Compact Compressors - alternatives to the TC Spectracomp?

[Al Krow]

Having been a "compressor denier" for several years, I've been persuaded of the benefits of adding one to the end of my pedal chain by a couple of my fellow BCs. I was about to push the button on a TC Spectracomp yesterday, but came across a very timely thread on the pedal: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/306380-npd-spectracomp/"]http://basschat.co.u...pd-spectracomp/[/url]

A quick summary of the unresolved concerns raised by a couple of recent owners:

- the pre-loaded default tone print is pretty meh from what fellow BCs have found;
- [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]the downloadable ones from the TC website seem to be more of an "effect" than is required;[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- the solution would to use the PC Editor feature (which is a bit off a faff for the less techy of us), HOWEVER it isn't [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]holding its Toneprint on power down/up cycles and apparently[/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif] this seems to be a still as yet unresolved issue with this pedal for some.[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]So I'm kinda back to square one, but glad I've been saved time and wasted effort on the Spectracomp. I should probably also avoid the TC Hypergravity models if I want to avoid the faff of dealing with Toneprint issues.[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I'm looking for a [b]compact [/b]compressor that is not going to take up too much space on the pedal board, good quality, [b]transparent[/b] and as [b]noiseless[/b] as possible.[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I've been through a couple of other threads and seems that my choices for compact footprint pedals are:[/font][/color]

[u][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Mid price range[/font][/color][/u]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- EBS multicomp (£145) - apparently adds a bit of colour?[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- Seymour Duncan Studio (£159) - nice blending feature[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- MXR M87 (£173) [/font][/color]

[u][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Mid / high[/font][/color][/u]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- Keeley Bassist (£199)[/font][/color]

[u][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]High end [/font][/color][/u]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- Cali 76 Compact Bass (£279)[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Two Qs - any issues or particularly great experiences with any of the mid price range compressors or the Keeley? Is it worth spending the extra for the Cali 76 - what is it doing better, if anything, than the other comps?[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Cheers BCs![/font][/color]

[Cuzzie]

Make sure you check the Darkglass super symmetry, it's pretty good actually.

But for my pennies worth, go big or go home!

Cali76 TX-L

[hamfist]

[quote name='Cuzzie' timestamp='1496049802' post='3308319']
Cali76 TX-L
[/quote]

Now discontinued unfortunately. Seems like they do not, as yet, have a direct replacement.

[hamfist]

THe EBS Multicomp for me was always impossible to get a setting I liked. It was either too squashed and "effecty" or did almost nothing. I found it impossible to set as I wanted to at the time.

If you are considering large and pricey too, the Empress is an awesome pedal, and reasonably readily available too.

If large is no problem, the COmpressore is a very very good pedal.

Also, don't get fixed on putting a compressor at the end of your chain (unless you are looking for limiting). I far prefer a compressor at the beginning. What exactly are you hoping to achieve from a compressor ??

[Cuzzie]

Yep aware of that, but if one popped up in the wild, then it must be captured, I was going to suggest the TX-L-P but they are even rarer.

Reverb is showing a standard one for sale in Denmark for the price of a small country home

[pete.young]

Of those, the MXR was the best choice for me because of the monitoring capability, plus you have conventional controls for attack, release, threshold, compression and make-up gain.

If you wanted to spend a bit more the Keeley Pro is probably as close as you can get to a studio rack compressor in a pedal, but is a bit larger in terms of footprint.

If you wanted a cheap way to experiment, the compressor models in the Zoom MS-60B and B1On are very good, there are clones of the EBS, DBX166 and a couple of others to play about with.

[radiophonic]

I know Boss tend to get disregarded, but what about the BC1-X? I got one in preference to the Spectracomp and have no regrets so far. Its always on and I just forget about it. Unfortunately, the problem with demoing compressors is that you really need to run them at realistic / gig volume in order to see how they perform. This guy rated it anyway - http://www.ovnilab.com/

[project_c]

I have the Seymour Duncan one, i rarely turn it off. It's a pretty natural sounding compressor so it doesn't sound like a special effect or plugin, but it sounds really good, it can give you subtle compression, or a nicely boosted and focused signal, or a really hyped tone, depending on the settings. The preset suggestions it comes with are a good way to get to grips with it.

[Mudpup]

I had an EBS multi comp and didn't get on with it - same reasons as above really, it was either too effecty sounding or not doing much. Having internal controls is a bit of a bind as well.

Then went to a DOD Milkbox which is very good and i still use it on my spare pedalboard - might possibly switch it out for a SD Studio or MXR in the future though if one pops up for the right price.

Currently using a Seymour Duncan Doubleback (which is similar to the Studio i believe but in a bigger form factor) on my main gig board and realising that having a blend control and parallel compression is dead useful for my preferences.

[Byo]

If you are going to place it at the end of your signal chain as a limiter I would go with the MXR, as it is a clean comp with a great visual representation of the amount of signal being affected by the compressor.

Darkglass' comp is also an amazing pedal too.

Check out [url="http://www.ovnilab.com"]http://www.ovnilab.com[/url] as mentioned by radiophonic earlier, great place to get a quality review of virtually nearly comp out there.

Edited May 29, 2017 by Byo

[bazzbass]

love my MXR M87

if it's your first compressor this is the one, the ten LEDs help greatly to see what is happening to your signal

[dannybuoy]

Recommending the biggest compressor going in a thread entitled 'compact compressors'! 😂

The RMI Basswitch Dual Band looks interesting:

http://www.rmi.lu/products/product/basswitch-dual-band-compressor

There is the Broughton Monocle too, he doesn't have a site but you can PM AzureSkies on Talkbass and he could build you one. It's a 1590A size like the Spectracomp and gets glowing reviews.

I'm sure there are a couple of other really small compressors just released/announced, I'll post them if I remember what they are!

[Al Krow]

@DB that does look interesting - gets really good reviews from Ovnilab too. In terms of taking up too much space they've cleverly made it the same width (6cm) as the other compact pedals I've listed above, but it's "length" at 15cm is 1/3 bigger than the others, however it would just about squeeze onto my pedal board.

At £233 it's starting, however, to get into Cali 76 territory for pricing.

If you were to compare the Keeley Bassist (£199), RMI (£233) and the Cali (£279) do the two more expensive models add anything much to what the Keeley is going to provide as a quality compressor? A key other factor is how noisy the pedals are - I don't really fancy having to add a noise gate to deal with the noise that a compressor is adding to the mix!

[hamfist]

Really, really happy with my new Seymour Duncan Studio Bass Comp. Its smallish, quiet, sounds great and has all the functionality I need.

[Al Krow]

[quote name='hamfist' timestamp='1496558592' post='3312225']
Really, really happy with my new Seymour Duncan Studio Bass Comp. Its smallish, quiet, sounds great and has all the functionality I need.
[/quote]

Thanks for that - seems to be quite a lot of love so far on this thread for the Seymour Duncan Studio and the MXR M87 as two pedals which deliver the goods as a compressor without being noisy. And the opposite for the EBS, which I'll therefore avoid! The SD would also appear to be the best "value" option in terms costs and performance.

How long have you had the SD Studio and how does it compare to the Empress (£249) and MB Compressore (£166) you mentioned above in terms of user interface / ease of use and performance? These other two are going to be a bit too large for the remaining space on my pedal board but it would be good to understand how the three pedals compare.

Edited June 4, 2017 by Al Krow

[Cuzzie]

Al,

Don't forget the second hand market prices

Sold my MXR for about the £120 mark
Showed you a standard big Cali at £225
And a SD at a great price (can't remember what it was)

If you mount your Cioks DC8 under the board, definitely room for a compressor! Or have the multi effects unit on the floor next to the board

[Al Krow]

[quote name='Cuzzie' timestamp='1496567994' post='3312297']
Al,

Don't forget the second hand market prices

Sold my MXR for about the £120 mark
Showed you a standard big Cali at £225
And a SD at a great price (can't remember what it was)

If you mount your Cioks DC8 under the board, definitely room for a compressor! Or have the multi effects unit on the floor next to the board
[/quote]

Second hand would be good, for sure. I'm certainly keeping an eye out on the effects FS sections.

But if I can get a compact pedal, for which there is still room, that pretty much provides what one of its bigger brothers delivers, then that's got to be a plus. Leaves space for something else down the line, right?

Edited June 4, 2017 by Al Krow

[Cuzzie]

Entirely right

Glad you decided on the Cali!!!

[Al Krow]

[quote name='Cuzzie' timestamp='1496569464' post='3312312']
Entirely right

Glad you decided on the Cali!!!
[/quote]

Well apart from your good self there have been so far no other BCs suggesting that the Cali 76 BC is worth its premium price over the Seymour Duncan, MXR or Keeley Bassist, so I'm not convinced about spending the extra on a Cali (which is considerably more second hand than some of the others are brand new!)

[mcnach]

[quote name='Al Krow' timestamp='1496048096' post='3308291']
Having been a "compressor denier" for several years, I've been persuaded of the benefits of adding one to the end of my pedal chain by a couple of my fellow BCs. I was about to push the button on a TC Spectracomp yesterday, but came across a very timely thread on the pedal: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/306380-npd-spectracomp/"]http://basschat.co.u...pd-spectracomp/[/url]

A quick summary of the unresolved concerns raised by a couple of recent owners:

- the pre-loaded default tone print is pretty meh from what fellow BCs have found;
- [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]the downloadable ones from the TC website seem to be more of an "effect" than is required;[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- the solution would to use the PC Editor feature (which is a bit off a faff for the less techy of us), HOWEVER it isn't [/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]holding its Toneprint on power down/up cycles and apparently[/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif] this seems to be a still as yet unresolved issue with this pedal for some.[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]So I'm kinda back to square one, but glad I've been saved time and wasted effort on the Spectracomp. I should probably also avoid the TC Hypergravity models if I want to avoid the faff of dealing with Toneprint issues.[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I'm looking for a [b]compact [/b]compressor that is not going to take up too much space on the pedal board, good quality, [b]transparent[/b] and as [b]noiseless[/b] as possible.[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I've been through a couple of other threads and seems that my choices for compact footprint pedals are:[/font][/color]

[u][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Mid price range[/font][/color][/u]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- EBS multicomp (£145) - apparently adds a bit of colour?[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- Seymour Duncan Studio (£159) - nice blending feature[/font][/color]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- MXR M87 (£173) [/font][/color]

[u][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Mid / high[/font][/color][/u]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- Keeley Bassist (£199)[/font][/color]

[u][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]High end [/font][/color][/u]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]- Cali 76 Compact Bass (£279)[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Two Qs - any issues or particularly great experiences with any of the mid price range compressors or the Keeley? Is it worth spending the extra for the Cali 76 - what is it doing better, if anything, than the other comps?[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Cheers BCs![/font][/color]
[/quote]

I only have experience of some of the midpriced ones.

I like the EBS multicomp a lot... but it's got a sound of its own, it's not transparent. You may like it, but if you want transparent... I'd move on to something else.

The MXR M87 is very transparent. It has the ability to adjust parameters that other compressors in this price range usually don't let you touch. That can be a good thing, or a not so good thing. It frustrated me a bit at first because I'm a tweaker and I kept fiddling with it . The good news is it's not hard to get it to do what you want it to do... and then a bit more. I still have mine... but not for long. Because I decided I like another one better... the BBE Opto Stomp.

The BBE Opto Stomp is cheaper... although there are various versions and it seems the original is the one to go for, hence used... I used to own one a while ago and I just managed to get another (typically around £60). It is *very* transparent, very smooth, very subtle. It's limited compared to the MXR, but if it does what you want, then it's very nice as it just has two knobs. Can't be simpler. It suits me better than the MXR M87, which is why I prefer it, but sound wise they're both very good and affect your tone very little (unless you want it to, on the MXR). The MXR is more versatile... but for a simple good sounding transparent compressor, the BBE is great. Unfortunately, it's a little bigger than others, about 1.5x the width.

[mcnach]

[quote name='hamfist' timestamp='1496050508' post='3308332']
Also, don't get fixed on putting a compressor at the end of your chain (unless you are looking for limiting). I far prefer a compressor at the beginning. What exactly are you hoping to achieve from a compressor ??
[/quote]

Do you know that I never tried a compressor at the beginning???

(well, you know now... you can finally sleep calmly )

I've always automatically gone for last in the chain... I should definitely explore, although I do rely on playing dynamics to get different levels of effect (overdrives, for example, envelope filters...), so it may not work the way I like best. But explore I must!

[Ba55me15ter]

I have the Spectracomp and thought there were more than enough stock toneprints to find a suitable one. Sure it's not worth actually trying one?
I gigged at the weekend using the MComp model on a Zoom Multistomp and found it more than usable.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Ba55me15ter

[kingforaday]

I wanted a one knob 'set & forget' compressor to subtly even out the signal... was gonna get a TC Spectracomp but didn't have the funds... I ended up going for a Mosky Dyna Compressor. Same tiny size as the TC but it only cost £18!

Looks like it's more like £25 now... but still very cheap.

So far I'm really impressed and I'm happy with what it's doing but I do intend to buy the TC when I can to A/B them

[Al Krow]

[quote name='Ba55me15ter' timestamp='1499077384' post='3328945']
I have the Spectracomp and thought there were more than enough stock toneprints to find a suitable one. Sure it's not worth actually trying one?
I gigged at the weekend using the MComp model on a Zoom Multistomp and found it more than usable.
[/quote]

Finding I'm getting speaker "pop" when I'm playing "slap" (just getting to grips with the basic technique at the mo). Been advised that this is EXACTLY the sort of situation that a compressor (or a limiter) is designed for and another BCer has also said that the Zoom compressor SIMs (I've got a Zoom B3n) are pretty good. Anyway protecting my speaker cones is a BIG incentive to getting some compression into my signal chain asap, so will start by looking at the Zoom and then progressing to something more dedicated, if required.