BOSS
WAZA CRAFT
CE-2W CHORUS
REVIEW BY FLETCHER STEWART
STREET PRICE $199.00
A LIGHT BLUE
LEGEND REBORN
I go way back with the
CE-2. Being a skater-kidturned-musician from the
‘90s who craved the faster
stuff, I wasn’t really into the
grunge of the day, although
I did get into some of it
later strangely enough. My
earliest guitar influences
were mostly SoCal bands of
the early ‘80s that blended
a range of influences into
a guitar style that isn’t
really talked about at all,
even to this day. Bands
like Agent Orange, Fear,
The Adolescents, TSOL,
Christian Death, Burning
Image and 45 Grave all
had their own unique
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GEAR REVIEW
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guitar sound that seemed
to be the bastard child of
post-punk, surf music and
hardcore, all rolled into
one big fat living sound.
The sound that tied them
all together was chorus—
possibly the most maligned
effect of all time.
What set my unsung hero
guitarists—Ron Emory, Rikk
Agnew, Mike Palm and Philo
Cramer—apart from the
pack was their clever use of
the effect for power rather
than sickly sweetness. I
went through many chorus
pedals trying to get that
subtle, yet huge sound, but
they all made me sound like
a candy-flossed, mid-‘80s
poodle-head shredder, so I
Boss Waza Craft CE-2w Chorus
gave up . . . until I bought
a beat up baby blue Boss
box from my local used
guitar shop. The CE-2 was
the sound: easy to dial in,
warm, lively and hard to
turn off. When I saw that
Boss was not only reissuing
my favorite chorus pedal of
all time, but throwing in the
fabled CE-1 circuit complete
with Vibrato setting and
making it in Japan, I knew
it was time to claim one
for myself.
THE MASTER
OF LIQUID
MOVEMENTS
Luckily for me, my CE2W prototype arrived
just before my band had
a studio session that was