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Roland Jazz Chorus

What is roland jazz chorus? A clear definition from the audio effects and audio engineering section of our glossary, with 13 related terms and further reading.

Definition of Roland Jazz Chorus

Roland Jazz Chorus is the name given to a series of solid-state instrument amplifiers produced by the Roland Corporation in Japan since 1975. Its name comes from its built-in analog chorus effect. The Jazz Chorus series became increasingly popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s new wave and post-punk scenes because of its clean yet powerful sound, durability and relatively low cost when compared to the more commonly used tube amplifiers of the time such as Marshall or Fender. It also found favour amongst funk players in America. It also became popular to use for clean tones in heavy metal, with the most famous users being James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett from Metallica, and Wes Borland from Limp Bizkit.

Most models have controls based on the JC-120's standard setup. There are two channels, one clean, the other with effects. The built-in effects include stereo chorus, vibrato, reverb, and distortion. The amplifier features high and low inputs, a bright switch as well as a three band equalizer and volume for each channel.

For the first 40 years of the series' existence, all models were purely analog, transistor-based designs. However, the JC-40 and JC-22 models (introduced in the 2010s) depart from this in favour of an entirely digital signal processing (DSP)-based design, similar to other current Roland and Boss amplifiers.

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What is Roland Jazz Chorus?

Roland Jazz Chorus is the name given to a series of solid-state instrument amplifiers produced by the Roland Corporation in Japan since 1975. Its name comes from its built-in analog chorus effect.

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