KEYS
DON ’ T BORE US , TURN ON THE CHORUS | David Pfaltzgraff
Back in the glowingly nostalgic days of the 1980 ’ s a lot of popular music had a particular , at times plastic sheen . Pop music was evolving , and hair metal bands stood alongside mega-mall top 40 chart toppers and their groundbreaking synthesizer and drum machine fueled creations .
When I revisit the music of that era there ’ s a single word that defines the time to me : chorus .
But I ’ m not talking about the lyrical hook of a pop song . I ’ m talking about the audio effect , chorus , in which an audio signal is duplicated , slightly delayed and pitch modulated , then mixed back in with the original effect . The results can range from a subtle , lush thickening of an acoustic guitar or synth to a completely over the top cheese festival applied to heavy metal guitars at amounts far beyond good taste .
In the 80s chorus was everywhere and used on almost everything you can think of . So much so that it eventually became cliché , and faded out of style in most genres of music . But over the last few years the humble chorus effect has seen a resurgence in popularity across many genres of music , including popular worship music .
Let ’ s take a look at the ways you can add this timbre to your worship keys sounds .
SAY IT IN UNISON Chorus is a great effect when used tastefully on synth pad and lead sounds but a good bit of the time the most prominent sonic examples of this might not actually be the result of a chorus effect at all .
Most any analog poly synth ( or digital emulation worth owning ) features independent tuning of its oscillators . Lush , powerful sounds can be achieved by slightly detuning one or more oscillators in relation to the others . The results of this technique have made appearances in practically every song that features a synth pad sound or similar . While the timbre can be quite similar to that of applying a chorus effect to a synth sound , what ’ s actually happening in the instrument is distinctly different .
It might feel like a false start to begin our discussion with an ‘ actually ’, but there ’ s an important distinction here that ’ s worth making . It can be helpful to think of chorus as an effect that can help spread or widen your sound while detuning oscillators , when done tastefully it has the effect of ‘ thickening ’ the sound in addition to widening .
I bring this up first because they ’ re each only half of the sonic palette that many worship keys players are trying to access today , and both effects deserve a spot in the conversation .
TO THE CHORUS With unison detuning out of the way , we can begin talking about chorus itself . By necessity this is a bit of a history lesson . A brief glance at the most popular varieties of chorus today will