Compressor pedals

hotpickups

How many of you feel a compressor pedal is beneficial at a live gig? I play in a vintage type rock/soul band and was wondering if anything would benefit from one of these pedals such as the Keeley compressor.

Love to hear your thoughts

steamabacus

I have a compressor 'always on' and have done for years - although I don't gig live much these days beyond a few jams in a mates studio.
I use the Rothwell Love Squeeze set very subtly. Great compressor and very very quiet.

monquixote

I use an Xotic SP Comp which is on nearly all the time. 

For an always on comp I find a clean blend is essential or it robs your dynamics too much. 

I find it very useful as I need to switch between single note and chord work with a clean amp so a bit of compression goes a long way to keeping things balanced. 

For a rock band they are quite nice to use instead of a conventional boost as they give quite a lot of sustain to solos without adding too much gain.

hotpickups

Where do you guys put the compressor? In front but before fx or after?

monquixote

In front so it gives a nice hot signal. balances out the differences in levels between my guitars and drives as much cable as I need. 

If you put it at the end it will ensure any boosts and drives don't cause much of a jump in volume which is a good or bad thing depending on what you are going for. 

crunchman

Conventional wisdom is to put the compressor early in the chain.  Robert Keeley does recommend putting the compressor after the drive pedal you use for rhythm.  I have 3 drive pedal on teh baord, so I hva the compressor after the first one, so I have the option.

Kebabkid

I use a Keeley 2 knob compressor right at the start of my fx chain and it's on all the time. I set it up so that I can feel the compression effect, but not so that it get's in the way of the sound. It just adds some bounce and something special and I miss it when it's not on, plus it's essential as I play a lot of funk and also like a lot of smooth AOR/LA lead sounds and find it's perfect for that with the right combination of pedals.I have to say that I've played through a couple of fabulous amps (Hayseed,30 vintage Vibrolux) that have a wonderful and natural compression and in an ideal world, that's what I'd prefer to have.

 BTW, if interested,  a friend has a rare white version of my Keeley up for sale, but feel he may want £150-160.

I must say I do like the sound of of the Xotic SP and the blend control and I'll have to give one of those a whirl.

hotpickups

My only concern is that I have a boost pedal which I want a volume boost when used. I guess the compressor placed after this would stop that happening ?

hotpickups

A bit pricey for me shouid i buy one

m

Kebabkid;72251" said:

I use a Keeley 2 knob compressor right at the start of my fx chain and it's on all the time. I set it up so that I can feel the compression effect, but not so that it get's in the way of the sound. It just adds some bounce and something special and I miss it when it's not on, plus it's essential as I play a lot of funk and also like a lot of smooth AOR/LA lead sounds and find it's perfect for that with the right combination of pedals.I have to say that I've played through a couple of fabulous amps (Hayseed,30 vintage Vibrolux) that have a wonderful and natural compression and in an ideal world, that's what I'd prefer to have.

 BTW, a friend has a rare white version of my Keeley up for sale if you're interested but feel he may want £150-160.

I must say I do like the sound of of the Xotic SP and the blend control and I'll have to give one of those a whirl.

monquixote

hotpickups said:

My only concern is that I have a boost pedal which I want a volume boost when used. I guess the compressor placed after this would stop that happening ?

You want a compressor before a booster or it will either not work or worse overdrive the compressor. 

Kebabkid

As above and here's how I have mine set up with Comp 1st, 2 X low gain overdrives (Liq.Sunshine just replaced by a Zendrive), EP boost for thickening, gainer OCD, Serrano as overall volume boost, delay - the TC Corona has also gone. If you have an fx loop on your amp, you could also try your booster there

hotpickups

Actually that Xotic compressor sounds pretty good. Small too

I forgot to ask if it would be ok to put before my Wah Wah ?

monquixote

hotpickups said:

Actually that Xotic compressor sounds pretty good. Small too

I forgot to ask if it would be ok to put before my Wah Wah ?

The SP is bloody fantastic. One of those very rare pedals where I know I won't be continually flipping it (Thus far the only other pedal in this category is the Liquid Sunshine) 

I have mine after the Wah, but I don't see why it should cause a problem before. 

hotpickups

Great that will save me moving stuff around etc. would need to move the tuner off the board but that's not important ..... Is it ?

steamabacus

I have my Rothwell as the very first in line. I'm not a big wah user, but I tend to prefer them before the compressor but after is quite common, too. It may come down to how well the wah reacts to a buffered output compared to direct from the guitar? Suck it and see.

Maxi

I dont believe there is a right or wrong place to put it but I will say that where you place compression makes a huge difference to how your other pedals perform . There's frequency dependent compression which sometimes gets over looked when its placed after a device that shapes the eq , doing that basically squashes and or sustains / is triggered by a narrower eq band , as well as all of the other fore mentioned effects of comp placement . Generally I place mine after the noise gate which is its self normally at the beginning of my FX chain .

ThePrettyDamned

For rehearsals, I always used to use my vs comp. Standard mode, comp low and gain set above unity to add a bit of zing. Made everything sound better but didn't take any feel or dynamics from the sound. It could get squishy if you wanted it to, but it also went super subtle.

hotpickups

Think I've found the perfect compressor pedal for me. Stay tuned

Kebabkid

Ooh, you tease @hotpickups

Glad you've found what you want

hotpickups

LOL. Thought that might tease just a little bit

bntylr

I use a dynacomp, it's always on boosting a wee bit before it hits the, noise gate (isp Decimator g-string) ts9 and the spark boost. It fights with the gate and gives a good signal through the whole chain.
The dynacomp is quite clucky so it doesn't suit everyone.