 Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential. My name is Lee Fuge and I'm here today with MusicTeacher.com and in this video we're going to be checking out the Blackstar Amp2 and talking about some cool ways to use the built-in chorus effect. Now chorus is an effect that a lot of guitar players don't utilise to its full potential but it can be used for some really really cool things. So in this video I'm going to share four of my favourite ways to use chorus with you guys. So all the tones you're going to be hearing in this video are coming from the Blackstar Amp2. This is running out of the XLR output on the rear of the unit using cab rig. So everything you hear is coming directly from this unit today. So the first thing I want to show you is how to use chorus to get a shimmering clean tone. So let's say we've got a clean guitar part that goes something like this. If we use a chorus effect with that with a slow time and a kind of moderate to high depth we can add a really nice shimmer to this. So I love this effect because when you pair it with clean guitar it's very reminiscent of 1980s guitar tones which is some of my favourite. Now when we're doing this kind of thing we don't want the time to be too high because that is the rate of the modulation effect. So the higher the speed the more extreme the chorus effect is. So what we want is a slower speed, you could even go slower than what I've currently got this set and I have got quite a lot of depth here because I do like this sound. I do like a very shimmery chorusy clean tone but you can dial this back if that's too extreme. So it's going to sound like this. So adding some chorus to that makes your clean guitar part shimmer and adds some movement to the tone. The second way you can use chorus is to fatten up an existing guitar tone. So if you've got a really chunky rock rhythm tone that you're using you can use chorus to fatten and widen that tone. Now using chorus with a distorted tone actually gives the impression of double tracking. So it kind of gives you the idea that you've played two guitar parts at once. So let's see you're playing a riff like this. If I add a really subtle chorusing effect to that it will give the impression that I've double tracked the guitar line. This is incredibly useful if you play guitar in a band on your own and you just want to make your rhythm track sound that little bit fatter. So to do this you can see I've got the time and the depth very very low. So they're basically inaudible as a chorusing effect. What we're going to hear is just a slight thickening of the existing tone. The level in this case we can use as like a blend control. So I've got this kind of set just below halfway because I don't want too much of that double tracking effect blended in. I could lower that for less or I could increase it for a bit more if I wanted to. So here's how it sounds with the chorus. So you can hear that tone is a little bit fatter and it does sound like there's two guitar parts playing at once there. As I said that's a great trek to use if you're playing live in a single guitar band and you really want to fatten out the rhythm tones. The third way you can use chorus is to add a real 80s vibe to your lead guitar tones. This is one of my favorite ways to use chorus. So if I'm playing a lead in a song and I'm using a standard overdriven tone with some reverb it's going to sound something like this. If I want to give that a real 80s flavor I can turn on my chorus. Now you'll see this time I've got some quite intense settings going on. So I've actually got the level control kicked up here because I do actually want a real audible chorusing effect. I've got the depth as far up as I can possibly go on this unit because once we get to the halfway point it automatically switches to flanger mode. So I've basically got the depth on 10 there as you can see or as close to 10 as I can get it. And then the time I've got about a quarter of the way up I don't want too much of a quick swirling chorus. I just want a slow chorus that does that slight doubling and detering thing. So with the chorus it sounds like this. And the fourth chorus tip that I'm going to give you today is that you can use chorus to give you a kind of fake Leslie rotary speaker type effect. Now doing this will never ever completely replicate a real Leslie rotary speaker but this is great if you're in a band mix and you need a Leslie tone for perhaps one passage of a song. And I use this myself all the time. What you can do is you can use a chorus to kind of simulate some of the nuances and subtleties that a Leslie speaker has. So for this we want as much of the level as we can because we're basically completely blending this in. We need all of the chorus. The depth is again as far as it will go without going into the flanger mode on this pedal. And then the time this is where we can come up with some different Leslie tones. So we can use the time control to give us a fast or slow rotary speed. So let's say I'm playing a clean part like this. And I want to add a Leslie type vibe to that. Using these settings it will give me this. Now if I want I can actually back the time off and this will give me like a slightly slower Leslie speed. As I said it's never going to be exactly like a real Leslie speaker but in a pinch it's pretty good. In the more extreme settings you kind of get into some of those sound guard and black hole sun type sounds. But not as intense as a real Leslie speaker. So a real Leslie would give you much more of a pronounced effect. But this is a great way that if you're in a bit of a pinch and you need a Leslie type sound for something in a set you could do this kind of thing. Maximum depth, maximum level and then the time just to see whatever it is you're wanting to do. You can actually tap tempo the speed on this as well. So if you're playing along with the drummer and you need to specifically tap in a set modulation speed you can use the tap control for that as well. So there you go there are four fun things you can do with your chorus effect on your Blackstar Amp 2. Chorus as an effect has kind of fallen out of favor with a lot of guitar players. Many people think it's a dated effect because it would heavily used in the 80s and early 90s but like I've shown in this video you can get some really great tones with this. Now some of these tones are slightly dated they do kind of take you back to some of those 80s heyday tones of the chorus pedal but things like the ability to use it as a thickening tool for your rhythm tracks or as a fake Leslie are great things you could do if you're using something like the Amp 2 for gigging and you're on a real kind of scaled down rig you can quickly twist those knobs and get a couple of different tones there out of just the built-in chorus on this. Let me know down below in the comments how you guys are using chorus in your own rigs. I'd love to hear how you guys are implementing your built-in chorus effects from the Amp 2. Don't forget to check out Blackstar over on YouTube for more free videos just like this one and if there's anything you'd like to see us talk about with the Amp 2 let us know down below in the comments. Don't forget to check out musicteacher.com if you're looking for a guitar teacher in your local area they have a network of teachers all around the country when to help you guys out. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you all soon.