Caesar Chorus Question

[hankspencer]

Built the Caesar chorus and I really like it but it definitely is not clean sounding. Kind of has an edge of breakup sound to my ears. Wondering, what it is about this circuit that gives it that "dirty" quality? Is this something that can be modified to produce a cleaner tone or do I just need to pursue a different pedal?

 

[falco_femoralis]

Make sure the op amps you're using are genuine

 

[hankspencer]

Bought them from StompBoxParts and haven't had a problem with their stuff in the past?

 

[jwin615]

What's driving it?
You can go in too hot. Check your gain staging.

 

[Locrian99]

I also wonder the trim pot is used to set the cleanest chorus sound possible, have you attempted to dial that in.

 

[Alan W]

I used OPA 2134 op amps in mine, and it's very clean sounding. If you have any, try plugging them in, or just one, as a replacement for the RC4558; if that doesn't clean it up, at least you'll know it's not the op amps. I generally don't like the way that 4558s sound, except in distortion pedals. Since most of my playing is "clean" I've gotten to love the extra headroom with the OPA chips. (Especially at higher voltages, but to do that on the Caesar, you'd need to some careful messing around with lowering voltages to other spots in the circuit, and to my ears at 9V it's a clean enough sounding pedal. Caesar might be one of my most used pedals.)

 

[chongmagic]

I also wonder the trim pot is used to set the cleanest chorus sound possible, have you attempted to dial that in.

If the trim pot isn't dialed in correctly, it will cause some distortion. I would start there.