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And he we are again, what are transparent compressors good for in a pub band? Not about to try and teach anyone to suck eggs, if you know this stuff, sorry for the post, if you are not really interested please skip it, if you want to know why a compressor might help you in a live situation when it apparently 'does nothing' or 'kills my dynamics' then feel free to have a read. Its like a very cut down compressor 101 chat I gave once, which some of you are still scarred by..... Originally compression was supposed to be a transparent tool to prevent an engineer from having to ride a fader throughout a take or a mix. All it was supposed to do was keep that level more even - as often as not by just slightly modifying the envelope of the input sound, hence the attack and release control. And with VCA compressors they pretty much achieved it. But before VCA compressors there were Vari-mu compressors (real tube compressors), Optical compressors and FET compressors. All these types have pluses and minuses, they all have different attack and release curves all of which do more than just transparently alter volume and help out an engineer. On top of these types of compressor there is tape compression and and amp/driver compression - no driver is completely compression free when you push it hard, no amp is compression free when you push it hard, all overdrives and distortions and fuzzes are also compressors, just totally not transparent ones. The best ever compressor you will ever experience is the pair you have strapped on to the side of your head all day. Yes your ears/brain are simply the most powerful compressor you can buy. The quietest sound you can hear is equivalent to your ear drum moving the width or a single molecule apparently, whilst the loudest sound you can hear before deafening yourself pretty much instantly is hundreds of thousands of times louder (you need to look into the way sound pressure level measured in micro pascals and decibels work as units of measurement). That amazing set of compressors on the side of your head has an unfortunate side effect, without a direct reference you are almost totally volume blind, small changes in volume are beyond you to describe, you can not reliably perceive them. Unless they are compared to a level that has not changed and is not changing. Obviously bigger differences are easy to perceive but the differences that can make or break a mix, if you aren't listening to the the mix happening at the time, nope, not a hope. So a deliberately transparent compressor you can't hear working on your signal in isolation, until you are doing way to much with it, and thats about when you feel your dynamics disappearing, because you are doing huge amount of compression in order to hear anything much at all. In a mix way less compression would be 'enough' to change the envelope of your signal to make your instrument be easier to hear, but you aren't in a mix so in order to hear anything at all you put way too much compression on. Thing is, a studio engineer has the time and choice to select the right type of compressor for the particular part of a track he/she wants it for and then set it up just so. What it does to an instrument in a mix then is help prevent 'masking', this is where the envelope of the signal drops in such a way, either because of the player's technique or their instrument or their preferred tonal choices that some other instrument makes it hard to hear when it plays at the same time. Near the end of a mix when two instruments are masking each other I have found that a change of as little as 0.1dB can sometimes make a real difference to the way a pair of instruments sound in a mix. Back to live then. If you are trying to use a compressor to help you be heard in a mix you need very very little for it to make a difference. If you are using compression for a definite effect then you may need bucket loads. If you like your tone as it is but feel you sometimes 'disappear' in the mix and are constantly turning up, then a transparent compressor, set just right, could be the answer to the fight. But you need good critical listening skills, you need to do this 'in the mix' unless you have great metering on the pedal to help you out otherwise you probably will put too much compression on the sound in order to hear it happening. Compression is difficult to master when you are in the safe space of a mix down with no distractions and lots of time to experiment. In order to make it 'easier' to use many pedals have no 'confusing' metering and not all the required parameters to really control the compression. This is a double edged sword, no metering and 'doing it by ear' are nigh on impossible with a transparent compressor unless you are setting it up in situ in the mix. On the other hand a full featured compressor is waaay to complex for an average bassist to get the best out of, and also remember that little detail about setting it right for a particular song? Well you cant with an always on compressor, so you have to set it to help you a little bit all the time, and that's another skill. Ultra low ratio (1.5 to 1 even), very low threshold, slow-ish attack (50 to 80 ms) and fast release (less than 30ms) giving not more than 3dB total compression on the loudest parts is probably a good target for a general touch of compression type of setting on bass live IME. No you cant really hear or feel it if you are just playing solo (dont be concerned if when playing normally the 3dB light doesnt light up at all, you are still getting some compression if your threshold is set right). In the mix you will be easier to hear, whether you are a loud or quiet band. Not because of tonnes of compression but because your individual note envelopes are changed just a smidge so that the post transient part of the note envelope is a touch louder than before. Hope that makes some sense, probably not though

Lazy engineering is lazy engineering. Getting a mix to balance live is full of variables though and sometimes, just sometimes a heavily compressed bass is the best the acoustic of the room can support at 'war' volume. Its not always a lazy engineer, they may have tried everything else first. Admittedly at the level most of us play at they probably havent given the bass more than a couple of seconds thought in the mix, you're lucky if they have sympathetically eq'ed the bass and kick to work together rather than fight each other to be honest. But thats why I have great gear, run my own PA and always do a soundcheck (even if its only 10 minutes)

Awwww cheers, I've been super busy for a while so don't have the time to daub huge ponitifications about compression any more, seems like the debate remains as fresh as ever though

Hmmmm there was a case on here a while ago of a pro signing up to tell everyone not to use a compressor live because pros don't, seem to remember there was some fairly robust disagreement which he didn't like and he left. Those who disagreed were then rounded upon for not being nicer to him. Personally I think if it can be done someone will do it, and if they are clever enough about it it will sound good, and then other people will try (Tom Morello's kill switch springs to mind, never heard that before, then everyone with a heavy distortion and a guitar was adding a kill switch or breaking their pickup selector switch :D). When I was learning sound engineering the one rule we had drummed into us was "There are no rules, just guidelines, any rule there is is there to be broken, if it sounds good, it is good".... Of course if you go too crazy in a studio you might just fry some very expensive kit (as in mortgage your house type expensive), so you best have a good idea of what you are plugging in to where before you start getting all 'creative'

Bwahahahaaaaa!

Pshhh 3:00 thats just editing wonks looking for good shots, 1:40 looks like he could be playing a hammeron with his left hand, have you seen him play Chapman Stick ???

And anyone citing direct injection to the board as a sign of compressionless bass in the studio is handily forgetting both tape compression and mastering compression, which have always been applied since the early 60's. Motown were flabbergasted at the level of various Beatles tracks on 7" singles.

How about live in 88 then? The point stands, there is a tonne of bass compression for effect (and an OC2 octaver) to make that particular tone...

Or indeed an even worse video off the same tour...

Where abouts in the video? Note that the audio isnt entirely synced to the video, I can try and find a better quality clip if you like....

But the compression in those trousers, I mean, thrusting is baked in with those....

Compression has been used as an effect since the late 70's at least. before then it was just baked in to the amps being used to provide bass backline anyway, but after that point you start to see higher powered transistor amps, and alongside them compressors. Tony Levin pretty much made his name in pop with ultra compressed tones:- http://steveadelson.com/interview_levin.php

http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/gear/bass/bass6066.html http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/gear/bass/bass7174.html So all valve gear then, no surprise at all, all of which is by its nature compressing the signal the harder you drive it, and lets face it Mr E liked to drive his gear hard. So in answer to the OP's question The Who use compression by the nature of their amplification choices on stage from the early days.

Roscoe Century Standard. I've had a crook back since I knackered it moving an HH 215 in '92 My 5 string Roscoe weighs about 8lbs! A 4 string would be a little lighter. Unbelievable bass, so easy to play, tone for days, weighs nothing on my shoulder for a 2.5 hour gig.

XR18 user here, with an external router to be sure I can mix from anywhere in the room. Yes the external router requirement is a slight PIA but its still fine, this is a 7 piece funk band (lots of percussion channels, horn section etc etc). We use a mixture of monitors and IEMs. If you really need to know why this is better than an old school desk, please show me an old school desk with full featured dynamics on every channel, a choice of graphic eq, or 5 band parametric on every channel, 6 monitor outs (with dynamics processing and eq on), 4 slots for fx. RTA on every input and output. Instant recall of more setups than I can count. Yada yada.... I can do mixes along the lines of those that would be way beyond a serious old school project studio from back in the days when those old desks were the business. On top of which I can let the band set up their own monitors. And finally I can get an 18 track recording straight to computer of the entire gig whenever I want with my laptop. Truly redefined mixing live for me, totally. If you can't see a reason you'd want that kind of power that's fine, but if you haven't used one in anger a few times you probably should find a way to do so before concluding that they aren't the absolute canine undercarriage.

Goldfrapp in Brighton. Then Osaka Monaurail in London with Martha High. Gonna be ridiculously funky, can't wait!!!!