As I explained in my complete overview on what is chorus, this is an effect which utilizes modulation via an LFO to affect the pitch and timing of duplicates of an audio source. By actively changing the pitch and timing of this duplicate of your audio source in real time, it gives the effect of having unique versions of that source. This can be used in a number of ways on a number of different types of instruments, including drums. Let’s talk how to use chorus on drums, whether that’s to give them some more width or to impart some of that classic lush thickness of the effect.
How to Use Chorus on Drums
As I just mentioned in opening, there are multiple ways you can apply chorus to drums. For this example I’ll be using Arturia’s Chorus JUN-6, but your DAW will almost certainly come with a stock chorus plugin effect.
My Ableton Live has a very good chorus plugin option for example (check out my complete overview of Ableton’s stock plugins).
Drum Width
First, let’s talk that aforementioned width.
Keep in mind that you likely don’t want SOME aspects of your drums to be wide, namely the kick. The kick drum sounds best centered in the stereo image with zero width, particularly in the sub bass region where its fundamental exists.
As such, if you want more width on other elements of your kit like your snare or overhead (like in the case of not having two microphones), chorus can work.
I’ve talked about how to get wider sounds out of multiple instruments in your mix in the past. When I have, I mention that the best way to achieve width from a track is to create authentic and unique doubles of that track, particularly for vocals. Each double has a unique timing and pitch to the previous take, no matter how closely in sync it is to the original.
Conversely, if you just duplicated your track and panned each track wide, it would sound narrow, because it’s the exact same track with the peaks and valleys of the dynamics syncing up at the same instances with the same pitch.
As I mentioned, chorus corrects this by giving you the effect of having unique doubles by changing up the pitch and timing of produced duplicates over the original.
The major setting on most chorus plugins is the “Rate” parameter. This determines how quickly the pitch is shifting. Setting this lower makes for a more gradual transition between pitches, resulting in a lusher and more subtle chorus effect.
When using chorus for width, set this to at or near the lowest frequency for a slower adjustment to make those “duplicates” thicker and more natural sounding.
Rather than using chorus as an insert, the best way to apply chorus to your drums would be as a send on an Aux/Return track. Set the Wet to 100% on that track, then blend in the amount of width that you want via the send knob. Less is more here as the more you blend in, the more likely you’ll hear the artifacts of the chorus over the width.
With the Jun-6 Chorus plugin from Arturia, I’ve got it synced to the tempo of the song with the depth controller set low to create a relatively small range between the pitch extremes of the plugin. The “phase” is set to the full 180 degrees to be as distanced from the source tone as possible.
Once again, whenever using chorus or any effect as an Aux/Return track, the mix is set to 100% wet so I’m blending in the amount on the send knob to taste. I just want enough so that I don’t hear it, but when I turn off the Aux/Return track with the chorus on it, I’ll notice the difference.
It’s a classic “feel it” rather than hear it, i.e. less is more.
This also works best when you have multitracked drums, meaning each piece of the kit has its own dedicated track. Then you can blend in more or less width with each piece which helps to keep the entire drum set from taking up too much space and generally becoming a mess in the stereo field (which again goes back to less is more).
Note that if you don’t have multitracked drums and are using chorus or any effect to widen your entire drum kit on a single track, drop a plugin behind the chorus plugin on that Aux/Return track which allows you to mono everything below a certain frequency.
The Ableton Live “Utility” plugin has this feature built in to where you can control the stereo width of the track, make it entirely mono, or force everything below a certain frequency to mono.
The “Bass Mono” setting on the utility plugin is for just that. This ensures that everything below the frequency point of your choosing is narrowed to the center of the stereo field.
This allows you apply plugins to add width like chorus to your entire drum kit while keeping the fundamental, sub 100Hz of the kick where it sounds best in the center.
Aesthetic Effect
Aside from a more practical application, there are times when chorus sounds good on the entire kit without discriminating the kick to make it contrast with the preceding or following section.
You can use this to reset energy in a song after a chorus, or to push the drums to the back say during a bridge.
Depending on how you set the rate, you can use chorus to give it a lush, washed out feel or a choppy, almost phaser-like sound.
It’s a cop-out, but on Arturia’s Jun-6 I just like pushing the preset Mode 1 button:
This takes the manual controls out of commission; it just applies its own unique preset sound to our drums.
When using chorus in this way, I don’t want to preserve any of the “dry” instance of the drums.
As such, I’m dropping this directly on the drum bus as an insert and automating it on for any stretches I want.
You can use this to build tension before a chorus, reset the energy after one, create a more interesting drum sound on the intro, drop it on a fill, etc.
More than anything else, using chorus or other modulation based audio effects like phasers, flangers, or tremolos is great for contrasting with the surrounding parts and creating a little ear candy to keep your listener engaged.
Which, as I always say, is the whole point of mixing.
