Mr. Black Black LTD. Vintage Chorus

The Mr. Black Black LTD. Vintage Chorus is a limited-run chorus pedal from Mr. Black. It was specifically designed to replicate that original 1976 "Chorus Ensemble" sound¹. The Black LTD. was a Jack Deville original design, built in a limited run of 48 pieces and priced at $179.95¹.

A chorus built on the Chorus Ensemble sound

Mr. Black describes the pedal as "specifically designed to replicate that original 1976 'Chorus Ensemble' sound"¹. That target circuit is the Boss CE-1, the late-70s bucket brigade chorus that MusicRadar called a "BBD-style chorus and vibrato based on '70s Ensemble designs" when covering the family's later pedals³⁴. The CE-1 lineage runs through the whole Mr. Black chorus line, and the Black LTD. was its first limited-edition expression.

The pedal's place in the range is easiest to see against its siblings:

The Vintage Ensemble carried the same design goal, which Mr. Black states as replicating "that original 1976 'Chorus Ensemble' sound, with a few modern updates and upgrades"⁵. The Stereo Vintage Ensemble Professional is inspired by the Roland CE-1, and its maker's page says the 2015 Vintage Ensemble "captured the lush, dimensional chorus heard on countless records"⁶. Delicious Audio, covering the Vintage Ensemble Stereo Chorus/Vibrato, described the family plainly: "The Vintage Ensemble is a recreation of the legendary Roland Unit from the '70s"⁸.

Wet/dry mix and expanded speed range

The Black LTD. took the vintage circuit and added modern controls. Mr. Black lists "a full wet/dry mix control and expanded speed/rate limits" among its features¹. What that means for a player:

• Full wet/dry mix control: the blend between the clean signal and the modulated signal is variable across its whole range, so the pedal can go from a subtle shimmer to fully wet. On the later stereo version, Premier Guitar's reviewer found this kind of control valuable, calling it "a continuous chorus/vibrato mixer that enables many nuanced mod textures"⁹. At the fully wet setting, a chorus becomes pitch vibrato, since the pitch-modulated delay line is all that remains.
• Expanded speed/rate limits: the modulation rate reaches slower and faster settings than the original 1976 circuit allowed, giving the player more range than the vintage unit had.

The same two features appear on the 2015 Vintage Ensemble, which Mr. Black describes as having "a full wet/dry mix-control and expanded speed/rate limits" alongside its pedalboard-friendly 9VDC power and true-bypass⁵⁶. The wet/dry mix carried forward into the stereo line, where Guitar Pedal X lists the core controls as "Wet/Dry Mix, Depth, and Rate"¹⁰.

Power, bypass and the manual

The pedal runs on pedalboard-friendly 9VDC power and uses true-bypass switching¹. Within the wider Mr. Black chorus family, power is consistent: the Stereo Vintage Ensemble Professional is specified at 9VDC negative-center on a 2.1mm barrel⁶, and the Mini Vintage Chorus uses what Delicious Audio called "daisy-chain friendly 'industry standard' 9VDC power"².

One difference worth knowing when comparing the family: the Stereo Vintage Ensemble Professional uses buffered bypass rather than true-bypass⁶, so players who want the vintage sound with a buffer in the line have that option, while the Black LTD. and the original Vintage Ensemble are true-bypass¹⁵.

Mr. Black hosts a PDF manual for the pedal, linked from the product page¹.

Who designed it

The Black LTD. Vintage Chorus is a Jack Deville original design¹. Deville's name also appears in the manual's web address, at mrblack.jackdeville.com¹.

Where the sound lives on

Because the Black LTD. was built in a limited run of 48 pieces¹, the Chorus Ensemble sound it chased lives on in Mr. Black's later pedals. The Vintage Ensemble and the Stereo Vintage Ensemble Professional carry the same design goal, with the stereo version adding a true-stereo audio path⁵. The Mini Vintage Chorus condensed the sound into an old school, BBD-style chorus⁴.

Questions