A bit of brief background: So I work mostly ITB. I have no plans whatsoever to ever do any sort of gig type stuff. I make electronic music and am obsessed with the vintage sound (Tangerine Dream, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, etc.). I mostly use software synths, but I also work with a couple of mono hardware synths (Behringer Model D and Pro-800) and I'd like some advice on adding chorus to beef them up a bit and add stereo.

I am currently using Arturia Dimension-D (VST) to add chorus, and I like it but I saw a lot of people raving about the Boss DC-2W. I'm wondering if it's worth dropping the money on it (~$200USD), or will the difference between the sound of this and a software emulation be minimal? I've been unsuccessful at searching for advice on that, so I'm hoping someone here has first hand experience.

I'm also open to other ideas that come in around a similar price range, whether software or a different pedal.

TLDR; is the Boss DC-2W that much better that one should consider it over software like Arturia Dimension D or UAD Studio D Chorus?

i like the vintage boss pedals over the waza craft but that's just me

i haven't tried the dimension c but i have a boss ce-2 chorus pedal and it's great i use it with my synths a lot

I actually was looking at a variety of different pedals, and CE-2 was definitely one I considered too. You are far from alone when it comes to wanting vintage devices, but I just didn't realize it was as affordable used as it appears to be. That said, looks like it's mono only, so doesn't quite do one thing that I'm looking for a chorus pedal for (to widen my mono synths), but I'm still tempted anyways, because yah I'm pretty obsessed with that 70s/80s sound.. and I suppose I could add width either in the box or with a different pedal though.

Thanks for the suggestion!

yea for stereo the fabled ce-1 is supposedly the holy grail of chorus pedals, obviously it's quite a bit more expensive. i typically amp my synths so a stereo pedal doesn't really matter to me

here's some guitar i did recently with the ce-2:

Common trick since dawn of time: split the mono out from synth and put one side through the CE-2, leave the other clean, pan L and R, it will sound massive.

Psychoacoustics.

Gilmour did this for years.

Thank you both.

AVSC: I didn't think of mixing with the dry signal. I will try what you mentioned with a plugin first so I can hear how that sounds.. then I'll have a better idea on how it will work with the CE-2 and know if it is right for me. Thank you for that very helpful info!

Edit: OK wow, I feel dumb now haha That definitely works great. Just had to do a little level matching after adding chorus to one side, and voila.

Thanks again to both of you

Im sure it's sounds great. But also take a look at the UA one. UAFX