Compression pedal - what do you use it for

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pure.fusion

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Hi guys,

I've been playing guitar forn quite a while, but as far as gear goers I never looked deep into any pedals or amps. Really, I'd say zero experience here.

What does compression do for *you* and where do you put it in your effects chain?

I'd really appreciate your info here.

Cheers,
FM
 
I rarely use my compressor to limit peaks, I use it more as an overdrive/boost. I like how it adds sensitivity without necessarily adding more distortion. I put it early in my chain between my guitar and amp. I keep the level all the way up and the sustain close to all the way up (or in terms of more traditional compressor knobs, I keep the threshold close to all the way down). It makes for a good effect to kick on for solos.
 
You put it first (or second; after your tuner), and if you're recording at home (or Home Recording; get it?:rolleyes:) it's so necessary that you don't even think about excuses for not having something. A plug in, a rack unit, or a cheap pedal. Unless you had enough arms to fiddle with all your levels as you mixed down, and had amazing speed to catch all the peaks and valleys, the outboard effect is just easier, and gives you pro sounding demos.
For your live rig, a pedal makes your level consistent. It'll add punch, and it can make some pedals (like an octave box) sound better.
 
If you are talking about a compressor/sustainer pedal, they are great for letting you get away with less distortion out of the amp. It can be set so that all your notes are the same volume, that makes it easy to set the gain on your amp so that you are just into the distortion, but still have the sustain you need to play. Most of the time, you end up adding so much gain that the distortion gets fuzzy by the time you have as much sustain as you want.
 
i hate hate hate compressors....maybe it's bc i don't know howto use them correctly, but on bass, i played through this awesome sounding eden head that was like a nice 200 watts, but was 90% unplayable with a band at loud volumes because it had a built in compressor that you couldn't turn off....thereby making every note incredibly low. nobody could hear it. ugh, annoying
 
Compression is by far my favourite effect, and if I had to liquidate my rig, they'd be the last thing to go. I use them on cleans in the vast majority of cases, either to tighten up a rhythm part or to fill out lead lines, particularly across the 'B' and high 'E' strings. I'll use it for country-esque tones or for sustained cleans a la Knopfler, Johnny Marr, Chris Rea. I'll only really use it with heavy Distortion if I want to get creative with a volume pedal, but I find it works well with an SD1 or TS9 for a SRV sound (pedals used for a boost with gain at min, level at max). Put it first after my wah usually.
 
Thanks for all your replys. Good info.

Can you explain what makes the difference between a good compressor and a bad compressor? What do I listen for?

If I bought one, mine would get two uses: Between my guitar and my amp for when I record (mainly single note solo stuff - my brain doesn't do chords) and same for a bass guitar but for playing live.

I've been told that for a guitarist trying to play bass, the compressor will help smooth out the sound (obviously), but I'm more interested in the use for lead guitar - there seems to be a use of a compressor other than for dynamics?

I was thinking Keeley Compressor 'cause their marketing hype swayed me...

Cheers,
FM
 
ZoSo58LP said:
but was 90% unplayable with a band at loud volumes because it had a built in compressor that you couldn't turn off....
Click to expand...

So why hate the compressor? It's not the compressor's fault they made such a stupid design flaw. That's like saying your first car was a riding lawnmower, drove and rode like crap, so now I hate cars.
 
ZoSo58LP said:
i hate hate hate compressors....
Click to expand...

As did I, before I saw the light. ;)

ZoSo58LP said:
....maybe it's bc i don't know how to use them correctly.....
Click to expand...

And when I learned, it opened up my options to try other pedals I used to 'hate hate hate'. Some I still hate, and others I have grown quite fond of.

ZoSo58LP said:
... but on bass, i played through this awesome sounding eden head that was like a nice 200 watts, but was 90% unplayable with a band at loud volumes because it had a built in compressor that you couldn't turn off....thereby making every note incredibly low. nobody could hear it. ugh, annoying
Click to expand...

I'll bet a wooden nickel what you did 'wrong' was digging in to that bass with an underpowered amp. I made the same mistakes. When I went up to 400-watts my life got a lot better. I can see drummers hitting harder expecting to get more volume (you don't, but humor me here), but how does hitting the guitar string or bass harder make it louder? All I ever got was a lot of buzzing and flapping, and that makes the compressor kick in more, so of course no one heard you. I also have an Eden with a built in compressor you can't disable, but it only gets used to record or for those quiet coffee house gigs. Yes, it sounds really nice, but it is really unusable for loud rock gigs. I do better with a SansAmp RBI into the board and coming through the monitors, with no amp on stage rather than using that Eden. But I digress.

pure.fusion said:
Can you explain what makes the difference between a good compressor and a bad compressor? What do I listen for?
Click to expand...

There isn't a lot of difference, since they'll all use virtually the same VCA chip. The difference is in component quality, layout, and controls. Some have an 'Attack' control, some don't. Some are built cheaply, and are noisy; others aren't as noisy. But they all get noisy at high compression settings. Some kill a little low end. Some kill a little top end. You have to play them all, and realize what sounds good with your other gear. They are subtle enough that I have a hard time telling them apart when mixed in with other pedals or in a band setting. And I have..... ooooh, maybe a dozen different compressor pedals and five rack units. You might say I am partial to compressors. :rolleyes:

pure.fusion said:
If I bought one, mine would get two uses: Between my guitar and my amp for when I record (mainly single note solo stuff - my brain doesn't do chords) and same for a bass guitar but for playing live.

I've been told that for a guitarist trying to play bass, the compressor will help smooth out the sound (obviously), but I'm more interested in the use for lead guitar - there seems to be a use of a compressor other than for dynamics?

I was thinking Keeley Compressor 'cause their marketing hype swayed me...

Cheers,
FM
Click to expand...

Playing chords is even cooler with a compressor, especially for the funk players. Your Jimmy Nolen 9th chords will just have that pop that you can't get without a compressor. Some people make single note lines come alive with a compressor; think Mark Knopfler. For bass, you don't have to dig in if you set the output level higher; you can even get a clean boost! And your thumb popping doesn't make your speaker cone shoot out three feet every time you try to be Larry Graham.
Try all the compressors, including the two-knob Keeley. But for the budget conscious, the Opto-Stomp is still hard to beat for me. I have three pedal boards going right now; a small one for the roots or blues gigs, a medium board for the classic rock stuff, and a large board for the times when I feel like being Adrian Belew. On my small board is a simple Dyna Comp, and the medium board has an Opto Stomp. They aren't excessively noisy, and don't chop off insane amounts of bass or treble. The opposite is true of the Boss CS-3.
 
pure.fusion said:
I was thinking Keeley Compressor 'cause their marketing hype swayed me...
Click to expand...

That's some darn powerful marketing hype, then.

If you are good with a soldering iron, get a mint used CS3 and install a Monte Allums mod kit on it.

If you want to spend less than half of what you would spend on a Keeley, and get something factory built in the USA that doesn't need to be modded, look at the Barber Tone Press or the CMATMODS 4 knob Deluxe compressor.

If at all possible get one that has the fourth knob, the Attack control, so you can set it to not squash your pick attack. IF you can find one that stays pretty quiet at full gain full sustain, that's a good thing. The cheap ones get noisy at full sustain, and they squash the attack or they dont have tone controls to restore some of what gets squashed out. The Barber has three knobs, but one of them is a clean blend, which makes up for the lack of an Attack knob. Allums mod kits are awesome, but even that won't make a Boss CS3 work as well as the CMATMODS or Barber. Also, look at Analogman stuff, same quality but still cheaper than Keeley, and easier to find good used ones on garbay.
 
soundchaser59 said:
If you are good with a soldering iron, get a mint used CS3 and install a Monte Allums mod kit on it.
Click to expand...

Yeah? No problem with the soldering iron at all. Will the Monte Allums mod kit get me some descent compression?

Cheers,
FM
 
I had one of the orange DOD compressor/sustainer pedals years ago that wasn't too shabby. I think it was designed as a DynaComp knockoff.

The compressor will almost always be the first pedal in your chain.
 
ZoSo58LP said:
i hate hate hate compressors....
Click to expand...
ditto that ...... I absolutely loath the way they screw with the attack ..... even the best ones do it some and I hate it ...... however, I recently tried one that had a knob that would mix in variable amounts of the uncompressed guitar sound and that took care of the attack issues so I may learn to like that ..... if I ever feel a need for one. Probably won't though ...... I never have problems getting sustain .... even clean sustain, so I'm not sure what they'd do for me other than that.
 
I've been playing for >25 years, and I've never used one. In that time I've spent a total of about 10 minutes with one in the signal chain, I bet, and I really didn't like the ones I tried. But recently, I've been thinking about them more - maybe because my tone is cleaner and I occasionally think I could use a little more sustain.

But then again, no. :D
 
same here and I've been playing 45+ years ..... although I've tried many many different ones many different times..... I just don't like 'em.
I really have no problem getting clean sustain even to do faux pedal steel stuff so about the only thing I've found a small use for them is to do that soul 'funky chicken' type rhythm stabs. But that's not enough to get one on my board.
 
here's a question:

if a bass head has built in compression, and obviously the louder it goes, the more it compresses when you play hard, how in the HELL are you supposed to be heard? what settings to use, etc?
 
ZoSo58LP said:
here's a question:

if a bass head has built in compression, and obviously the louder it goes, the more it compresses when you play hard, how in the HELL are you supposed to be heard? what settings to use, etc?
Click to expand...
I have to assume that a master volume overcomes all of that. I'm not sure how it makes sense to increase compression as your overall volume increases, though someone here could clear that up for me if there is an answer.

I have never been a fan of using a compressor/sustainer with lots of overdrive or distortion, but I've actually gotten real comfy with running a compressor on all of my clean sounds on my GT-8. Over time, that has been helpful in achieving the sound my bandmates were seeking when they hired me. Have to be careful not to let it become a crutch, though.

I still have an MXR Dyna Comp and a Boss CS-3. Both work fairly okay. I don't know that I'd blow a lot of cash on a compressor unless it was integral to my performance, but that's just me.
 
Ahh well, there is impatience for you. I just bought the expensive Keeley Compressor anyway. I guess I'll find out what it's like!
Now let's never talk about buying compressor stomp boxes again....

Cheers,
FM
 
I never use compressors. Distortion provides plenty of natural compression, and other tones...well....I don't want to compress those.
 
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