-2). Rich chorus sound that can go from light to heavy. Fairly quiet for an analog pedal but it will influence tone when there are too many effects in the chain (it is not true bypass and more than 2-3 Boss pedals will make your sound a bit darker and duller even when they are off). To fix this, I use and EQ (Nady 8 band) and an EH-2/EH-50 at the end to clean up the dullness. Works very well with tremelo, especially running it before a PN-2. Overall, a great sounding pedal. I wish Boss would start re-issuing some of these classics with the exact same spec's as the originals.

Hard to kill these things. I fix many effects and the Boss ones usually only break due to botched modification or crazy abuse. Otherwise, Boss pedals are indestructable when used sanely.

Boss can be troublesome to get parts out of, especially for 'discontinued' products like the CE-2. I fix my own stuff so I never call Boss unless I need special parts. I suspect they have great support for current product line.

I play mostly Jazz, a bit of Rock and classic rock. Sometimes I hammer out a metal riff. I enjoy all music. I've been playing for about 14 years, but only seriousely for the last 2. I have been massing pedals for a while now and mostly fixing/upgrading pedals to improve their sound. I really like the simplicity of the CE-2 and the analog tone. I also have an Ibanez TC10 and SC10, as well as a DC-3 Chorus pedals. The Ibanez ones win for deeper, stronger chorus (especially the twin cam TC10 which is useful for other purposes) and neither of them are as subtle and rich as the CE-2. The DC-3 is a very good pedal as well but a little more subtle than the CE-2. I would definately buy this pedal again if stolen or lost.

Easy-peasy lemon squeezy

I was surprised by this pedal. After reading all the gushings on this page I was expecting some thick, swirly, detuned mayhem but the reality is that the effect produced by the CE-2 is actually quite subtle.
Nevertheless it is a fantastic effect. I am not really a massive user of chorus, but a recent renewed interest in The Police, and listening to lots of bad late 70s guitar jazz-fusion persuaded me to use it more often.
Kicking in the CE-2 with the rate at less than 10 o'clock really adds loads of presence and fullness to your overall sound, with higher rates you do get slight swirliness/detuning. I have to admit I never used it with less than maximum depth as I found this too subtle and, yes, I did play around, for several hours, with the internal trim pot to get the exact amount of 'wetness'.

My set up consists of either a Japanese 60s reissue strat with upgraded Kent Armstrong 'Tweed Tone' pickups or Gibson ES135 with upgraded Kent Armstrong PAF-style humbuckers. These go into either a silverface Twin Reverb or Deluxe Reverb via various other analogue stomp boxes.

For the record, the model I have is Made In Taiwan. I don't know how much its country of origin matters. It seems to me that those who own MIJs are adamant they are far superior, whilst those with MITs insist there is no difference. At the end of the day: if it sounds good and is what you are after, who cares with of those two far eastern islands it was manufactured on??

Boss pedal are very reliable - even at 20+ years of age.

Great pedal. One of the best (and cheapest if you buy MIT) choruses out there.
However, I prefer the sound of my black, made in Taiwan, Ross Chorus which is much more versatile: goes from light to super-thick-nearly-flanging and rate goes much higher for fast Leslie-esque sounds.
As a result I just sold my CE-2.
Lovely sound though.

Quite elementary; a knob for rate of oscillation, a knob for depth of the oscillation. Fin.

Guitars are....'96 Gibson Les Paul Standard w/ Seymour Duncan Custom Shop Jimmy Page pickups and coil taps, and a Heritage H-535.

My current rig is...
Guitar>Peterson Strobostomp>BSM Fuzzbender>Roger Mayer 9090A modded Vox wah>Xotic Effects BB Preamp>Boss CE-2>Fender Hot Rod Deville 410

I am honestly suprised by this pedal. It was suggested to me by my guitar tech, who told me that guys like Robben Ford used this pedal not for 'chorus', but for a small decibel lead boost with a "fatness" tone boost. Being curious, I looked it up on Ebay (I am hooked-on-Ebay) and of course this lovely site, followed the models, and bought the Made in Japan black label/long dash with a black screw. I believe I got a decent deal, considering the silver screw one I was also watching ended up over $200.

Anyway, I am really a Classic Rock and Blues guy. I never liked the chorus effect; I believed it to be a really cheap sounding effect that made the guitar sound fake, ruining the tone. I probably based this on my serious distaste for 80s rock, because the guitar tones in that era were simply awful in my opinion (I really like natural tone), and the 80s chorus sound was just one of them.

But when this pedal arrived, I found some very good sounds. You can get really smooth, to really subtle, to all out tone-morhping noise out of it. For me, I cannot use any setting beyond 12:00 on the Depth, or else the tone becomes "too 80's" for me. The settings I am using now are Rate at full, and Depth at near 10 o'clock. With drive from the BB Preamp, I get a nice vowely, mature sound that gets into Jazz/Fusion territory. The sound is thick, but also transparent; not overpowering the sound, yet there. Sounds even better clean as well. There is a lot of flexibility with the sound. You just have to be a tad bit careful with overdrive before it, because it can feedback, but most often it happens with my Heritage, which can feedback quite easily at full blast since its a semi-hollow. I don't use any amp drive (I run the amp clean and use my pedals for drive/fuzz, etc.), so I don't know how it works with that. All in all, very useful, musical tones. A 9 because of lack of comparison and chorus experience by me, and because I have never heard a CE-1, the true "Holy Grail" for choruses.

Does anybody really have any concerns? If you do, you don't know guitar pedals.

Never did, probably never will. It won't break down for another couple of decades at the very least.

I went from a chorus nay-sayer to a full on supporter (it does help that I got one of the most coveted chorus's produced). I fear that, like another poster, I may use this pedal too much! Sounds wonderful. I believe I got a really good deal for a very usable and somewhat collectable pedal; its in fact the cheapest pedal in my rig! I haven't compaired it to a green label MIJ, but will soon because my bassist wants one for himself. The only real concern I have would be with the Boss passive-bypass system, but since its the only non true-bypass pedal in my rig, I don't think its a problem. Lastly, I'm not sure if this goes for all old Boss pedals, but everytime I plug it in, it turns on, regardless of if it was off or on the last time I used it. No big deal, I'm just curious if thats normal. I might get another, probably cheaper, to check out Robert Keeley's mods, but either way this one's a keeper.

two knobs, easy as heck to get it sounding good.

I use this with an Ibanez GAX70 into CS-2>SD-1>Tube works Real Tube OD>PH-2>DD-2>CE-2>Marshall 9004 preamp (in the efx loop i have)BF-2>NF-1>EH-2>DD-3>CE-3. This chorus is everything i've wanted in a chorus, thick warm and shimmery. This chorus can pull off almost everything i can imagine>the only thing that is wrong with it is that it doesn't have stereo outs ( that's why I bought the CE-3) but definitly a keeper.

I don't feel that I need a backup but I'll buy another one to have modded.

its been said before. The best chorus pedal, ever probably. I got mine free...woohoo.......

I changed the power capacitor inside for a 100volt one, for more headroom. Kinda what Keeley does. changed the Op amp to a Burr Brown one.(0.97cent one compared to $12.00 for this op amp). Changed a few key resistors to metal film 1% tolerance. Wow,,,what a diff!!! Very lush, and headroom is incredible now through effects loop of my newly acquired MESA F-50 combo. woohoo.

Well, here's the kicker....i got mine free from a buddy, but about 10 years ago, the thing was in a house fire. You couldnt make out what was on the outside of the effects box, but you could make out the word BOSS. Anyway, it was missing the screw, so not sure if it was silver, but its a japanese one with long dash. I took the screw out of my CE-3 japanese (they have 5 or so JC4558 op amps for your TS-9 for your information!!) and used it for my CE-2. It worked fine after all the mods. Just got some detergent, and got all the black soot off it from the smoke, and wow, it was a CE-2. I heard all the hype, and man, its the quintessential chorus and sounds great through a parallel effecs loop. I give it a 10 for reliability, cuz, well, uh,,,cus it went through a fire!!!! ITS A BOSS, they even survive fires for C's sake.

no, never. dont want to, dont need to . the pedals never die man.

Great pedal. Its a permanent fixture, and will grace the my effect board along with a Fulltone OCD, Barber Tone press (compressor), Jeff Tees wah pedal deluxe, and my MXR 1978 flanger, grey box( I need to find out how to make that grey Flanger less noisy, and deal with the lessened output when kicked in), plus either a T-Rex Replica, DL4 Line 6 (unsure about reliability), or Boss DD-20. Would love to get the delayla, or the Fulltone Tape drive for delay, but not sure which one i will get. Once thats all figured out, my setup is complete, and the only addition is either an Orange rockerverb 50 OR,,,,a MESA Stiletto Deuce for that british side of things. I got my 6L6 amp with the F-50, and its a keeper (although the Lone-Star is eying me)

Easy, two knobs. You shouldn't need a manual.

I use a 2003 American Deluxe Fat Strat through an amazing Yamaha T50C tube amp(Soldano designed). that swirly sound is just amazing beautiful rich tone. I just got the pedal on eBay, so far I am really impressed. This is the one everyone is looking for. silver screw, long dash, 9500 stamped next to the battery. the bottom on mine is destroyed due to it being expoxied to a pedal board in one of it's previous lives.

It's a Boss.

I play mostly heavier classic rock, AC/DC, hendrix, VH, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Bad Co., SRV, etc. Been playing for 25 years off and on. getting back into it big time now. I have an Ibanez V300 and a Hohner jack Bass. I relied on the reviews here to choose this pedal.
Bang on! I love it!

Easy as 3 knobs that do exactly as there name explains.

Makes a chorus sound as it should i use it for all kinds of music and with all kinds of settings but i normally use it for subtle chorus sound like in the eightys for stuff like Billy Idol.
I almost always have this ound on my clean channel of my amp purely to help make my clean sound more interesting

never had a problem and my copys very old.

an all round chorus pedal but i prefer the Marshall Supervibe but thats only becouse it works for the subtle chorus sound better but the Marshall pedal osnt as versitile.

Two knobs and a footswitch, real simple.

This pedal doesn't produce a bad sound. You can have a very subtile effect, all the way to spaced out warble. When the pedal bypassed, it is dead-silent.

I bought this pedal used from a friend of mine around 1986 or so. It's seen a lot of gigs, a lot of practices, and a lot of time on the shelf and has never failed and sounds just as good as the day I bought it.

It may not be the most extreme sounding chourus out there, but I think it is still one of the best BOSS has ever put out. Every other chourus Boss has produced since then has been based on CE-2 and that says a lot. These are getting harder to find and a little more expensive, but a great addition to any pedal board.