I bought this somewhat on a lark, as I found it for a great price & free shipping on a eBay ‘buy it now’, new-in-box. I’d wanted a stereo chorus anyway, and my old one was mono…so I went for it.
Brilliant blue LED indicator
Behringer Chorus First Impressions
Although this unit is housed in plastic, it has a feeling of solidity to it. The plastic itself looks & feels like ABS, which is what they made football helmets out of before Lexan came along. So I’m not worried about its durability at all. Bear in mind, though, that I don’t do Irish jigs on top of my pedals, and try to take care of them.
The look of the unit is very clean and down-to-business. No flashy graphics…just the facts, Ma’am. The battery cover idea on the CO600 is something like that of Digitech pedals, in that the pedal comes off via spring-loaded retainer/hinge pins, and the battery clips in right under the pedal. Behringer didn’t really implement this as well as Digitech does, though. But it works.
Behringer CO600 Chorus Functionality
The controls related directly to the chorus effect work as you would expect them to. They control the rate and depth of the effect itself. The Level control seems only to cut the output level (no boost), and the amount of level cut is maybe 15% (to my ears). This really doesn’t make for a very useful control.
I could see a need for it if the chorus kicked in at a lower or higher level than the bypassed signal, but I don’t hear any discernible difference in them, so the level control is pretty much moot. If the player actually wanted a little boost when chorus was kicked in, he can’t get it with this ‘cut only’ level control.
The High and Low controls are similar to the level control, in that they’re ‘cut-only’, no boost, and their effect on the amount of high and low frequencies present in the output signal is almost imperceptible. I can tell the difference when the knob is full on or full off, but the difference on this Behringer chorus is not enough to be of any real use to me.
I have to ask; why put controls on an effect that don’t really do anything?
Behringer CO600 Chorus Sound/Tone
This unit doesn’t lack anything in this area. The chorus effect is nice and lush, with the controls giving good command of the depth and rate. In stereo, with two amps running, it has a really subtle but definite ‘separation’.
I’ve heard some stereo choruses that sounded like a ping-pong match, but this one gives the psychoacoustic impression of floating dreamily across from left to right. Very therapeutic to play around with in stereo! And this pedal is very quiet as compared to my old chorus pedal. There’s no ‘swishing’ coming from the amp(s) when I’m not actually playing.
Behringer CO600 Chorus Overall
Is this effect worth the $44.95 MSRP? Nah….not when there are metal-housed units out there with the same function, for that price. But if you can snag a new one for less than $30 (I did), it’s definitely worth that. It’s not a bad chorus at all. It does what you want a chorus to do, and the stereo implementation is very nice on this unit.
I only wish manufacturers wouldn’t put extra knobs on things if they don’t do much, such as the level, high, and low controls on this one. Yeah, they do cut the levels, but only slightly, and not really enough to be of much use to the player.
Overall, I have to give this Behringer chorus a passing grade, though. The Behringer CO600 Chorus really does sound quite nice.
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