UA’s digitally modelled version of the Boss CE‑1 analogue Chorus Ensemble was first transplanted from their plug‑in portfolio back into hardware in their Astra modulation pedal, but it reappears now as part of the UAFX compact range. The plug‑in’s name, Brigade, is retained in the compact pedal and references the charge‑coupled devices, popularly referred to as ‘bucket‑brigade’ chips, used in the original circuit for the analogue delay line that was modulated to produce the chorus effect.
The CE‑1 pedal has the honour of being the very first unit to bear the Boss name, and made the distinctive modulation effect popularised by the Roland JC‑120 Jazz Chorus amp available in standalone form for the first time. The thing that made the JC‑120 combo’s chorus a bit special was that it was rendered as a ‘wet‑dry’ effect, using a separate power amp for each of its two speakers. The CE‑1 pedal retained that faux stereo with separate wet and dry outputs and would reward you with a similarly spacious effect when hooked up to two amps, but for many users, even just the mono output was exciting enough in the late ’70s.
Popular with keyboard players, guitarists and the odd bass player, the CE‑1’s chorus had just a single control, labelled Intensity, with the separate Depth and Rate controls operating only on the footswitchable Vibrato effect — this was a pitch‑modulated output with no dry signal mixed in. The input impedance of the CE‑1 was a bit low for passive guitars, so it helped to have a buffering pedal in front of it, and it was always hard to avoid a creating a bit of crunch from the preamp, to the point where it really just seemed like part of the effect. Brigade gives you the option to include or omit the distortion and coloration of the preamp when the pedal is in bypass, but it is of course always on when the effect is active. Anyone who had a CE‑1 will remember it as a frustratingly noisy pedal. In contrast, the Brigade is delightfully noise free, even when you turn up the Level control.
For all its limitations, there is something about this sound that I find always just sits perfectly in the context of a mix.
True to form, UA have modelled the overall sound of the CE‑1 with uncanny accuracy, to my ears, whilst also replicating the limited control functionality. In Chorus mode, the Depth control has the function of the CE‑1’s Intensity control, setting both modulation rate and, I think, slightly changing the wet/dry mix at the same time. All the classic chorus sounds are to be found in about a 30‑degree arc in the middle of the rotation — too low and there’s not much happening, too high and you are into full‑on ‘seasick’ warble. In the middle, though, it’s just perfect! I could never get the separate Rate and Depth controls of the CE‑1’s ‘improved’ successor CE‑2 and similar pedals to sound like this. Perhaps the limitations of the CE‑1’s preamp are a useful factor, plus the fact that later chorus pedal designs tended to employ longer delay times and more ‘voices’, whereas the CE‑1’s delay time is barely out of flanger territory and modulates just a single ‘voice’. It may just be my associating it with so many classic tracks, but for all its limitations, there is something about this sound that I find always just sits perfectly in the context of a mix. Or maybe that’s because there’s really only one setting that works so you are not temped to try anything ‘out of the zone’!
It’s mono in and out, there’s no Bluetooth or app to worry about here, and the USB‑C is just for firmware updates, so you just set the controls and go. But it is still a digital pedal, and whilst the odd millisecond or two of latency when the effect is active won’t matter much, there is one scenario in which it does. If you want to replicate the CE‑1s faux stereo, perhaps by using the Brigade on a splitter or mixer send, your direct dry signal won’t be time‑aligned with the dry element included within the mixed effect output, so you may notice that the sound is very slightly thinned out compared to either channel on its own. But it is still well worth doing, so long as you can pan the channels apart or send them to different amps. The effect is far more subtle and spacious than in mono. The full wet/dry faux stereo CE‑1 experience is available in the Astra pedal.
Of course, you can now get a brand‑new, fully analogue version of a CE‑1 from Boss themselves, in the form of one of the modes on a CE‑2w. Is it more accurate? I’m not sure we can say what ‘accurate’ is anymore, with most of the original CE‑1s having drifted out of spec or been modified, ‘improved’ or repaired. Either way, UA’s Brigade does exactly what I expect a CE‑1‑type effect to do, and in a compact format with top‑mounted jacks, too. What’s not to like?
Audio Examples
These audio files provide examples of the sounds that can be obtained using the UAFX Brigade pedal.
1. Brigade overdrive guitar mono
A fairly driven riff/rhythm track with lots of harmonic content reveals just how close the CE-1 circuit is to a flanger. Indeed many tracks attributed to a CE-1 are actually an EH Electric Mistress and vice-versa. The main track here has the Brigade patched post-amp, whilst all the other parts deploy it on the input side and slightly cleaner, resulting in a less ‘soupy’ effect with a bit more chime.
2. Brigade overdrive guitar mono isolated
Chorus effects all seemed to get a bit more polite after the CE-1. For me, like the CE-1, Brigade has just the right amount of ‘chewiness’ in the sound with overdriven guitar.
3. Brigade Keys ‘stereo’
Before things got really ‘posh’ for keyboards with built-in chorusing and the advent of the ubiquitous LA-studio ‘tri-chorus’ sound for electric piano, a CE-1 was a favourite way of semi-stereo-ising a Rhodes. I actually prefer it for the bit of grit that it introduces. Brigade gets it spot-on, I think. With the dry sound on one side and the chorus on the other, the effect doesn’t dominate as much as a true stereo chorus can and it’s a sound you can use in any genre.
4. Brigade solo guitar ‘stereo’
Dry channel on the left and effect mix on the right. With no other instrumentation, you can hear the slightly eccentric modulation, whilst the presence of the dry signal prevents the pitch movement from seeming excessive. I left the full length of the last note’s decay in the file just to illustrate the lovely absence of noise compared to the original effect.
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$199.
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