Vintage Ensemble

Mr. Black built their entire reputation chasing one sound: the 1976 Roland CE-1 Chorus Ensemble. That big-box, AC-powered unit defined chorus for a generation, but its size and power requirements kept it off modern pedalboards. Jack Deville's Vintage Ensemble cracks it open and puts the soul in a standard enclosure—9V DC, true bypass, and a full wet/dry mix the original never had.

Three controls: Mix (dry/wet blend, from subtle shimmer to full-wet vibrato), Width (oscillator sweep range matching the CE-1's carefully tuned delay times), and Rate (speed, with range extended beyond the original). At low mix and moderate rate it does the glassy, dimensional clean tone that pairs perfectly with a Fender Twin. Crank the mix with width up and you get true pitch vibrato—the CE-1's other personality that most clones forget about.

True bypass. 9VDC center-negative, <60mA. Handmade in Portland, Oregon.