Nux Rivulet Chorus Review

Hello there, back again with another cool article for you! This time, we will be looking at a really sweet chorus pedal, Nux Rivulet Chorus! For those who have never heard of the Nux company, here’s a quick introduction.

Nux is a Chinese company that is being managed under Cherub Technology Co., Ltd. Cherub has been manufacturing a wide variety of musical instrument accessories, such as tuners, drum pads, EQ/preamp systems, metronomes and many others.

While I was working in the MI business, I frequently dealt with their product range. Especially Cherub and Musedo were among the most popular accessories brands competing against many big brands in Turkey.

Nux is their newest brand and in my opinion, they have been doing an excellent job! In my last job as a foreign trade manager in Istanbul, our company was their distributor. Since they have an excellent, local product/marketing manager there, we were able to cooperate really easily and managed to market their products in Turkey.

I also had the chance to meet all the Nux crew in Musik Messe, Frankfurt and was so glad to be cooperating with them. Excellent company, excellent people all around!

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Nux has been active since 2006 and manufacturing various guitar pedals, guitar processors, amplifiers, digital drums, multi-effect units as well as wireless systems. Their Cerberus integrated effects unit has been one of the best-seller items. In the Turkish music industry, we were also able to endorse many guitar instructors and professional guitarists with Nux products, thanks to the synergy Nux brought into the market!

Nux Rivulet Chorus was actually given to me by the company, but of course, they never mentioned a scripted review or content here as I had the pedal way before then I started this blog. So you will still have an honest and real review no matter what!

Nux Rivulet Chorus pedal belongs to their Mini Core series guitar pedals that feature very compact-sized guitar pedals with progressive functionalities. Just like in some of their pedals, Nux Rivulet also features a USB input to dump different effect profiles which are super cool!

You just simply need to connect it to your computer, then press and hold the footswitch, and then power it up. The official firmware update software will recognise your pedal. Finally, you can load the bin files to activate different effect profiles. These files include the effect profiles for Nux Rivulet as well.

Rivulet Chorus (NCH-2): Firmware update software (Win)|Firmware update software (Mac)

Nux Rivulet Tech Specs

Nux Rivulet Chorus features three different chorus profiles that you can load back and forth. Unfortunately, you have to choose one and load it with the free firmware tool. You can’t have all of them and switch profiles on the pedal itself.

Modern Chorus

By default, your Rivulet comes with the Modern Chorus profile loaded. This profile is their tribute to the MXR chorus pedal, but missing two knobs (bass and treble). These controls have been set to the 12 o’clock position internally.

70s Chorus (Vintage)

70s Chorus is their tribute to the chorus effect that can be found on Roland Jazz Chorus amplifiers and according to their official website, it’s an exact replication!

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80s Chorus (Analogue)

Last but not least, you have your 80s Chorus which represents the infamous pedal by Boss. The original one had 2 knobs only, but with Nux Rivulet’s layout, you can also use the 3rd knob to adjust dry/wet levels.

I usually don’t use many effects while playing and practising except for a little bit of room reverb. But it’s always inspiring to try out different effects in various chains and see what you can make out of these. So to be honest, the chorus effect is not something always plugged in and activate while I play. However, whenever I plug in my Nux Rivulet Chorus, I really feel inspired! Especially with a bit overdriven sounds, it reacts perfectly and creates a nice, thick blend of guitar tones.

Chorus in front of an amp or in the FX loop?

As many of you already know, time-based and modulation effects such as delay, reverb, and the chorus are suggested to be connected to the FX loops of guitar amps. However, when it comes to the chorus effect, many people prefer it in front of guitar amps. I also like to place it in front of an amp and really love the overdriven chorus guitar tones.

Here in the video below, I have also placed my Nux Rivulet Chorus in front of my ENGL E570 preamp and recorded some samples with three different modes of the pedal.

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To sum up, the signal chain goes like this:

Fender American Standard Stratocaster -> Nux Rivulet Chorus -> ENGL E570 -> ENGL Cabloader -> RME Babyface PRO -> Reaper

Nux Rivulet Chorus Review & Sound Demo (no talking)

In this video, I have tried to present all three chorus modes with both boosted clean and hi-gain lead I channels (classic mode) on my ENGL E570.

I remember the first time I used this pedal back in Turkey and I wasn’t really impressed at that time. I kind of recalled the multiple-chorus option just after I decided to prepare a video. Last week, I spent some time with different chorus options and tried to come up with some guitar tones that may be useful for me!

Not so surprisingly, the default chorus mode was Modern (MXR type of chorus) and now I can confidently say that this is my least favourite chorus mode among others! 🙂

I really like Vintage (Roland Jazz Chorus vibe) one a lot, followed by Analogue (Boss vibe) chorus mode. There are tones of various guitar tones that you can create with Nux Rivulet. In my opinion, especially when combined with overdriven sounds it sounds excellent and very usable in many scenarios.

It sounds perfectly transparent when bypassed, with no tone colouring or anything. In the video, I often bypass the pedal in between and try to show you how the chorus effect adds up to my basic guitar tones.

One thing I don’t like about Rivulet is that unless you really know what these chorus modes sound like, it’s impossible to detect which one you are using. Let’s say you want to change the current chorus to the Vintage one, you simply press and hold the footswitch, and power it up (the software should be also active on your PC). It will recognise the device but it will tell you nothing about what’s currently loaded.

I would expect at least it would be able to show you which mode is loaded now when you connect it to your PC. Surely, this is not a big issue as you will need to load all possible modes to try and see which one works the best for you. In the meantime, you will be learning what these modes sound like already.

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Overall, I would confidently recommend this to anyone who is after a simple, very portable and affordable chorus pedal that features three different chorus modes! Super cool!

While I was preparing this piece of content, I checked Thomann and noticed that Nux Rivulet was available for preorder. However, these days it says the pedal is not available. I think it may come back to stocks again, so you should better be checking frequently on the Thomann website.

Not sure if the Rivulet will be ever available there, but you can also check out Reverb and already order one there (brand new or used)

I hope you have enjoyed this article and liked the video! Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!

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