About compressing guitar

[Jim Soloway]

My problem is strictly recording my guitar. I'm running a line out from my amp to the 788. In order to get a strong enough signal to my 788, the peaks in the hotter passages end up overdriving the converters. As I understand it, the compressor in the 788 is digital and kicks in after the converts so it won't help with this.

It seems to me that the solution is a compressor up front before the signal hits the input. That raises two questions.

1. should I compress the signal before or after the amp?

2. should I be using an all purpose compressor like the RNC or should I be using a guitar specific compressor like the Carl Martin?

Thanks for the input.

 

[sonusman]

Hey Jim, I am sure we only live a few miles apart! LOL

Compression before or after the amp will have two totally different sounds to it. For one, compressing before the amp is pre eq. Compressing after the amp is post eq. Each could offer the sound you are after.

The problems with either are these:

1 - If you compress before the amp, any boost eq you do on the amp will of course cause spikes in the signal. How severe? How much boost eq did you do? Also, was that boost eq to help even out the tone, or to create a specific tonal characteristic to the sound?

2 - Compressing after the amp will of course help tame any boost eq on the amp, but, you are then compressing the overall tone, which may or may not sound very cool.

In the end, you will just have to try both and see which doesn't get in the way as much for the type of sound you want.

Also, don't get too hung up on levels. If your guitar track averages around -15dB on the meters, that should suffice and allow for plenty of headroom for dynamics.

Might have to come out and check you out at Piccolo Mondo's some night.

Good luck.

Ed