DOD 460 Mini Chorus

- Controls for depth and speed
- Buffered Bypass
- Vintage DOD construction
- Compact
- Powered by 9v battery or DOD style adapter
- Solid and reliable


UTILIZATION

While this is an excellent chorus in many ways, the usability is a little annoying. The controls themselves are very simple, depth and speed/rate. Standard chorus controls, should be self explanatory. It is nice and compact which is nice. Now we get to the fun part. There is a very noticeable volume drop when the pedal is engaged. I had my own pedal converted to true bypass in hopes of rectifying this, to no avail. So it is great for studio work, or on songs that have the chorus all the way through. But for switching the pedal on in the middle of a song is going to be problematic. There is no LED indicator which can be pretty annoying. The adapter is a vintage DOD style, NOT the standard Boss one. There are adapters that will cross the two, but it is just plain annoying to deal with.

SOUND QUALITY

The sound itself is pretty great. I’ve been through a lot of choruses, and this one really isn’t bad at all, especially for the price you can get them at. Very warm and analog sounding. Anywhere from a slight shimmer to peaks and dives. Low noise, and not very cheesy sounding which seems to be the most common complaint regarding chorus pedals these days. Very similar to, but a little more subtle and refined than the more easily obtainable DOD fx65.

OVERALL OPINION

If you are after a solid vintage analog chorus at an affordable price, this is probably the one to get. Yes, it has some usability issues, and isn’t the most straightforward to plug in and use. But that is vintage gear in general, and the price you pay for using it. There aren’t really a whole lot of similar sounding chorus pedals to be had at this price point. That said, these aren’t the easiest to get a hold of. There are one or two on ebay from time to time, and they usually go between $70-100. I’d recommend mods for true bypass and a side mounted LED to make it a little more usable. If this sounds like it’s more of a hassle than you’re up for, I’d take a look at the Malekko or Cmatmods chorus pedals.

The DOD 460 Mini Chorus is a guitar effect pedal that has 1/4 inch connections and has a 9 volt power supply jack and battery compartment.  It is an analog pedal and isn't rackable because it is a stomp box.


UTILIZATION

The make up of the DOD 460 Mini Chorus is extremely simple.  The pedal only has parameters for speed and depth, but its really all you need for this pedal as you can get more than enough sounds with just those parameters.  Since the pedal is so basic in make up, a manual isn't necessary to learn it.


SOUND QUALITY

The DOD 460 Mini Chorus is one of the best sounding pedals made by DOD in my opinion.  I think its really simple set up makes it quite easy to get a good and useful sound.  I usually use the pedal for recording and use it with a '76 Fender Twin Reverb amp and Fender Strat.  With this configuration I'm just about always pretty happy with the chorus effect that I can get with this pedal.  It can be subtle or really wavy and interesting, and I'm a fan of pretty much all of the tones possible with this pedal.  While there are certainly better sounding chorus pedals out there, the DOD 460 Mini Chorus does a great job of doing what it can do.


OVERALL OPINION

I've been using the DOD 460 Mini Chorus for about three or four years and while it isn't one of my favorite chorus pedals, it definitely does the job and does it at an extremely cheap price.  If you are looking for a dirt cheap chorus pedal that still sounds really good, the DOD 460 Mini Chorus is a good place to start.  I can't really say I have any complaints about this pedal and because the price is so low I wasn't expecting much, but ended up getting a lot!