EHX polychorus. Opinions?

hugh · Post by **hugh** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:05 pm

I'm looking at getting a polychorus. They don't seem to get much love here. Is it worth 200 bones? They never come up 2nd hand. It seems like a versatile pedal, which is the main reason I'm considering it. I don't really care for the flanger or delay; just the chorus, filter matrix and vibrato-ish sounds. I'm wanting to use it to get some Arab on Radar (noise/no-wave rock?) type sounds. (I don't think they use chorus or vibrato pedals, probably just whammy pedals and tremolos? Mentioning them to give an idea of the sort of direction I'm going in.) Looking at the demos on Youtube, it seems more than adequate for sonic weirdness.

Is it any good for more subtle stuff? I saw a Malekko Omicron chorus pedal that sounded awesomely clean in another thread. Half considering getting that and the vibrato for just a little more.

Some people complain about the bypass and switches. Corksniffery? My Behringer Vintage Time Machine fucks up my signal enough as it is.

Also, I'd be pissed if they came out with a new model after buying the big one.

And Hurb's demo, for my fellow noobs:
[youtube][/youtube]

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:40 pm

I was under the impression that the Polychorus gets some love here. I am sick because I saw one on craigslist for $100 last week and i was broke and couldn't get it. I really want one, but hope they will put it into the smaller box like they did with the DMM , The Worm and others. The big box has so much mojo, but kills the pedalboard space. For $100, I would not have cared much how big it was.

matt.dines · Post by **matt.dines** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 6:16 pm

i bought an echoflanger the other day which has the same circuit

i think its pretty cool
its quite noisy but i think they sorted that out on the reissues

paul_ · Post by **paul_** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 7:01 pm

I love my polychorus, it's my favorite modulation pedal of any type. I have reliability issues with my reissue but I've heard the earlier ones could be dodgy, regardless it's never left my board since I got it like 10 years ago. You can use it for lush, wobbly chorus/flange or just raise hell with the feedback up and twiddling the other controls. Certainly never a boring pedal.

hugh · Post by **hugh** » Thu Feb 18, 2010 4:17 am

The size doesn't bother me that much. The Vintage Time machine is the same size, and it's pretty cool to be able to tweak them big ass knobs with your feet.

less_cunning · Post by **less_cunning** » Fri Feb 19, 2010 4:35 pm

i love Arab on Radar but yeah. IDK. i wanna say that maybe using an EHX Polychorus for that type of stuff might be a bad thing.

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 5:55 am

I just got my own Polychorus. In fact, it's actually Hurb's old Polychorus from his demo. True-bypass but it has the older vintage knobs. Very cool. Still wading in, but it's pretty cool. I traded my Boss OD-20 for it.

hugh · Post by **hugh** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 6:50 am

less_cunning wrote:i love Arab on Radar but yeah. IDK. i wanna say that maybe using an EHX Polychorus for that type of stuff might be a bad thing.

I thought that they used a bit of modulation? It's hard to tell what's an effect and what's odd playing technique though.

Polychorus for an OD-20 sounds like a good deal to me. Not that I've ever heard either one IRL.

Earth · Post by **Earth** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 12:27 pm

Great pedal,you can get some truly weird sounds out of it.

less_cunning · Post by **less_cunning** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 7:25 pm

hugh wrote:
less_cunning wrote:i love Arab on Radar but yeah. IDK. i wanna say that maybe using an EHX Polychorus for that type of stuff might be a bad thing.
I thought that they used a bit of modulation? It's hard to tell what's an effect and what's odd playing technique though.

Polychorus for an OD-20 sounds like a good deal to me. Not that I've ever heard either one IRL.

honestly. i really can't say. i was speaking more broadly about No Wave. i googled: 'Gear+Arab on Radar' & found this. i think the focus is more on making yr guitar sound percussive or dissonant. the focus is on the guitar. i think most No Wave bands don't use pedals at all. period.

hugh · Post by **hugh** » Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:18 am

Nice link, I've been trying to find some info on the AOR rigs, but it's impossible. All I can figure out from the live clips is that there's a Travis Bean guitar defiled with duct tape and some sort of SG with a bigsby into some kind of Fender amps.

I don't buy much music these days, but I've picked up a couple of things from Skingraft recently. Pre and AIDS wolf. I should really stop listening to shit from 10 years ago and get with the program.

purplehaze19x · Post by **purplehaze19x** » Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:42 am

They are pretty good pedals, but i dont find myself using them hardly anymore.
I traded my reissue PC to Taylornutt, but i also have a vintage one from '78 that i love. and it gets teh kurdtz's

less_cunning · Post by **less_cunning** » Wed Mar 03, 2010 4:59 am

lots of experimental groups use the Polychorus solely for the feedback thing it does.

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 6:00 pm

I have gotten to use the Polychorus twice now. So far I am not as impressed as I was hoping. I also have a Small Clone and a Boss BF-2 flanger. The PolyChorus gives me similar sounds, but nothing that would make me get rid of the other two pedals yet. The small clone sounds more lush than the Polychorus and is easier to use. I need to spend more time experimenting before rendering a final judgement. You can definitely get some funky feedback and modulation going on (kinda like a DMM). I need to learn the Double track and filter matrix modes as well. I tried some of the base settings that come with the pdf manual online and I must say the "12-string setting" doesn't sound near as good as my Small clone. I love the mojo of the pedal, but it takes up lots of pedal board real estate, so I have to make sure it's useful If I intended to leave it on my pedalboard. I dont' need 2 chorus pedals and 2 flanger pedals. If you have any cool settings you like, post them. I plan on watching Hurb's demos again and trying more settings.

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