Skip to content

a blog on effects

Menu
  • Home
  • collection (486)
  • Ibanez (111)
  • Danelectro (53)
  • DOD, Digitech (51)
  • Electro-Harmonix (40)
  • Boss (54)
  • Other Brands (177)
Menu

Morley CCB Crystal Chorus

Posted on 1/12/2013 by mirosol

Yeah. I know. it’s december already, but this is the last uncovered chorus pedal in my collection for the moment. I want to cover it now – so that i don’t have to write about choruses for a while…

Morley-CCB-CrystalChorus

What is it?
Morley CCB Crystal Chorus from Jewel Box series. Made in US around 1995-98. Serial number maimed by velcro (grrrr!).

The aesthetics are heart warming. The box is too big, but the white sparkle coating makes amends. Knob pointers are glowing in the dark and the graphic design reminds me of something 50’s.  Stylish and very neat. Blinking LED for the indicator that shows you the LFO speed is also pleasing.

Morley-CCB-CrystalChorus-guts1

I thought i heard something that wasn’t like on most standard analog chorus designs. Taking a look at the schematic confirms my suspicion. The chip driving the 1024 stage 3207 BBD isn’t your standard timer. As always with Morley, the buffering and mixing is done with a quad opamp. Motorola MC3403 acts as a LFO and the timer for BBD is created with CD4007 and CD4047 CMOS chips. To be honest, i’ve never seen that don before. The stereo output  is just simply splitted and connects only when the first output is in use. It could have been inverted, but then the board would not have been big enough for Morley engineer.

Morley-CCB-CrystalChorus-guts2

There’s also user manual available with example setting. Those ara always fun.

Negative points come from the big box and the rate knob. And a small additional minus for the board layout. The ground strip that connects the left and right side goes under the battery hole of the board. It’s not too convincing way to ground the board.

How does it sound?
Smooth and gets quite flangerish with depth maxed. Feel of the rate knob isn’t perfect as the best part of the sweep is located at last 10 percent of the sweep. Schematic shows that pot to be a log taper one, so it undoubtedly is performing in the best possible manner. If you ever get a chance to play with one, try to place it in front of some massive distortion unit like Boss MD-2. That’ll give you something a lot closer to synth than a guitar. Soundwise, this turned out to be my favourite chorus.

2 thoughts on “Morley CCB Crystal Chorus”

  1. Lancot Baier says:
    11/03/2023 at 22:16

    I was lucky enough to purchase one of these years ago. I just recently plugged it in (3/11/2023), and oh wow! my tc corona is comming out of my pedal board and this is going in. i am flabergasted

    Reply
    1. mirosol says:
      20/03/2023 at 09:03

      These are quite amazing pedals. Just saw the delay from the series for sale, but couldn’t grab it before someone else did.. I’m also missing the flanger at this point… :)
      +m

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

/usr/bin/locate

/usr/bin/whoami

here used to be a short description of me. however, it wasn't exactly accurate anymore. so i'm replacing it with this placeholder for now. and yes. it's been a long time since my last post. but let me assure you. i'm very much still alive.

Found an error? One of my assumptions is dead wrong? Something else is just not right? Let me know! Leave a comment to a post, or drop a line to mirosol at kapsi dot fi.

I do mods, repairs and custom builds too. For inquiries, use the email address above.

/var/lib/collection

  • Electro-Harmonix (40)
  • DOD, Digitech (51)
  • Other Brands (177)
  • Boss (54)
  • Danelectro (53)
  • Ibanez (111)

/var/lib/tags

Amp Autowah Bass Boost Booster Chorus Compressor Delay Distortion Echo Envelope Filter EQ Filter Flanger Fuzz Harmony Loop Modulation Noise Gate Octave Overdrive Phaser Pitch Power Preamp Reverb Special/Multi Synthesizer Tremolo Tuner Utility Vibe Vibrato Wah

/usr/lib/comments_recent

  • mirosol on DOD FX53 Classic Tube
  • mirosol on DOD FX55-B Supra Distortion
  • mirosol on Morley CCB Crystal Chorus
  • mirosol on Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb
  • mirosol on Ibanez BB9 Bottom Booster

/var/lib/archives

  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • September 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
© 2023 | Powered by Superbs Personal Blog theme