Red Witch Empress Chorus

[acuevo]

This is a great chorus pedal… kind of Policey? Though i’m not too into them i like the sound. It was the first chorus I personally ever saw that let you control the delay time (although i know there were others before it)

I own one, but its not reliable in the least. Has there ever been any talk of doing this?

Here is a video of the rerelease version of it!

Also worth noting, it sounds AMAZING after dirt. I will try to find another video with a good example of that.

EDIT: I made a few videos with the chorus pedal. Signal chain is:

Musicman Majesty
Keely 4 knob compressor
King of tone clone
Empress chorus
DSM Simplifier Mark II
Adam T5V Monitors

For the comfortably numb solo, all is the same except using a big muff clone instead of the king of tone, with a BYOC echo royal. I also did a bit of the solo without chorus to highlight the difference.

Apologies for the mess and the iphone recording - I’m in the middle of a move and realized most of my recording stuff is packed away lol

As i mentioned, these things just don’t seem to be reliable. Sure enough the pedal started losing output a few times while i was making these. I’d LOVE to build a more reliable one.

 

[Feral Feline]

I like Fulton's pedals.
Managed to snag a couple, but not this one.

You might generate increased Wish-List interest if you include more info and a demo or two (or three), links to some magazine reviews...

 

[acuevo]

I like Fulton's pedals.
Managed to snag a couple, but not this one.

You might generate increased Wish-List interest if you include more info and a demo or two (or three), links to some magazine reviews...

Noted! I’ll be adding a nice video above of the newer “deus” version of the pedal.

 

[acuevo]

I literally cannot find a single video with dirt so looks like i’ll be making my own! Possibly up tomorrow night or wednesday

Hope y’all like Freewill by Rush and the first part of the Comfortably Numb solo this pedal does those tones pretty well.

 

[jwin615]

I love a good korus peedul.

 

[acuevo]

I added a few homemade videos of the chorus after dirt.

 

[Bio77]

Would you mind posting a gut shot? Wondering what the chips are.

 

[acuevo]

Would you mind posting a gut shot? Wondering what the chips are.

Yes absolutely, i’ll have it up by the end of the day

 

[acuevo]

Board pics:

 

[acuevo]

Two larger chips. The dip 8 doesn’t look so healthy thats probably where my problem is. Also the trace coming out of R8 doesn’t look great.

 

[acuevo]

Other various pics. Note there are two smaller chips, one is under the large capacitor which appears to be hot glued to the board.

 

[Bio77]

Thanks for that! Interesting, my first guess was a CE-1 based circuit, but the 4046 makes me think Zombie Chorus. This circuit is interesting would be cool if it gets traced. The sanded chip is a 3007. What problems are you having?

Also, have you built Lectric FX Karaoke Chorus? That might get you in the ball park, if this one craps out.

 

[acuevo]

I haven’t built that one yet. Mostly dirt pedals so far except for a delay and tremolo.

Intermittently it will get quieter and quieter. Eventually will cut out all together. Weirdly enough one time i had no signal when bypassed and a dry signal when engaged (even though i was connected to the correct output jack).

It definitely had some of the typical burnt electronics smell going on when i opened it up. I had assumed the sanded chip had overheated and thats why it looked like that.

As it stands i don’t trust this one to ever get me through a gig, especially considering it was going to be on my worship board. Ah well hopefully we get a lot more votes

 

[Bio77]

I had a Voodoo Lab chorus behave like this once. The circuit was grounded via a wire soldered to a washer that was held against the enclosure by the foot switch. It wasn't making contact. It was an easy fix. Maybe check how this one is grounded.

 

[ICTRock]

I'm looking at the circuit board pics and this looks like a modded small clone ... which tracks because the delay control is likely lifted from a small clone mod from tonepad/diystompboxes/fsb

I have a number of red witch pedals and they're all lifted from what was popular about 10-15 years ago in DIY

 

[HamishR]

A friend recently brought around a Red Witch pedal for me to look at - I'm not sure but looking at their site I think it's called the Binary Star. He said he was given it years ago by someone who had plugged the wrong power supply into it and it didn't work anymore and could I have a look at it. I wasn't sure what it was or even what it was supposed to sound like. But when I plugged it in it seemed to work just fine. It produced various tremolo and vibrato kind of sounds and it sounded like every other setting reversed to polarity or something. Not my kind of thing but it worked.

Then I gave it back to my friend and he said it didn't work for him - it was glitching and sputtering. Then he tried it again and it did work. Apparently now it's working just fine. It sure doesn't fill me with confidence about Red Witch products! I looked inside and couldn't find any obvious problems. No burned diodes or anything. I couldn't see any dry joints or anything suspect. And while it works - and my friend tells me it sounds exactly like it should - it really doesn't make any sounds I would use.

Maybe their other pedals are good?

 

[ICTRock]

You could join me in the quest to own all seven sisters ... I can't find the two knob delay with the box and paperwork to finish the set

also if you've been ebaying them since reading this, you'll want to take note that the pictures are all the same (serial number, fool) before you go handing them your paypal money trying to cash in on my current great white whale

 

[eh là bas ma]

Good idea, more modulation circuits in the PPCB library would be great, in my humble opinion. You have my vote !

 

[acuevo]

I had a Voodoo Lab chorus behave like this once. The circuit was grounded via a wire soldered to a washer that was held against the enclosure by the foot switch. It wasn't making contact. It was an easy fix. Maybe check how this one is grounded.

I finally had some more time to take it apart and check this - the mono output jack interestingly does not have a dedicated ground wire, rather it just grounds through the chassis. I know this technically works and while I'm sure others do this, I'VE never seen it before in a pedal. It has a star washer but honestly it looked poorly sanded and probably not making the best contact possible (even though it measured only .2 ohms to the ground of the input jack). Same thing with the switch and the stereo output jack. I'll try and clean it up for better contact to see if that helps - as it stands the pedal is totally dead again since i did the demos. Thanks again!!