Boss CE-2W Waza Craft Chorus Pedal Experience
I decided to try the Boss CE-2W Chorus and play it back to back with my long time favorite Maxon CS-9 Pro Stereo Chorus. These are my thoughts on that comparison.
Last year around this time I wrote a blog post about how my favorite analog chorus guitar pedal is the Maxon CS-9 Pro Stereo Chorus. In that post I did mention that I had never compared it to a Boss Chorus pedal like a CH-1 Super Chorus, an old CE-1 or even the current Boss Waza Craft CE-2W Chorus. I finally tried the CS-9 Pro against the latter, the CE-2W Waza Craft Chorus.
The Maxon CS-9 vs Boss CE-2W on Guitar and Bass
I’ll say that I played the Maxon CS-9 Pro vs Boss CE-2W Waza Craft on both guitar and bass. Here’s how I felt about it. The CE-2W is pretty amazing. That all said, I can’t really say one is better than the other. I kept going back and forth thinking, “This is pretty awesome, oh, but this other one is really great too.” I finally concluded that it’s all personal preference and that one day you may like one more than the other, but the next day completely change your mind.
This has to be said though: The Boss Chorus CE-2W Waza Craft is probably the most versatile and easiest to use of the two. The fact that you have 3 modes and just 2 knobs means that you can just switch modes from CE-2 to CE-1 Chorus to CE-1 Vibrato and then concentrate on just two knobs to set your sound. On the Maxon CS-9 Pro Chorus you have 4 knobs and you can achieve a lot of the same effects, but the interaction between the knobs is important, which makes it a little harder to dial in. Reason I have little marks on mine to remember my favorite settings.
On bass guitar I felt I preferred the Boss CE-2W Waza Craft. This is the reason it ended up on my bass pedalboard for the time being. However, if I were to swap it out for the Maxon, I wouldn’t be sad.
Stereo Function of Each Chorus Pedal
The stereo function on both of these pedals is very different however. The BOSS CE-2W is actual wet-dry. This means that one channel sends the wet chorus signal where the other is the dry signal. This helps with clarity and avoids phasing issues which are commong problems when you have other pedals after your chorus, which is typical for most guitarists since we tend to put delay and reverb after our modulation effects.
The Maxon CS-9 Pro Stereo Chorus does it by sending the main chorus signal out of the top main output and an inversion of that on output 2 at the bottom. This means that you can technically send an inverted mono chorus signal out if you use that output alone.
Which is my favorite?
I think a Boss Chorus pedal is a must have. I can’t believe I waited this long to get one. My beloved Maxon CS-9 Pro Stereo Chorus is still my favorite, though I think a lot of it has to due with the fact that I’ve had it for over 20 years. If I were to pick up another chorus pedal variant it would likely be another Boss Chorus at the moment. It would more than likely be a standard CH-1 due to the low price. However, I really want to get the Boss DC-2W Dimension C Waza Craft pedal… and a Walrus Audio Julia just because it’s such a standard these days.
