Flattley Guitar Pedals' new Valkyrie delivers a perfectly balanced, warm and richly textured vintage style Analog BBD Chorus

This is actually the second iteration of the Flattley Valkyries Chorus, while it’s an entirely new circuit. The previous model used the now night impossible to get CE-2 chipset of 3007 + 3101 BBD’s particularly the original Matsushita / Panasonic ones. The new circuit uses the same chip set as the later CE-3 model or 3207 + 3102 - where that pedal was typically associated with a brighter output, while the CE-2 was generally considered deeper, richer and warmer. As many BBD and Chorus experts point out - that was actually mostly to do with the supporting components as with a little patience and due diligence on the circuit tuning - you can deliver a pretty much identical vintage style CE-2 tone, and that’s precisely what Paul Flattley has achieved here.

I went into the test expecting a slightly brighter profile - because of the CE-3 chipset - but what I heard was a pretty classic and vintage CE-2 style voicing - perfectly balanced, richly textured and warm. Which is exactly what Paul was trying to achieve here.

This is a very simple but elegant vintage style Analog BBD chorus - with just the same 2 controls as many of the early choruses - Rate and Depth.

Depth sounds pretty perfect for me at Noon - I like a fairly full flavour chorus, while the Rate knob tends to be all about quarters for me really. Slowest setting at fully CCW or 6 o’c, Slow-ish @ 9 o’c, perfectly Goldilocks moderate at Noon, and full flutter @ 3 o’c.

I’m mostly at 9 & 12 o’c on the Rate, and 12 o’c on the Depth - and that’s pretty much all there is to it.

The Valkyrie beautifully delivers all your favourite 80’s chorus moments - from the likes of The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Joy Division!

I never got het up on the Chorus thing - I just loved the music of that era - and it just so happened that a great many of my favourite songs from that time - make use of a chorus. If it’s right for the music then for sure you should throw it into the mix. I feel that’s what we’re missing from a lot of modern music - bring back the chorus, and the saxophone for that matter too!

In any case, the Valkyrie is a really instantly satisfying simple and elegant chorus - perfectly balanced, and with just the right degree of warmth and textural complexity. It goes for £259 / $349 / €319 on the Flattley Guitar Pedals Webstore, and is available at select International dealers. The paint job is one of those cool 2-tone jobs with suspended metal flakes for extra sparkle - and the choice of blue is on point!

The pedal has all the usual Flattley quality hallmarks - including engraved knobs, metallic footswitch topper, and halo surround footswitch LED light! Suitably on-theme graphic design by Phoebe Flattley. This is a great sounding chorus, with actually significant range across those 2 dials!