Slightly OT Who uses a Compressor ?

[tman]

Hey I have a DynaComp and after playing with it also trying the latest Boss comp why would you really bother with compressors on guitars it definaltey drops tone. I hear compressors being mentioned all the time but I fail to see what style of music people use them for other than country. Where would you add your compressor in the signal chain and does it just stay on the whole time ?

[Arno van der Heijden]

David Gilmour and Andy Summers both use a Dynacomp (among many others). Frusciante (RHCP) uses one on Under the bridge.

[GM Arts]

I would agree that compressors can "drop" tone, but I think set conservatively, they can also do the reverse, by allowing you to hear some of the clean sustain tone that would otherwise be lost in a typical band mix.

Many players set their compressor way too high in the hope of long sustain, and all they get in return is a silly pop attack and mushy tone.

As you mentioned, they're popular with country players, but any clean style can benefit, I think.  Just like rock players use overdrive to even out levels with different technichques like tapping and harmonics, clean players can use a compressor to even out levels for their different techniques, like combination pick and finger-picking, harmonics, etc.

rgds all,
GM Arts

[Peter Snowberg]

I love a good compressor and I don't play country.... that's for sure.

Take care,
-Peter

[David]

Compressors can drop tone?  That's odd...  I have an ancient DOD Compressor/Sustainer.  It doesn't seem to have any effect on my tone.  Unfortunately, it doesn't have a great deal of effect on my sustain, either, which is why I got it in the first place.  Oh, well, it works real well to give me that "chicken pickin'" effect.  I also tried an experiment where the compressor fed a chorus and then a digital delay set up to do short, sharp echos to give me kind of an 80's "Outfield" kind of sound.  The compressor greatly increased the definition of the chords.  It sort of smoothed out the chorus, too.

[petemoore]

OS into 12ax7 from Shaka: enter descriptive terms like luschious, round, well mannered, doesn't bark when strummed, clean-ish, full.
 OS into Dist+ [or other Oa/OD]: I'll type 'my mouth shut' here, you better try this.
 Ross/Dyna before a phaser might be a little country-ish, makes it work 'more' without the 'glakki' phaser overload tones.
 OS alone works like a 'clean boost+lush' that seems to even out string volume imbalances, and doesn't 'bite' as much with semi hard low string attacks. With one knob, it's easy to set the parameters on it.
 Comp after Fuzz...works great when I'm playing, or switched out in timely fashion to cut the related mild hiss.

[Lonestarjohnny]

I don't use a compressor very often but, I have an old Ross that is to noisey to use anymore, Due to its age, until I found the Guyatone ST-2 I had given up on looking for a replacement, I know a lot of guy's that are useing the Keely and it reminds me of my Ross when it was new, these are the only 2 compressor's, I have used that seem to be made for Guitar, all the rest I've tried are made for somthing, but I just never figured out What !
JD

[Mark Hammer]

I've happily used one since 1978, and yes they WILL generally alter your tone because they change the level balance of frequency content.  The most commonly observed effect is that they lose treble.  This can be offset, though, if the pedal is designed around that treble loss.

I use them for the reasons they were intended:

1) To alter/deform the dynamic envelope (some things DO sound good with pumping and breathing)
2) To keep from overloading subsequent stages
3) To keep signal at some desired optimal level for bringing out the best in the next device in line (which may well be a device intended to overload)
4) To keep level consistent when trying to strum and sing so I don't accidentally drown out my own voice
5) To keep rhythm guitar where it ought to be in live situations - mixed just a few hairs back from the solo instrument, and never louder
6) To even up multiple input sources from a guitar that have different dynamic ranges and signal output (e.g., front/rear pickups, dual-coil/split-coil humbucker, etc.)

At one point I also used it as my volume pedal, hooking the output level control up to an E-H "Hotfoot".

If you try and use them for "sustain", you will be disappointed.  If you find little reason to turn down the compression amount from "full", you will be disappointed.  If you do not feed them as clean and noise free a signal as you can obtain from your rig, you will be disappointed.  If you place them down the signal chain so that what they receive is altered by other devices, you will be disappointed.

[Gilles C]

Very useful for slide guitar.  

[Rory]

I have only used one to give me an obvious compressed sound.  I set all the controls to max and let it rip.  Never really cared for one to be covertly used.

[BDuguay]

In response to the subject of this thread.
I do.
B.

[smoguzbenjamin]

So, besides evening out levels, what's the use? I'd like to use something to smoothen out my sound a little and give you just that little bit more sustain.... Would a compressor suffice? Or something else, preferably something I can build of course... suggestions?

[Mark Hammer]

That sounds like you'd be a very satisfied user of one, Ben.

[Eric H]

-
 Comp after Fuzz...works great when I'm playing, or switched out in timely fashion to cut the related mild hiss.

Good call, pete. If you put the comp --after-- an OD, or  fuzz, you retain the touch-sensitivity of the OD. Try it and see.

-Eric

[Ben N]

I didn't much care for what a Dynacomp did to my tone, or what a DOD 280 did to my dynamics.  I found my comfort spot with a Marshall Ed-1.  I use it mainly as a lead boost with moderate, subtle compression.  I find it works very nicely both with distortions to make them a bit "singy" and with a clean chorused sound just to keep things even and sweet, and does not mess with the tone noticeably.
Ben

[Mark Hammer]

-
 Comp after Fuzz...works great when I'm playing, or switched out in timely fashion to cut the related mild hiss.

Good call, pete. If you put the comp --after-- an OD, or  fuzz, you retain the touch-sensitivity of the OD. Try it and see.

-Eric

In theory, yeah, but maybe not as good a call as you think.  High gain devices have a way of accumulating hiss.  A compressor immediately afterwards would crank that residual hiss when you're quiet and make it go away when you play.....kind of the opposite of a noise gate. :?

[phillip]

My new Ross Compressor doesn't play nice with my Axis Face or ToneBender MKII...it drives them a little too hard and turns them into something more like a Metal Zone.  Anyone know how to stop that from happening?

Sounds great when used with my Twin Amp's tube overdrive channel though!

Phillip

[Steve C]

Again this would be one of those instances where the volume you play at can influence whether or not it's a good thing.  I use one for a boost when soloing clean, and with my acoustic.  I like the results.

[Kleber AG]

petemoore wrote:  
Comp after Fuzz...works great when I'm playing, or switched out in timely fashion to cut the related mild hiss.
Eric H wrote:
Good call, pete. If you put the comp --after-- an OD, or fuzz, you retain the touch-sensitivity of the OD. Try it and see.
-Eric

Well, well, well....  
I've been thinking about it for some time, and I'm going to try to have a comp (O. Squeezer) a fuzz and still have a good control from my guitar volume for cleaning the fuzz...  :shock:

I hope it works:
Put the orange squeezer inside my strato guitar, using a mini-DPDT for switching it in and out but "before my guitar volume" (pickup/O.S./guitar_volume)
Then... I'd be able to compress my dynamics AND have the guitar_volume to get control over the fuzz... well still there's the impedance issues but this may give a nice control...

Please help me! Am I missing what???  :roll:
Kleber AG

[Mike Burgundy]

If you have problems driving FF style circuits with other pedals, try sticking in a coil to get a bit of PU response back: I believe this is a Jack Orman trick. Have a look at his site, it'll probably be in either projects, lab notebook or on the cd.
The OS is a simple compressor, with simple results: very specific sound, but it may not be what you're looking for (then again it may be your bees knees).
There are I-don't-care-to-count-that-high (unless I have several people wearing sandals standing around) a number of different styles and tastes in compressors, each with it's own "basic sound" (whatever that is), quirks, benifits and drawbacks.
Ususally, a "powerful" guitar comp is one with not too many knobs, that's built in such a way it works just right for you, being the designated guitarist/bassist. Hey, this is where modding comes in.
Studio compressors have more parameters than most guitarists care to twiddle, and introduce problems all of their own (mostly associated with the plethora of parameters). I'm not even going into multi-band or frequency dependant/side chain stuff.
That said, controlling attack time can be a useful effect. When playing funk guitar (or slapping bass), a slightly late attack time adds to the punch and attack (sorry about the double use of that word) of  a played note. Shortening the attack time will make the note behave more "normal". High ratios with very fast times will completely dull the sound - this can be useful - especially when making movie sound effects.
Also, the threshold is *very* important. This really defines the sound of a compressor -the threshold,  where and how. The threshold is where in your dynamic range the comp switches from doing nothing at all, to having a certain ratio between in- and output. The "knee" is the how-bit: a sharp knee just rams from 1:1 (no compression) into 1:x, a soft knee , well, "blends" into that.
If you apply a 1:1.6 ratio *everywhere*, it sounds more dull than 1:4 with the threshold 8dB below your normal peak playing. depending on your playing style, it's very possible the resulting dynamic range is exactly the same. a soft knee might help for a more normal feel at higher ratios.
Compressors are difficult at first to *really* grasp, but once you get it, a world opens.
One comp that needs mentioning (although others use this trick):
Joe Meek. These use a compression curve that compresses when stuff gets louder, and then lets up when it gets even louder. Get the settings right, and you can compress the crap out of a vocal without it sounding compressed in any way. Nice. Blending the original signal back into the compressed signal also does this. In fact, if there's anyone out there, remember those tube limiter/compressors? It's a limiter with a switch that bleeds the original back - hey presto, they call it a comp. And it sounded good, too
yadayada. Hope all this helps someone out there. at least I got an excuse out of it to do my anti_RSI excersises