basic compressor questions

[molovesco]

I recently purchased a DBX compressor/gate for my guitar rack. I plan on using this for live and home studio applications. I need some general tips on how to set it up. I have the DBX 266xl. The problem I am having is: I can get the lead channel to sound good with the gate and the compression, but when I switch to the clean channel, the sound is horrible. If you can give me some basic tips on how to set the DBX up, I'd appreciate it.

 

[littledog]

Could you rephrase your question? I'm afraid I don't understand it. When you say "switch to the clean channel" does that mean when you bypass the compressor? Or are you referring to clean vs. distorted guitar sounds?

Sorry... if someone else understands what you mean and answers you effectively, just forget I said anything!

(For some good general tips on compression there are a couple of good threads still active that are right in this room to check out).

 

[volltreffer]

High !

Don't have a dbx, but at first I'd have a look WHAT kills your sound: is it the gate or the comp or both? Jot your 'distorted' settings down and play with the knobs. Does it sound weird without the gate, too (I think, that's a knob on your machine to turn it off)? Set the threshold to max (>0dB). This should de facto disable your comp. Does it still sound weird?

Do you have to much attack or not enough? I like the sound of a guitar through a comp a lot...

Ciao

Axel

 

[sjjohnston]

... I can get the lead channel to sound good with the gate and the compression, but when I switch to the clean channel, the sound is horrible....

I'm guessing here: when you refer to "lead" and "clean" channel, you mean the lead and clean channel of a guitar amp, not the compressor -- you're either micing the amp and running a preamp (or mixer insert) out to the compressor, or taking a line out (aka "preamp out") from the guitar amp to the compressor. Yes? No?

If so, an observation: the "lead" channel is probably very compressed to begin with, while the clean channel isn't. Put another way: the compressor probably isn't being called on to do a whole lot to the lead channel.

 

[vox]

If you are plugging the guitar directly into the dbx you are probably going to get an impedance mismatch which will cause the guitar to sound dull and lifeless. What you need to do in that case is to either run the compressor from the amps fx loop (if its a line level loop) or run it after some other processor that is designed to take an instrument level input. (You didnt tell us what else is in your 'guitar rack')

 

[littledog]

Good catch, Vox! It never even occured to me that someone would try something like that!

 

[molovesco]

i figured it out. The gate's threshold was set too high for the clean channel of the amp. Thanks