Mooer Ensemble King Review – King-Size Chorus in a Tiny Package

Chorus pedals are essential for classic pop, indie, and alternative sounds. But with a plethora of different options on the market, many players feel bewildered and, ultimately, don’t end up using chorus in their boards. The Mooer Ensemble King is a new mini pedal that boasts instant vintage chorus tone without eating up pedalboard real estate – or your wallet. Let’s break this pedal down and find out what makes it one of the best chorus pedals available.

Features

For a mini pedal, the Ensemble King packs in a surprising number of features. The general ethos here merges simplicity and functionality – while the rate knob is the only full-size dial, this pedal offers additional controls for chorus level and depth.

The general sound is reminiscent of a classic Boss CE-2 chorus, which is ideal for bright, shimmering choruses employed by legends like the Cure, the Smiths, and the Police, to name just a few. This circuit is completely analog, giving players pure and full-bodied chorus tone without any sterile digital color.

At just over 1.5” x 2” x 3.5” and weighing around 0.35lbs, this is one of the smallest pedals you’ll find anywhere. Thanks to the analog circuit, it draws just 9mA of power with true bypass switching, ensuring the Ensemble King can find a home on even the most crowded and power-thirsty of pedalboards.

Beyond the pedal’s small size, it also features offset input and output jacks to help players squeeze a bit of additional space from their boards.

Controls

As mentioned above, this pedal actually contains three dials – that’s more than many other full-size chorus units! The large knob controls chorus rate, while the tiny black dials above handle level and depth, respectively.

There’s plenty of flexibility here to go from sparkling, sharper sounds all the way to underwater Leslie speaker-type tones at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Cranking the rate knob to the top emphasizes the sonic character of the effect as a kind of modulation without the vibrations. However, the Ensemble King can deliver some luscious rotating speaker-style sounds with the rate knob pulled back as well. If there’s one gripe here, it’s that it can be hard to see and adjust the small level and depth controls, especially in dark gig settings.

Many players may be able to get away without adjusting those controls during gigs (particularly if they have a certain setting they like, and can simply adjust the larger rate control for variations in sound).

However, the tiny knobs have a hard time stacking up to their full-size counterparts. They were undoubtedly a necessity for Mooer to bring this pedal to market at its diminutive size and cost, but the drawbacks are necessary to consider for any potential buyer.

Performance

The Ensemble King delivers chimey '80s chorus tones with an incredible sense of space and depth. Unlike many other tinny and flat choruses, this pedal offers about as smooth and natural-sounding a chorus as a player can get.

Yet, it’s not overpowering – with the level and depth backed off to noon-ish, and the rate eased back further, it offers a relatively light, static chorus, great for ‘always-on’ embellishment or for an extra colorful boost during solos. Raising the rate and depth creates a thicker, more buttery modulated sound with outstanding shimmer and sparkle. This kind of setting on the Ensemble King may be most reminiscent of the original Boss choruses on which this pedal was most likely based. That watery, supple tone has become essential to entire generations of guitarists.

Finally, moving the knobs to the top delivers a dose of Leslie-style rotating speaker sound without overwhelming or choking your original signal. Even at the heaviest settings, each player’s individual tone and style still unmistakably shines through.

Conclusion

Players on both a budget and space restriction searching for a version of the iconic Boss CE-2, (which has been out of production since the early 1990s) need to check out the Ensemble King. This little box houses some serious power and has the ability to nail pretty much any style of chorus – from classic ’80s bite and chime to darker, underwater grunge-style tones, and finally into ’60s Beatles-esque Leslie speaker emulations. Players in all genres should give this little Mooer pedal a good look.