Compressor Shootout

[lreese]

Not sure how many are into clean tone but this seems to be a good comparison on some of the classics, although an "advertisement" for Xotic...



I do like the Orange Squeezer (mine's a Hartman), have the Diamond, really like the Maxon.  The Dynacomp RI is nice but noisy.  

Oh yeah - I do believe that's an Eventide (can't verify the source) providing that reverb.

[Snake Aces]

I play using clean tone about 50 % of the time so a good or at least decent compressor is pretty vital. I like using a compressor on my rock and hard rock stuff too though.

I used to have a BBE one, a GFS one and a Ashdown one for bass. I currently have a boss cs-3. The cs-3 is actually pretty good but it is hissy when you turn the sustain and volume up. I have a mod kit coming and I can't wait to mod my cs-3. I have heard people lose their minds over how good of a compressor the cs-3 can be with the right mods so I hope that's true.

Of all of them the BBE main squeeze was the worst. There was only two knobs: volume and bias. I did not like this pedal at all.

The GFS sweet sparkle was actually pretty good despite also having only two knobs: output and sensitivity. Not as good as the Boss CS-3 though, but for the price a lot better than the BBE.

There were far better compressors available for bass than the Ashdown. I guess you get what you pay for. The Ashdown was just too damn noisy for me. I gotta have clean, non-hissy bass tone so the Ashdown was only useful on hard rock songs being played live. Never would have even thought about using it for any songs when recording.

My old trusty Boss CS-3 still remains to be my go-to affordable compressor. I should be performing the mods in a month or so and I hope I don't fuck it up as I have not modded a pedal in a long time. I'm pretty good at soldering guitar electronics but I'm a bit shaky on circuit boards.

I think my cousin just picked up this Xotic compressor. I think that's the one he was telling me about anyway. He says he loves the tone but making adjustments on the fly are a bit of a pain in the ass. If it's the pedal I'm thinking of some of the controls are "hidden" or something like that. It's been a few weeks since we were talking about it. Once he set it where he likes it though he loved it.

[Oinkus]

SP always on since I bought it. Only turn it off when the Micro Vibe or Phase 90 is used. Getting the EP and a couple other Xotic pedals eventually RC and SL

[CTN]

I was gonna berate you all and say clean tones are for women, children and people who play country.

Then i realized that alot of the time nowdays my core tone isa slightly breaking up clean tone. Fuck.

[lreese]

I was gonna berate you all and say clean tones are for women, children and people who play country.

Then i realized that alot of the time nowdays my core tone isa slightly breaking up clean tone. Fuck.

You're getting old like the rest of us. :wwe:

[karpathion]

I picked up a BBE Opti-Comp in a trade not long back. It's one of the least noisy compressors I've used. It's only 2 knobs as well, but it gets the job done.
I never use it with high gain, but for cleans it's pretty nice. No real tone suck that I can hear.

[GoldenVulture]

I picked this up a short while back. I haven't tried it much yet. It is a stop gap after my TC Compressor/ Sustain/Parametric EQ became unrepairable . I've had it since the early 80's and wished it still worked properly but it doesn't and parts for it are almost impossible to find. TC don't make that model anymore nor anything similar. What a pity , they were great. I must say the distortion in it sucked like shit. I disabled it by removing it's switch.

They did a reissue a few years back but reviews said it didn't stack up to the originals. It was discontinued.

[Big Flannel]

I'm trying to justify buying this.