Carl Martin Chorus XII

Two knobs per preset channel. Nearly everything sounds great. I haven't found a use for the cranked-up-all-the-way-fast setting

Dead quiet. No change in tone when plugged in and effect bypassed. Really. It sounds perfect. That seems like a cheesy cop-out but I love this pedal. It gives you the perfect chorusy Strat sound you've heard everywhere, on all 5 positions. It sounds like a piece of studio rack gear. If you pop it open, it looks like one inside: high quality componentry and efficient layout with 8 or so ICs. Who puts that much electronics into a pedal?

I plan on gigging with it without a backup. If it breaks, so what? No chorus for the rest of the job. Boo hoo.

I'm sure they're nice. Hopefully their the nice kind of Danish folks.

I use this pedal mostly for the "'90's and Now" stuff we play and it's right on target. I can't imagine anything I'd do to improve it except to add a clock and rate of sweep control so that it'd flange. I don't think anybody'd steal it because, really, who's heard of Carl Martin? I would have to replace it, though.

This is an easy pedal to use. The manual is poor, but do you really need it for a chorus pedal?

LED's show the tempo of the delays (depth of the chorus).

The real beauty of this pedal is the two high quality chorus effects in one box, one rich sound and one slightly chorused to fatten the sound. Or one lush and one mad sicko chorus effect.

I've played this with humbuckers and single coils and its a high quality sound. Its been used with a variety of amps with good results.
The only negative is sometimes if used in the loop of my hot rod deluxe with high levels of drive you get a click in time with the led light - not good. I doesn't do it unless the drive levels are high and it doesn't do it if you put the chorus before the distortion (not the best place for it).

If it wasn't for the click I would give full marks and I do want to, but I just can't with the clicking noise.

Had it for many years now no problems at all. I would trust it totally.

Never dealt with the company. But I have used the forum on their site and one of their engineers is often on there answering questions. Much better than many. EHX for example.

I have been playing for more years than I can remember, teaching for the last 16 years.
I am very picky about my sound and gear and would not put up with anything that didn't cut it. I own a custom shop strat, a killer Les Paul standard amongst others. Played through a hot rod deluxe or a blues junior.
I also have a deluxe memory man but prefer to use that for delay sounds and use the chorus from this pedal. My pedal board is Budwah+ into the front of the HRD with the memory man and the carl martin through the loop.
I can't think of another chorus I would use instead.

The product is easy to use. Plug it in, no batteries or external power supply to work with. It has two chorus settings that you can footswitch between. Each setting has a depth and speed control. But, it needs to be a little more difficult to use because it needs a MIX control. The mix is set. Unless there is trim pot that can back off on the wet/dry ratio, the chorus is too intense.
I went to the website to get the manual. The manual is ridiculous. There's nothing there but a few sample settings. Who cares about that?

The sound quality is OK, but it is digital sounding. It is a quiet pedal in that there is no background hiss. BUT, here's the problem, your guitar sounds digital when this effect is in-line - even when the effect is off. Now, I'm wondering if it has something to do with the Output L and Output R. Typically output L is mono, so that is what I have been using. But, like I said before, the manual provides no guidance at all when it comes to these outputs.
I am using this with a variety of amps. I won't bore with the all of the amps, but I am using a Carr Rambler, a Fender Reissue Deluxe Reverb, and a Victoria 310. I use mostly single coil guitars - several Tom Andersons, Strats, and a Les Paul Elegante.
Also, the lack of MIX control soesn't allow you to add "just a little bit of effect"....it's whatever the mix Carl pre-programmed at the factory. That sucks.

Yes, I have other Carl Martin effects. They appears to be universally reliable. The box is solid and they spent time engineering a real internal power supply. That's good. The effect has a price premium because of it. Unfortunately I gigged without a replacement last night. I wish I'd had a replacement with me due to the digital sounding nature of the affect on the guitar sound even when the effect was not on!

The website is not very useful. I guess the marketing aspect of the website is OK, but the support section is worthless. They need to spend a little time and put more detail into the manual both that are shipped with the product and are available on-line.

I play blues, classic rock, some old-school R&B. Sorry, you don't use chorus much on blues tunes! It would be a good match if they add the feature I suggested and fix the digital sounding degradation of the guitar signal. I've been actively playing 35 years. I have Fulltone Effects (yes, I have their chorus which is good but doesn't have dual settings like Carl Martin...arghhh!) Fulltone OCD, Phaser, FD2, tremolo unit, H&K Rotosphere, Memory Man Deluxe, MXR Clone, Carl Martin Compressor (very good), phaser (OK), Plexitone, DeLayla (both good but have performance issues).

Very easy to use.

A lot like the TC Electronics.

Never had a problem in 3 years.

Very friendly.Never needed them fo service but other helpfull advise for routing atc.

I would replace this if lost.

Very easy to set up, intuitive and rather obvious - takes abit of time to figure out speed/depth settings - you need some ears for this and less is often better in my opinion - it will go into bonkers territory.

I am submitting this review because of a recent recording experience - Don't get excited I'm talking about a mate of a mate who has a studio and does Ad jingles - he came to record us live in the Pub!!! Anyway he wanted to know what chorus I was using, "soooo lush and easy to record"!

Thought I would pass it on - I use it on only one of our current songs - Old Love - and have it permanently wired into my effects loop on a Rivera M60. It is super quiet, very lovely sound.

Absolutely totally reliable for the last 5 years

Never used them

I play in a covers band - all types of rock - some country - some blues and funk. Playing electric for 6 years. I would comment on the mains supply, it has been a burden and an advantage - tricky to accommodate in an effects line (you need separate 240v supply) but a good thing if wired into your effects loop - I have it pre-set and on a dual IEC lead Amp/Chorus and switched in and out by the Rivera footswitch. It means I only use half the x11 part of the pedal. This is a shame because it works very well to slightly fatten your sound and add shimmer - just a touch of chorus on pretty much anything.

While this offers essential two chorus units in one it is far more easy to use than the TC Electronics unit the added ease of footswitchable choice of either chorus a or b and the LED shows speed by flasing fasterer or slower, cool..

The fact that this is simple to use is partially becuse you really can not find a bad tone on it. It is clean but not sterile like TC pedals. The chorus is deep and warm like an old Bosss cE pedal but cleaner. The leslie is very usable but not spectaluar.Still you have two sounds at the touch of a switch that are tough to beat unless you by two different pedals.

Like a rock.

Probably the best unit on the scene today.

As easy as it can get: Two pots for each chorus (depth and speed), one footswitch to enable the effect, another footswitch to chose one of the chorus presets.

Great sounding analog chorus. I adjust one preset to give me a lush, more intense chorus (both knobs on 2 o'clock) for clean arpeggios and so on. The other preset is about 10 o'clock on both pots. I use this to enhance crunch and lead sounds out of my Baldringer Dual Sound preamp.
Into two Marshall DSL100/TSL100 halfstacks the stereo effect is amazing.
I had a TC SCF pedal in this position which is a very good chorus too. But I always had to find a compromise to fit the clean and distorted sounds. I now prefer the Carl Martin pedal, it's just perfect.

Built in 230 V power supply, strong metal housing. Seems very reliable.
I keep the SCF in spare but don't assume I'll ever need it.

Never dealt with them.

I play a lot of styles from blues, bluesrock to 80s heavy metal and back to jazzy and avantgarde stuff. This chorus fits them all. But it doesn't produce any 'freaky' sounds. If you're into that you should propably look for some other device. Compared to the TC SCF the signal to noise ratio is a little bit lower, but no problem at all in the post preamp position. Yes, I would definetely look for another one if it were stolen. Playing guitar since the 1970s I've had a lot of chorus pedals already but I think this one is the best. I loved the EH electric mistress in the late 70s but, like most of the EH pedals it was noisy and not reliable at all.

Couldnt be easier... two controls for each chorus..(depth and rate)
two switches... one to turn on the unit and the other to switch between the two chorus sounds....

each chorus has an led under the controls to give you a visual show of the speed of the chorus... also lets you know which one you are using at that moment...

no batteries... powered via connected cord.

This thing sounds great!! I had just seen Eric Johnson recently and was really into his chorus sound. Very transparent..did not color the guitar at all... He uses the legendary TC electronics chorus. So I went to the local store and they had the TC pedal and a used Carl Martin pedal as well. I had heard great things about both so I A/B'd them against each other and for my taste the Carl Martin was better!The TC came off sounding a little metallic compared to the Carl Martin, the Carl Martin was a little more "organic sounding".
Both were very smooth and transparent, nice chorus without coloring your sound, just the pure tone of your guitar with a nice shimmering chorus on it. I was using a EH Small Clone (which is still cool, btw) but it just colored the sound of the guitar too much. The Carl Martin also sounds awesome in stereo... I put it into my fender deluxe reverb and my fender musicmaster bass amp and it was pure, clean stereo chorus. Sweet.

Bought it used, sooo... it looks like it could take a beating though....

Hope I never need to find out!

Would buy another in a second!!! Compared to any of the boss,dod, digitech, etc....This pedal is in a class of its own... You may pay more ($270.00 retail)but there is such a massive difference.

Who knows... maybe eventually get the TC as well since it has a cool Pitch modulation mode on it....

2x deep & rate controls. 2 identical chorus can be setted indipendetly. Nothing more to know

I play blues/rock with a Clapton Strat and JCM2000 Marshall.
The sound is really natural, warm and the tone of your guitar is unchanged. Did you realize that there are no "tone" control? Did you ask why?

1 year of gigs, no problem til today.

Never needed. Anyway once I wrote a mail for questions about another pedal and I received kind and satisfactory answer.

There are pedals that I won't ever sell. This is one of these. Great sound, grat versatility because of double pedal with indipendent settings and power suplly included. A fantastic pedal.

2 chorus pedals in one 2 Depth 2 Speed controls 2 footswitches turns pedal on or off select A or B. I set one side slower chorus type of effect the other as a faster Leslie type setting both work great I don't like the cord coming out of the pedal but I guess I will learn to live with it. No problem getting the sounds out of the pedal.

Check out my Xotic RC Booster or Keeley Comp. this pedal is not noisy and I like the clarity of the Pedal. It works fine for me

The switches don't feel real strong but where I bought it from they said they have't had any problems time will tell

The Bi-Chorus by the time I landed it in Canada would have been to much for me. That was the only other consideration I had. I wanted a Chorus that was stereo with 2 different sound, I have that and so far I am very satisfied. It's a wonderfull pedal except for the cord