Diamond Pedals Halo Chorus Pedal

This review is about the Diamond Pedals Halo Chorus Pedal . It's an all analog Chorus pedal . There are some very interesting extra feature with phase added to the pedal in it's own section . You can blend them together for something un-traditionally chorus .

BUILD - Solid . Metal case with the type screened on . Hard plastic knobs . Metal toggles . The guts must look fantastic and are heavy duty quality . The price reflects this .

FUNCTION - It's true bypass A knob labeled Depth for your chorus's depth . A knob labeled speed which handles both the speed of the chorus and the speed of the phaser . A mix knob which handles the phase modulation . A second mix knob id for the chorus so you can take either out of the picture entirely or blend to taste . That is pretty unique . Diamond thought a toggle to switch the phase 180 degrees would be a good thing when using two amps . Brilliant idea . This pedal has 2 inputs and outputs which I dig . One goes out to an amp with your chorus . The other with your phase modulation . How cool is that ?! And you have an input for an expression pedal . there is an LED to show the speed of the chorus .

SOUND - It's a very pleasant sounding chorus . I really like how it can be so subtle that it adds to the spacing and is hardly detectable if you want it to be . Kind of like a good reverb that you didn't know was on an instrument in a mix until you turned that reverb off . This pedal can do that sort of thing . This pedal on the chorus setting does a really decent job of staying out of the way of the original signal . It gives it a nice warm hug instead of choking it like some Chorus pedals . Also the pitch modulation at high levels still doesn't choke the signal . This to me is similar to what makes the Roland Dimension D and Boss CE-1 so classic . This pedal could be a good substitute for it's transparent and subtle quality . All three have different texture to their pitch modulation but all 3 are extremely pleasant . the mix knob takes it even further out of the picture if you need to do so . The speed tracks really well . To further enhance depth and spacing . this could be the one and only Chorus on your pedal board really and then you can add phase into the equation as well . Diamond are clever Canadians .

CONCLUSION - Well this is a top of the line Chorus pedal . The extras alone make it a standout . Add to that , it's one of the better chorus's your likely to hear . Then you have the amazing components that went in to building it like a BBD MN007 , Burr-Brown op-amps and Panasonic capacitors and you get the full picture . It is just over $300 but given what goes into it that seems fair . CE-1's sell for nearly $500 and they are thirty years old . It's worthy of making anyone's short list !