Compressors

Fretwired

I'm after a compressor for my pedal board - I play a Strat and I am interested in the TC Hypergravity multi-band compressor. Has anyone used one? I'm also wonder whether a Wampler Ego might be worth trying. I don't want anything that squishes and dulls the sound too much.

Recommendations?

fandango

Keeley Compressor - I've got one and it does a great job.

Or you could try Thorpyfx's Fat General - alas I don't have one, so can't comment. There is a separate thread doing the rounds: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/131148/

Beexter

Suhr Koji or Xotic SP. I've had both and kept the Koji. For me, I've found that a blend/ mix control is key to avoiding squishing/ dulling the sound too much.

Fuengi

I'm also looking for a better compressor to replace my Mooer Yellow. So far have shortlisted but not tested the following:

Pigtronix Philosophers Tone
Fairfield Accountant
Origin Effects Cali 76

Dominic

Fairfield accountant .......excellent little thing .......Watch the Robert Renman YT demo.......

jf122

I’ve owned a few over the years and come to a couple of conclusions:

1) You don’t need to spend £300 to get a good compressor. My favourite one was an EHX White Finger that I bought for about £60 second hand.

2) Unless you need to get a specific sound, eg  country chicken picking etc, you probably don’t even need one. Plenty of great players don’t use them - Guthrie Trapp, Josh Smith, Robben Ford to name just a few.

markr76

I'd go with the fat general by Thorpy fx. It's the best comp I've ever used as it doesn't eat your treble response. I thought the origin cali76 was a good comp. But trying them side by side the fat general just did it for me. I find I tend to leave it switched on all the time to be honest.

not_the_dj

Beexter said:

Suhr Koji or Xotic SP. I've had both and kept the Koji. For me, I've found that a blend/ mix control is key to avoiding squishing/ dulling the sound too much.

Both of these are excellent. I have the SP on my mini board and the Koji on my larger board. The Blend control is a really great feature for a compressor pedal. 

Teetonetal

Yeah, has to have a blend control for me. Xotic sp is 99gbp in guitarguitar at the moment.  Get that. 

Corvus

Keeley here also. Balance the comp and input knobs, no dulling of tone. Particularly sweet with a Strat.

Wazmeister

Fairfield Accountant - can boost, compress, break up your sound. One of THE best pedals Ive ever played for ‘bit o hair’ to your sound. Not neutral but warm and bloody perfect.

DavidRees

generally accepted wisdom is first in the chain right, before any dirt and certainly before any delay/modulation?

Fretwired

Thanks guys .. lots to think about.

Philtre

Been through the Keeley Plus, TC Hypergravity, Xotic SP and Boss stuff. The only one I use now is the Mooer Yellow I got off eBay for £20.

prowla

I recently bought a Boss CP-1X - it doesn't strangle the sound.

bigjon

prowla said:

I recently bought a Boss CP-1X - it doesn't strangle the sound.

As I think I said on your thread, I swear by the Boss CS3 with the Attack and Sustain disks up full, combined with a noise suppressor. It does strangle the sound, bigtime, but in a very good way.

bigjon

jf122 said:

2) Unless you need to get a specific sound, eg  country chicken picking etc, you probably don’t even need one. Plenty of great players don’t use them - Guthrie Trapp, Josh Smith, Robben Ford to name just a few.

That approach only works if you're driving a valve amp hard, eg Stevie Ray Vaughan didn't use a compressor pedal AFAIK, but there's bags of compression in his sound.

jf122

bigjon said:

jf122 said:

2) Unless you need to get a specific sound, eg  country chicken picking etc, you probably don’t even need one. Plenty of great players don’t use them - Guthrie Trapp, Josh Smith, Robben Ford to name just a few.

That approach only works if you're driving a valve amp hard, eg Stevie Ray Vaughan didn't use a compressor pedal AFAIK, but there's bags of compression in his sound.

Agreed but that still assumes you actually want compression in your sound. Josh Smith doesn’t use one because he doesn’t want his sound to be smoothed out by one. If he plays light he wants the sound to be light, if he plays hard he wants the sound to be hard. A compressor would even out those two extremes out which is either desirable or not depending on your application.

At home levels I don’t understand the need for one most of the time. Why take away the dynamics in your playing?

Grunfeld

Fretwired said:

I'm also wonder whether a Wampler Ego might be worth trying. I don't want anything that squishes and dulls the sound too much.

The Wampler Ego is exactly where my long search for a compressor stopped. 
1)  The blend is such a useful control.
2)  Lots of volume on tap so I can match the volume of my OD sounds to my clean if needed. 
FWIW it's much more useful with my Jazzmaster, which is the only single coil guitar I own, but the RGs have a single which I sometimes use too so the Ego has never left the board since getting it. 

JezWynd

Been through a shed load compressors in the past 5 years or so and there are a lot of very good comps around (it's a sector of the pedal market that seems to have exploded in recent years). I could name a dozen comps that I'd be happy to use on a regular basis but after all the testing, a/bing etc there was one clear winner for me that excels at guitar, bass, hb's and single coils -



When I first saw it, it occurred to me that Keeley had ripped off the Empress design but if he did, he ironed out all the things that stopped that one from being exceptional, including upping the compression ratio to infinity, adding hard/soft knee and widening the range on Attack and Release. The Auto function is a stroke of genius and works really well.

It's a functional compressor; it doesn't sweeten the sound like the Origin Effects or Accountant (haven't tried that one but all reports make mention of it) - it simply gives out what you put in with an exact amount of levelling applied and shaped to taste.

JMP220478

Fretwired said:

I'm after a compressor for my pedal board - I play a Strat and I am interested in the TC Hypergravity multi-band compressor. Has anyone used one? I'm also wonder whether a Wampler Ego might be worth trying. I don't want anything that squishes and dulls the sound too much.

Recommendations?

what are you actually trying to do with the compressor exactly ?