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Top 5 Free Chorus Plugins – Add Width and Warble to Your Tracks With These Magnificent Modulators

Ian Vargo
ArticlesMixingProducingSound Design
In this article I’m going to break down my top 5 Free Chorus Plugins. Debuting in the 1930s via Hammond Organs which housed a “chorus tone generator” that produced a second, slightly out-of-tune note alongside the primary one, the chorusing effect remained popular through the decades on a variety of sound sources, spanning many musical genres.

From The Beatles and ADT, to Andy Summers and his Roland Jazz Chorus, to Nirvana and the EHX Small Clone, chorusing has been used creatively to add depth, width, warble and other modulation effects to tracks since its invention. Popular hardware units like the Roland Dimension D, Yamaha SPX90, and T.C. Electronic 1210 gave way to more affordable options like the Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble pedal. Today, in addition to fantastic paid offerings by companies including Universal Audio and SoundToys, there are many great free chorus plugin options if you want to experiment with the effect at no cost. Let’s take a look at my 5 favorites.

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The hefty Roland Jazz Chorus, which has been used by players not limited to jazz

Soundtoys Little Microshift

I’m a huge fan of all Soundtoys plugins, and their free “little” versions of their processors are no exception. Soundtoys created Little MicroShift to capture the essence of coveted hardware pitch shifters like the Eventide H3000 and AMS DMX 15-80s—devices originally developed by Soundtoys’ founders.

Little MicroShift emulates the distinctive characteristics of these classic chorusing units, including their saturation and unique de-glitching algorithms. Little Microshift offers the expansive, wide sound of the original hardware with a simple user-friendly interface, making it quicker and easier to achieve those iconic effects.

How I Use It:

Looking to add width to background vocals or make lead guitars or synths stand out? Little MicroShift delivers three variations of a classic stereo widening effect with just a button press. Using a blend of pitch shifting and delay that evolves over time, it’s incredibly simple to use, perfect for enhancing key instruments or subtly integrating background vocals into your mix. I’ll wait until the choruses to bring in a processed version of a vocal, guitar, or whatever I’m hoping to emphasize and then use Little Microshift to add width to those elements.

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Baby Audio Magic Switch

Next up is a gem from one of my favorite plugins companies: Baby Audio’s Magic Switch. Magic Switch is incredibly straightforward, featuring just an on/off button and a mix slider. Inspired by the chorus effect of the Juno 60 synthesizer, it imparts a distinctively dark and slightly detuned character. It’s worth noting that Magic Switch is a component of Baby Audio’s Super VHS plugin, known for its rich, vintage sound. If you’re looking to add some noise, warble, and reverb to your tracks, this plugin is a great choice.

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How I Use It:

For added depth and modulation on your reverbs and delays, place Magic Switch directly after them. Adjust the mix amount to keep the effect subtle and enhance the sound of your time-based effects.

Valhalla Space Modulator

All of Valhalla’s offerings are fantastic, featuring stellar sound quality to match the clean and intuitive visuals. Though marketed as a flanger, Space Modulator works exceptionally well as a chorus effect too. The user interface is both simple and vibrant, with controls for mix, rate, depth, feedback, and manual (which adds a fixed pre-delay to the modulated signal). With 11 modes available, you can tailor the modulation to fit your needs. Visit the Valhalla DSP website to download this free chorus plugin.

How I Use It:

For a bare bones chorusing effect, I recommend using the “doubler” mode. This mode adds two detuned voices with a wide stereo spread, perfect for enhancing backup vocals, guitars, synths, or anything that could use a bit of extra width.

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TAL Chorus LX

The chorus effect in Roland’s Juno-60 synthesizer became so popular that musicians even hacked the synth to run external audio through its lush, vibrant chorus. The demand for this sound is so high that TC Electronic has even created a pedal version of this iconic modulator.
Swiss developers TAL have crafted an accurate reproduction of the Juno-60 chorus. The Chorus LX is designed with simplicity in mind, offering controls for volume, dry/wet mix, stereo width, and buttons to select one or both of the chorus types.

How I Use It:

Chorus setting 1 offers a subtle effect, providing gentle, slow modulation with a hint of stereo width. Setting 2 delivers a more pronounced effect with increased depth and faster modulation. Familiarize yourself with both settings on the Chorus LX to easily add diverse modulation effects to vocals, synths, guitars, and more.

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Kilohearts Chorus and Ensemble

These two distinct effects from Kilohearts, a Swedish software company, may lack the polished interfaces and vintage sonic qualities of some of the other chorus plugins on the market, but that’s actually a plus. The controls are straightforward, easy to use, and the sound quality is outstanding. If you want to insert a chorus effect, and have something usable within seconds, look no further.

Chorus offers controls for delay, spread, taps (2/3), depth, rate, and mix. The spread knob is particularly impressive and is great for widening a variety of sound sources.

Ensemble operates similarly to Chorus by creating and playing back delayed replicas of a sound. However, it goes a step further by modulating the phase of each voice to avoid the metallic flanging effect of near-identical waves, resulting in a more natural and pleasing sound. It includes controls for the number of voices, detune, spread, mix, and a motion selector to choose the shape of the modulation.

How I Use Them:

Ensemble can be utilized to create a pretty dramatic detuning effect, which is tons of fun for retro-izing synthesizer and/or electric guitar.

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Free Chorus Plugins Summary

This list is by no means exhaustive, so be sure to keep an eye out because amazing new products are being released every day. That said, for most chorusing duties, you could download all of these aforementioned tools and call it a day. It’s also worth mentioning that many stock plugins can punch above their weight. Ableton’s Chorus-Ensemble is fantastic, and I use it all the time. There’s tons of discourse surrounding EQ, compression, reverb, and delay, but chorus has been utilized by top producers for decades, and is definitely capable of taking your productions to the next level. Be sure to use the effect creatively.

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