Honestly terrific

I've been playing guitar for twenty-five years and have gone through hundreds of pedals at this point, but I recently got nostalgic for the first pedal I ever owned. It was a DOD Ice Box that my twelve-year-old self bought at Guitar Center and held onto for a few years, then must've sold or gotten rid of (I honestly don't even remember). So for Christmas my wife tracked one of these down and gave it to me, and I was thrilled. I loved seeing it again after all that time, and having it around made me happy.

But let's be real: I had a Boss Waza Craft CE-2w on my board already, one of the best and most iconic chorus pedals money can buy. What was I gonna do, shoot it out against a strange nostalgia artifact from the '90s and then decide which was better?

Then I did that, and here's the surprise: the Ice Box won.

The secret weapon of this DOD chorus is the high end knob, which on mine is called "Freeze" because DOD couldn't just name any knob a clear or comprehensible name back then. With this knob at noon or higher, the chorus effect is very bright and cold and sparkly. It's perfect for that chilly Metallica's "Sanitarium" tone or so many other clean parts from metal songs. But it's also lovely for strummy, ringing chords with open notes, like '80s pop or the modern pop that is currently borrowing from it. Both of those are tones the CE-2w really can't manage, with its warm and gritty tone. But if you roll that Freeze/Hi-EQ knob back, the Ice Box can do the warm subtle thing, too. So that's Ice Box 1, boutique Waza Craft pedal 0.

The other thing that pushed it over the edge is that the Ice Box sounds like it's maintaining a clean blend as well — the whole time I was using it, no matter how rich and lush I made the chorus signal, I could clearly hear my guitar's natural tone as well. The CE-2w has no blend knob, and wherever I set the controls, it substantially changes my guitar's tone, and not always for the better. Ice Box 2, CE-2w 0.

I know this is ultimately a preference thing, and if you want your chorus sounds warm and thick and almost flanger-y, you can't do better than the expensive Boss one. But in a head to head comparison I kept preferring the shimmery high end and clarity of the Ice Box, and how my normal guitar tone still carried through. I'm frankly shocked but that's where I landed.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

From Gear Setup

Fantastic stereo chorus that shines

One of the best stereo chorus pedals I've ever used. Four parameters allow for good customization of sound quality yielding various stereo chorus styles from smooth and graceful to warble and jittery (kinda like a rotovibe). Simple yet effective, FX64 is great for someone looking for easy to use pedal with effective controls.

My first chorus. First one I bought in 2004.

A pure bliss. That`s how real chorus need to sound. Cold as Ice, but natural. I combine it with Boss chorus to gain more chorus tone(this is a very mild pedal).