l Dean FH Macy wrote:
The sound of a chorus is unique because most people in a chorus do not have perfect pitch. If they did, the resulting sound would be dull/flat sounding. The members in a chorus sing on pitch and somewhere between the lower edge and upper edge of pitch. This sound, the 'detuned' chorus, sets up harmonies, call it a natural vibrato, which yields a rich, full sound.
John Link replied:
This important phenomenon is not "vibrato", but rather the "chorus effect". It is the same phenomenon that allows us to distinguish the sound of one violin from that of a violin section.
BJJA adds:
John Link's on sync: electronically speaking, vibrato gets simulated applying a single Low Frequency Oscillator (LFO) modulation onto the miked sound, whereas chorus is the outcome of a modulation by two simultaneous either detuned or cross-phased LFOs. Which shows both effects are different. The former virtually vertical (vibrato "thickness"), the latter horizontal (chorus "width"). And both can combine for an even richer sound, like Karen Mercedes incidentally pointed it out.
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