Take tone back to the '80s with Jackson Audio's New Weave chorus / vibrato pedal that combines analog and digital design

Jackson Audio New Wave Chorus pedal
(Image credit: Jackson Audio / Tuomas A. Lehtinen Getty)

Chorus is not a dirty word in effects pedals anymore and all those '80s anthems you used to call 'guilty pleasures'? Well, they're just great songs with lush tones. The New Wave from Jackson Audio celebrates that and lets you dive in deep - with design input from Mark Lettieri

The core circuit is digital but this chorus pedal features digital elements – including onboard presets. Analog MN3007 BBD chips, operating at 15 V internally just like classic '80s units are the centrepiece here but there's a digital microprocessor in the control section "gives unparalleled control over the analog circuit for unmatched waveform accuracy".

There's also MIDI, for this pedal that is designed for guitar, bass, synths and keys players. Seven presets give you a great toolset for your music; '70s, '80s, Rack, Vibrato, Rotary, Harmonic, and User Control (this last one is a free range for players). 

he New Wave also has five digitally controlled LFO wave shapes: sine, triangle, square and two custom harmonic shapes that are inspired by the ARP Solina String Ensemble synth that Behringer has recently cloned

And if you're chasing huge chorus waves, the New Wave also includes a phase/ratio feature, which changes the phase alignment of the two channels from 0 to 180 degrees out of phase. 

The Jackson New Wave is certainly on the hefty side of contemporary chorus pedal investment at $299 / £325 but looks like it packs a lot of premium sounds in. 

Find out more at Jackson Audio

Rob Laing
Guitars Editor, MusicRadar

I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.