BOSS CE 3 pedal, any good mods out there?

[Slobrain]

Well I walked into this pawn shop today and saw a Boss CE3 sitting there, walked out with it for $25.00. I thought cool,

I used one of these in around 83/84 but sold it as I was never really that happy with it. I really felt it could have been much better but...

so here I am asking if anyone has any good mods to make it sound like a really good old chorus pedal. This thing sounds very sterile 80s...



Here I am in 1983 New Years Eve at a club in Galveston with my Ibanez Studio guitar, PV bandit and a Boss CE 3 chorus playing metal... Metal on a budget...lol

[mozwell]

I dont know any specific mods, but check out freestompboxes.org & have a look at the "pimp my cheap pedal" section, or search there for CE-3 & see what comes up

[Slobrain]

I dont know any specific mods, but check out freestompboxes.org & have a look at the "pimp my cheap pedal" section, or search there for CE-3 & see what comes up

Thanks Mozwell,

I seen a fromel upgrade kit that consisted of maybe 6 parts, looked easy enough but I'm wanting to see if anyone here has done a good mod for this pedal.

Cant be too bad, these were supposed to be the upgrade to the CE 2...

[Mark Hammer]

There aren't a LOT of mods one can do to a chorus, and still have it remain a chorus, but here goes:

1) Fake ring modulator: ANY modulation pedal that uses an LFO can be coaxed into sounding kinda sorta like a ring modulator by simply cranking up the modulation Rate into the audio range. The Boss schematic shows the critical component to be C28, with a stock value of 0.1uf. Reduce that to, say, .01uf or even .0047uf and the range of speeds will be hiked up enough such that you'll be able to get "rubber band" sounds. To restore original range, just reconnect the 0.1uf cap.

2) Flangier and "thicker" sounds: There are a number of things that are different between a flanger and chorus, but what they share in common is modulation of a short delay. Chorus uses a slightly longer delay time than flanging. Here, C25 is the critical component. Stock, it is 47pf. reducing its' value will reduce the overall delay time. Replacing it with 39pf or even 36pf will yield a slightly "swirlier" sound. Conversely, increasing the value to 56pf or even 68pf will increase overall delay time and move you more in the direction of a Pat Metheny-like chorus sound.

3) De-wobblification: One of the major complaints of chorus users, or more particularly, chorus-avoiders, is that the pitch-wobble is distracting and too in-your-face. This is a regular complaint of bass players, whose pitch and holding down the root is important in many band contexts. The clean part of the signal will always provide the fundamental, If one filters out the bass content of the delay part of the signal, then you get to keep the swirl and the pitch-wobble is made much less apparent (even though it is still there in the background). C21 (.068uf) is the final common pathway of the delay signal, before it gets fed to the two potential output/summing stages. Reducing its value will trim bass from the delay signal, albeit in a shallow/gradual manner, without having any impact on the clean/dry signal. Consider starting with a replacement value of .01uf, and possibly reducing from there, to taste.

4) Subtler chorusing: The wet and dry signals are normally mixed in a 50/50 ratio. Producing a subtler chorus effect, that you don't mind leaving on longer, is achieved by reducing how much wet signal is combined with dry. Later issues of the CE series included an "effect level" control to do just that. The CE-3 is not exactly optimized for that, but there are a couple of things you can do to achieve it. One would be to insert a resistance after C21, before it gets split and sent to the two summing nodes. So, an extra 22k inserted immediately after C21 would reduce the level of the wet signal a bit, and make the effect audible but subtler.

[Slobrain]

There aren't a LOT of mods one can do to a chorus, and still have it remain a chorus, but here goes:

1) Fake ring modulator: ANY modulation pedal that uses an LFO can be coaxed into sounding kinda sorta like a ring modulator by simply cranking up the modulation Rate into the audio range. The Boss schematic shows the critical component to be C28, with a stock value of 0.1uf. Reduce that to, say, .01uf or even .0047uf and the range of speeds will be hiked up enough such that you'll be able to get "rubber band" sounds. To restore original range, just reconnect the 0.1uf cap.

2) Flangier and "thicker" sounds: There are a number of things that are different between a flanger and chorus, but what they share in common is modulation of a short delay. Chorus uses a slightly longer delay time than flanging. Here, C25 is the critical component. Stock, it is 47pf. reducing its' value will reduce the overall delay time. Replacing it with 39pf or even 36pf will yield a slightly "swirlier" sound. Conversely, increasing the value to 56pf or even 68pf will increase overall delay time and move you more in the direction of a Pat Metheny-like chorus sound.

3) De-wobblification: One of the major complaints of chorus users, or more particularly, chorus-avoiders, is that the pitch-wobble is distracting and too in-your-face. This is a regular complaint of bass players, whose pitch and holding down the root is important in many band contexts. The clean part of the signal will always provide the fundamental, If one filters out the bass content of the delay part of the signal, then you get to keep the swirl and the pitch-wobble is made much less apparent (even though it is still there in the background). C21 (.068uf) is the final common pathway of the delay signal, before it gets fed to the two potential output/summing stages. Reducing its value will trim bass from the delay signal, albeit in a shallow/gradual manner, without having any impact on the clean/dry signal. Consider starting with a replacement value of .01uf, and possibly reducing from there, to taste.

4) Subtler chorusing: The wet and dry signals are normally mixed in a 50/50 ratio. Producing a subtler chorus effect, that you don't mind leaving on longer, is achieved by reducing how much wet signal is combined with dry. Later issues of the CE series included an "effect level" control to do just that. The CE-3 is not exactly optimized for that, but there are a couple of things you can do to achieve it. One would be to insert a resistance after C21, before it gets split and sent to the two summing nodes. So, an extra 22k inserted immediately after C21 would reduce the level of the wet signal a bit, and make the effect audible but subtler.

Hey Mark,

Thank you for the good info, reducing the chorus a tad is a good mod. Seems it lacks the low end a bit. The chorus is pretty good but seems a bit sterile. I wanted to get more bass and un sterilize it... a more warmer sweeter chorus.

I compared it to the chorus on my Boss ME 50 and the ME 50 chorus sounded better. I really don't want to get rid of this pedal just yet, I feel it might have potential. After all these old pedals are what made the sounds of the 80s...

Cheers

[Mark Hammer]

Increasing the delay time is a useful mod. I can't seem to find any info on the delay specs, but let's make some up. If the stock delay time was, say, 3-12msec, then increasing the time from 4-16msec or 5-20msec (maintaining the 1:4 ratio) would give it a "thicker" sound.

Just note that, when it comes to modulated delays, the longer the delay time, the "boingier" it sounds as the speed and depth are turned up.

The "boinginess" can be addressed in several ways. First, as noted earlier, reducing the bass content in the delay signal makes the pitch deviations seem less noticeable, while still preserving the "air". Second, one would either need to keep the Depth control down under the 9-10:00 position, or mod the Depth control to make more of it usable. Sticking a 22k-33k resistor between the pin 7 output of IC5 and the input of the Depth pot would ratchet down the maximum depth and allow for more of the Depth pot's range to be used/usable.

[Regis]

I used a CE3 in a stereo setup for many years and occasionally still do. I have two of them.

I noticed when running in stereo mode (one side is dry and the other wet) a lack of bass also. On a whim I built a speaker phase inverter box with a switch. When running the speakers in one amp out of phase with the other amp, I got MORE low end, it sounded pretty sweet. Of course, when you shut down teh chorus it sounded like crap because of the oop condition. At the time it didn't matter to me because I usually left it on all the time.

I've always wondered why it acted that way tho.

[jaysg]

Print out schematic for the CE-3 and CE-2. Grab a highlighter and start identifying the major signal path changes. I believe a CE-3 can be warmed up with the right RC changes.