Compressor advice - How to use one....????

[papadesophie]

Right, stupid question time.

I've never used compression, just never really got the point, but I've been doing a few quieter numbers in our set recently where fewer notes are required, so I thought a bit of compression might help ring a little more sustain out, a bit more subtly.
So I got a boss CS-3 which was noisy. So I did a Monte Allums mod on it (Opto mod I think?) which has made it quieter and more tonally transparent, but I have to say, I hate the compressed sound. I can only liken it to driving a car with can of coke wedged under the accelerator. You can try to floor it if you like, but it won't go any louder or faster than if you were tickling the throttle.

So as always I have to assume that I'm doing something wrong. At the moment I have level set to 3 o'clock, Tone to 12, sustain to 7 o'clock and attack on max. I'm still getting a really squished sound, but this is about as good as I can get it.

All I want is a slightly longer sustain. I don't want much if any limiting, so attack needs to be as natural as possible. HELP????

Should I just bin the CS-3 and do without?

[Dood]

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=337"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=337[/url] have a look at this useful sticky in this forum.

[papadesophie]

Thanks for that. It's a useful article. I guess what I'm really asking though, is can I get a bit more sustain using this pedal without it sounding 'compressed', or am I on to a loser? Is the CS-3 (mods or not) basically sh*t? Or is it me?

[ped]

I had trouble making the CS3 sound any good without that obvious 'seasick' sound of the compression kicking in. It can be difficult with any compressor and also depends on your bass and playing style, so is hard to give much advice. The only thing I would suggest is to try a Boss LMB3 limiter before the compressor or instead of it - you won't hear any 'seasick' compression because the limiter simply cuts off dynamics over a certain threshold rather than squashing them. I found mine really natural sounding and a godsend on rental rigs with no decent compressor.

[clauster]

The CS-3 as standard is noisy and will butcher your tone. With the opto mod it's a lot better (but not perfect - I'd say it now performs as well as most things upto around the £150 mark) if you want less noise, more bass and more of a compressor sound.

The sustain trick with compressors is just that - a trick - you need to compress your signal to quite a low level so that the strong signal when you initially play a note is reduced to the weak signal at the tail end of your sustain. The using the level knob, boost the whole thing to your normal (uncompressed) signal level - hey presto massive sustain. If you want to even get near to doing this and not sounding compressed you'll need to spend a lot on a fully featured comp with all the variables - level, threshold, ratio, attack, release etc etc covered.

[BOD2]

I think the problem lies in how the controls operate. The amount of compression is either preset or varies in conjunction with other parameters on the CS-3 so you have no way of modifying this.

To get long, sustained notes you really want to increase the "Sustain" control - turn it clockwise. Try it at the 3-o-clock position (if it's set at 7 then is this fully anti-clockwise, which is minimum sustain).

Now adjust the "Level" to get the required level.

Once that is ok, try playing with the "Attack" control to see if/how that changes the sound.

Finally adjust "Tone", if required.


Instruiction manual available here [url="http://lib.roland.co.jp/manual/en/dl_06-10484/CS-3_e.pdf"]Roland[/url]

[clauster]

[quote]The amount of compression is either preset or varies in conjunction with other parameters on the CS-3[/quote]

Good point - As far as I can tell from using mine, its the second option - I THINK the sustain knob lowers the threshold and increases the level to compensate (even though there's a separate knob for this) as "sustain" goes up.

Edited January 21, 2008 by clauster

[papadesophie]

Update,

I have had a bit of a mess around with settings as per your good guidance. Bizarrely I have found the following: with my standard P Bass I can get exactly what I want. However my main bass is an old 70s Tele Bass, and I think that the output of that big old humbucker is causing the CS-3 to go into maximum squish. It sounds sh*te. With the volume rolled back a bit it seems to liven up a little so I think it's an pickup power issue. Does this sound likely??

Thanks for all your advice BTW

[cheddatom]

More output from your bass will create more compression. Turn the volume knob down on your bass, or reduce the "sustain" control appropriately, although obviously this effects more than just the threshold so it might not work for you. I would strongly advise, along with Ped that you try a LMB3 or the behringer equivalent.