Your 'Always On' Compressor / Boost

[adamg67]

I went for the Hyper Luminal and found it really easy to dial in, and it does feel like having a choice of three compressors. I havn't tried plugging it in via USB to see what can be tweaked yet, no need for me but that also might be a plus for some people.

[javi_bassist]

In my opinion (and experience), you have to think first one thing: do you want a complex comp or a simpler one? Because you said that you were too worried that you were going to mess your tone because the MXR had too many controls. It's a long read, but in this thread you have a lot of options

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/testing-compressors-cali-smoothie-empress-diamond-keeley-fea-darkglass-doc-lloyd-jhs-more.1345638/

In my case, I had the TE Hypergravity. Awesome compressor. You can use it as a simple compressor or you can really complicate yourself. And the tone was fantastic. After trying out a lot more, I finally got a JHS Pulp N Peel v4. Very simple and awesome sounding (I sold it and I had to buy it back because it's my favourite compressor). The EBS (the latest version especially) is a really good one too. And the Diamond.

In my opinion, first you have to take off the list the ones with too many knobs, if that's what you want. You said the MXR had too many knobs but the Cali has a lot too.

[Ander87]

On 26/04/2020 at 07:40, Osiris said:

The TC Electronic Spectracomp is ostensibly as simple as they come... From the ones you mentioned, the Cali is great, do believe the hype on that one. Personally I found the Aguilar TLC utterly insipid

Thanks mate, the TC Spectracomp is defo coming across as one of the simpler / more budget sensible options and yours seems to be the general sentiment on the TLC too.

On 26/04/2020 at 10:36, lee650 said:

The Diamond is a lovely compressor, although it has a very low 3:1 ratio,That's fine for general smoothing and tone enhancement. While usibg it I thought it was too subtle and sold it,however when i didnt have it, I really noticed the difference. The tone is lovely and as previously described, it adds a little fairy dust to the tone. Very simple controls too.

Similar comps I've had to this are the 3 leaf Pwnzor,which has a lot more control,but harder to "get right". I'm currently using the fairly unknown Nemphasis VT which has little to no information online,so is generally unknown outside of Italy. It is a high end comp and does have that tone improving quality of the Diamond (slightly cheaper option too) and has very easy controls as it only has comp (threshold I'd say) and attack (which seems to work like the cali in that it affects the attack/release at the same time) it us very subtle so id say it has a set low ratio. 

Optical comps tend to sound warmer and more organic.

The Cali 76 is a fantastic comp, it does change the tone, in that it adds a much brighter sheen to the sound

Hmm... I take your thoughts on the Diamond and am intrigued by the Nemphasis VT Lee, thanks! Although the Cali76 must be great I don't need more brightness to be honest and the 6 knobs start to puzzle me - as with the MXR, I am confident I can crack it but still feels like too many options, I rather have a couple, three knobs to explore and set up quickly just!

As @Kiwi and @clauster mentioned and judging by the reviews on ovnilab, Becos and FEA labs are quite high up there but then again I want them as simple as it gets and since I'm still at the beginning of the compression journey I'd want it easy to buy/easy to sell too and don't come across these as much.

On 04/05/2020 at 09:05, javi_bassist said:

In my opinion (and experience), you have to think first one thing: do you want a complex comp or a simpler one? Because you said that you were too worried that you were going to mess your tone because the MXR had too many controls. It's a long read, but in this thread you have a lot of options

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/testing-compressors-cali-smoothie-empress-diamond-keeley-fea-darkglass-doc-lloyd-jhs-more.1345638/

After trying out a lot more, I finally got a JHS Pulp N Peel v4. Very simple and awesome sounding (I sold it and I had to buy it back because it's my favourite compressor). The EBS (the latest version especially) is a really good one too. And the Diamond.

In my opinion, first you have to take off the list the ones with too many knobs, if that's what you want. You said the MXR had too many knobs but the Cali has a lot too.

I think that's the winning approach Javi, thank you!

So far, the ones I quite get on and have heard solid things about are the Diamond Jr, Nemphasis and Thorpy Fat General. Of these three I'm most inclined towards the Fat General, not so much info on it but I 'really get it' more than others and is potentially the route I may go down - will nonetheless do more research on the rest!

[Ander87]

Oh! Further finding on the Fat General thanks to the post from @javi_bassist (https://www.talkbass.com/threads/testing-compressors-cali-smoothie-empress-diamond-keeley-fea-darkglass-doc-lloyd-jhs-more.1345638/page-112#post-22941910😞

In Blend mode, there really isn't a great way to dial in any makeup gain. In other words, I liked the tone/compression I dialed in [...] I loved what I heard, but I was barely at unity gain. As I turned the Balance knob more CW the overall perceived volume increased, but of course so did the compression effect as I was dialing in more wet (compressed) signal. As expected, the feel and tone changed as a result.

Interesting turn - I do have my #1 as an active 18v J+J/MM bass and I'm quite into having the unity gain mentioned - my amp isn't too powerful (TH350 on one cab so 175w) and I wouldn't want to have to push volume or have to use a booster as that goes against my one pedal setup.

Do any of the Fat General users encounter this issue? @fretmeister and @ryancowell25 swear by it so I'd be interested in hearing more on this!

As it stands and mentioned just before this I'm most interested on the Diamond Jr, VT Nemphasis and Thorpy Fat General - can't find much info on the VT as suggested and I'm not troubled by the low ratio (3:1) of the Diamond.

[Kiwi]

I will put a word in for the Effectrode PC2A after all,  despite it needing a huge amount of power.  It's the perfect valve comp, studio clean and warm and can be subtle or squashy as you like. Just can't power it off a pedalboard brick. 

[itu]

Blending in some compression? Well, I do not blend. The signal is compressed or not. I have used the slightly modified parameters of the Spectra in my Hypergravity, and the blend pot is taking care of something else than blending. The three bands allow me to adjust the frequency bands to the wanted response.

[fretmeister]

2 hours ago, Ander87 said:

Oh! Further finding on the Fat General thanks to the post from @javi_bassist (https://www.talkbass.com/threads/testing-compressors-cali-smoothie-empress-diamond-keeley-fea-darkglass-doc-lloyd-jhs-more.1345638/page-112#post-22941910😞

In Blend mode, there really isn't a great way to dial in any makeup gain. In other words, I liked the tone/compression I dialed in [...] I loved what I heard, but I was barely at unity gain. As I turned the Balance knob more CW the overall perceived volume increased, but of course so did the compression effect as I was dialing in more wet (compressed) signal. As expected, the feel and tone changed as a result.

Interesting turn - I do have my #1 as an active 18v J+J/MM bass and I'm quite into having the unity gain mentioned - my amp isn't too powerful (TH350 on one cab so 175w) and I wouldn't want to have to push volume or have to use a booster as that goes against my one pedal setup.

Do any of the Fat General users encounter this issue? @fretmeister and @ryancowell25 swear by it so I'd be interested in hearing more on this!

As it stands and mentioned just before this I'm most interested on the Diamond Jr, VT Nemphasis and Thorpy Fat General - can't find much info on the VT as suggested and I'm not troubled by the low ratio (3:1) of the Diamond.

Not that I've noticed.

But I tend to use the fully compressed 'juicy' option instead of blending.

[dannybuoy]

On 27/04/2020 at 00:25, Kiwi said:

Great thread this, am thinking about replacing my Effectrode PC2A compressor on my guitar board.  It's a stunning comp but power requirements mean I can't run it off a power bank.

I can power mine with the 300mA output of my Cioks DC5. Shouldn't work on paper, and it might explode one in flames day, but it works fine!

The TrueTone OneSpot Pro range should fare even better, according to their support the individual labels are just there for show and you can put huge amounts through a single socket as long as you don't exceed the total for the entire brick. 

[dannybuoy]

The PC2A is a bit of an unusual comp, and very expensive. I love how it makes my fretless sound though.

The Diamond - I felt it just squeezed a lot of life out my sound and it plagued me with noise issues. Not a typical raised noise floor due to compression, but interference/grounding type buzzing. Weirdly it was fine on the floor but noisy when placed on the metal pedaltrain?!

Tried a Keeley Bassist and just found it bland.

Went to an RMI Basswitch Dual Band next. Loved what the dual band did, but it did change the tone quite drastically, needed isolated power due to a noisy internal 9v-18v converter, and in the end it died on me within 2 weeks so was returned.

I got a Cali Compact Bass next, thought it was the bees knees. Missed the dual band but the HPF sidechain feature almost made up for it.

Then got a TC Spectracomp. Assumed it would be cack as it cost £50 and Ovnilab refused to review it due to excessive noise issues and a bad customer service experience, but was curious because lots were raving about it. Holy moly! Best comp I've ever had, and sold the Cali. Dual band is the way to go, this has 3 bands, so even more so. Especially if you slap or play aggressively, you will benefit from having faster limiting on the top end and a slower milder compression on the lows.

I considered getting a Hypergravity instead due to it being essentially the same pedal with more knobs. But I realised the thing I liked most was how the Spectracomp's stock preset was dialled in perfectly for me bar a slight volume boost that could be tweaked via the app, and there were tons of bass-specific presets that aren't available for the Hypergravity.

 

[itu]

13 hours ago, dannybuoy said:

...and there were tons of bass-specific presets that aren't available for the Hypergravity.

 

Actually someone has opened the can of worms and Spectra's adjustments are available in the net. It is true, that some work is needed to transfer the setting to Hypergravity, but I needed the other knob.

[Japhet]

I've been through a fair few compressors, some with all the whistles and bells and have now ended up with the ultra simple TC Spectracomp, and am very happy with it. To fatten or shape the tone I use a Valeton FET preamp pedal which I just love. Have never heard of anyone else using one but it's a cracking pedal for peanuts. I got mine off Ebay for £25 and it's a keeper. There's a simple and cheap solution for ya!

[dave_bass5]

 Ive still got my Spectracomp, and i liked what i it did, but for me it was the most complicated pedal ive ever owned. It might just have that one knob, but if I tried to make adjustments it was a mine field of parameters. 

[Japhet]

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

 Ive still got my Spectracomp, and i liked what i it did, but for me it was the most complicated pedal ive ever owned. It might just have that one knob, but if I tried to make adjustments it was a mine field of parameters. 

I think if you get into all that TonePrint malarky you can dig yourself into a deeper hole than another pedal with all sorts of knobs and stuff on it. I used a Nova Dynamics pedal for years which was fantastic and had everything on it, but it needed a 12v power supply which was a bit of a pain, and it also took up a fair bit of space.

[Misdee]

I use the Diamond BC1  and it is a fabulous bit of kit. I use it on the  9v setting  and it  copes  just fine  Makes my bass sound like the ones on my favourite recordings, if that makes sense. I will say that the Diamond is maybe  a fairly subtle compressor more  for overall  tone shaping than aggressive limiting of your signal compared to some other pedals.  It all depends what you are after.

The Cali 76 and EBS Multicomp are also great choices in terms of tone. Can't go too far wrong with any of those.  The opposite end of the spectrum would be  something like the  MXR M87  , a bit sterile for my taste  but lots of control over the  actual compression / limiting. 

[Osiris]

2 hours ago, Japhet said:

I think if you get into all that TonePrint malarky you can dig yourself into a deeper hole than another pedal with all sorts of knobs and stuff on it. I used a Nova Dynamics pedal for years which was fantastic and had everything on it, but it needed a 12v power supply which was a bit of a pain, and it also took up a fair bit of space.

The tone prints are a load of pre-set settings that you can't easily edit unless you go out of your way, you can edit them either via the phone app or by hooking up to a PC. But most of the tone prints are a great starting point and can give you a taste of the variety of compression types you can get from the pedal. But if you're in the editing software, that's a whole new world of pain if you don't know what you're doing 😀. Saying that I used the editing software to craft my own multiband patch for my HyperGravity as there's no off the shelf pedal that delivers what I want it to do.  

[dave_bass5]

57 minutes ago, Osiris said:

The tone prints are a load of pre-set settings that you can't easily edit unless you go out of your way, you can edit them either via the phone app or by hooking up to a PC. But most of the tone prints are a great starting point and can give you a taste of the variety of compression types you can get from the pedal. But if you're in the editing software, that's a whole new world of pain if you don't know what you're doing 😀. Saying that I used the editing software to craft my own multiband patch for my HyperGravity as there's no off the shelf pedal that delivers what I want it to do.  

I had some good results with the presets, but never found them to be exactly what i wanted. I don’t believe you can edit the tone prints from the name artists, although i haven’t tried for a few years. 

Don’t get me wrong i used one for quite a while, but i felt i didnt have control over what it was doing. 

Edited May 12, 2020 by dave_bass5

[itu]

3 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

 don’t believe you can edit the tone prints from the name artists, although i haven’t tried for a few years.

I think I was a bit unclear earlier, but the artist versions can be found from the net with a little work. Some kind person has hacked the settings and they can be put not only to Spectra but Hypergravity, too. Takes a little time though.

[dave_bass5]

14 minutes ago, itu said:

I think I was a bit unclear earlier, but the artist versions can be found from the net with a little work. Some kind person has hacked the settings and they can be put not only to Spectra but Hypergravity, too. Takes a little time though.

Ah cool. That makes things a lot easer, although I’d still find a way to mess it up. Just looking at all those parameters gives me the shivers lol. 

[Osiris]

12 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

 I don’t believe you can edit the tone prints from the name artists, although i haven’t tried for a few years. 

 

You didn't used to be able to, but I think (don't quote me on this just yet, I need to double check on my Moby) on the newest version of the Tone Print app there's a pencil icon in each Tone Print, and if you click on that you can then see the behind the scenes parameters and edit them to create your own patch, which you can save and beam to the pedal through your pickups. Having said that, I found it a really difficult to dial in the settings on a phone screen, especially when trying to add the parameters of the sweep of the control knobs as the knob position (ooh err) icons are tiny. But it can be done with a bit of patience. 

 

[dave_bass5]

2 hours ago, Osiris said:

You didn't used to be able to, but I think (don't quote me on this just yet, I need to double check on my Moby) on the newest version of the Tone Print app there's a pencil icon in each Tone Print, and if you click on that you can then see the behind the scenes parameters and edit them to create your own patch, which you can save and beam to the pedal through your pickups. Having said that, I found it a really difficult to dial in the settings on a phone screen, especially when trying to add the parameters of the sweep of the control knobs as the knob position (ooh err) icons are tiny. But it can be done with a bit of patience. 

 

Thanks. I did a few bits with the default tone print and agree, its a bit fiddly on a phone, especially when trying to do it at a rehearsal where i felt the ideal time to dial it in, with the rig at gig volume. I was planning on getting the Hypergravity for the extra controls in a live situation but then got the Helix so didn’t bother. 

Still, doubt ill ever use it again now i have the Becos and/or the Rochester Comp. 

[AJ567]

I used to use a markbass compressore for exactly this purpose. Had it on top of the amp, always on, never changed the settings. It's fantastic for low ratio, "tone enhancing" compression. Nice and thick with a hint of tube warmth. Zero added noise.

Check out the ovnilab review, he rates it very highly! 

[ezbass]

I had an EBS many years ago but stopped using it after reading that one of my biggest influences had stopped using a comp and I followed sheep-like as the EBS wasn’t really part of my tone and was quite subtle (I was younger then and influenced by ‘must haves‘ and my heroes).

Now that I’m older (and hopefully wiser) I’m more reliant on my own ears and opinions. Recently, I have started recording at home (like many others) and I sent something I had worked on to a couple friends who’s opinions, in this new area for me, I value (one runs an FOH company and has been recording for decades). One of the suggestions I received were specific compressor settings for the bass track (I had already added some by ear) which really added ‘something’ and has now got me looking at gear and this thread. The settings were: 6:1 with 50ms attack, -6db threshold.

Hopefully, the GAS will pass, but I doubt it 😂.

Edited June 5, 2020 by ezbass

[paul_5]

Engineer’s Thumb. The ratio control is actually a lean blend, so I can use parallel compression in a single unit with a small footprint. 
 

👍🏻

[Baloney Balderdash]

It's out of production, though they do regular pop up on the used market, don't know if it will be anything that fits your needs and personal taste though, but here's a partially copy/paste from the recent topic I started in the "Gear Porn" sub forum about tube pedals, with some new additional notes added:

 

Here's a picture of my beloved and very precious EHX Black Finger tube driven optical compressor, that has the ability to double as a tube preamp/tube overdrive pedal as well :

And while the controls might appear as somewhat limiting, combined they actually offer a pretty wide variety of, actually substantial different and very useful, settings, the Pre Gain control, which essentially is adjusting the input gain, and which beside having the capability of being used for dialing in various degrees of tube coloration, as the input tube is gradually pressed harder and harder as the input gain is increased, or even overdriving the input tube, ranging from all to just a slight touch of subtle edge of breakup hair and grid, all the way up to a sort of an upper medium gain type of overdrive (though the latter only really being achievable with the Sqush/Norm selector switch set to normal mode), it also sort of works like a threshold control for the compression, somewhat interacting with the Compress control, which, as far as I understood it, sort of works as a combined threshold and compression rate control, and then finally the 4 possible combinations the 2 2 way switches, respectively being a Lamp/Led optical compression circuit source selector, and a Sqsh/Norm selector, offering control over various attack time and compression rate settings, depending on how they are combined, as well as those different combinations partially will effect the EQ of the compression, as in how much compression is applied to which frequencies, the Post Gain control really just adjusting the overall output volume, functioning as a fairly standard master volume/make up gain control, and how high you need to turn it up of course depending on the Pre Gain and other general compression settings, though it will be capable of boosting the pedals overall volume level well above unity gain (though again exactly how much will be determined by the other settings of the pedal's controls), but unlike the Input Gain, it will stay clean the whole way up to its maximum boost capacity, and never at any point reaching a breakup point, regardless of what other settings are used.

Might be my number one single most favorite and important pedal that I own, so I seriously ponder on finding a used one to keep as a spare, in case something beyond repair should happen to my current one, as I consider it a quite essential part of both my guitar and bass rig, used as an always on pedal, placed as the very last pedal in my effects chain, right before the amp, where it usually sits on top of, and really having the function for me as much as my tube preamp stage as an actual compressor, I have actually previously even used it more exclusively as primarily a tube preamp, or even at one point as my tube overdrive in my guitar setup, in those cases having had the compression circuit more or less entirely dialed out of the equation, as this pedal, a bit roughly speaking, but basically and in principal really is a tube preamp with an optical compressor circuit build in, placed between the preamp's input stage and it's output stage. 

As a compressor it has a range of compression going from extremely mild and very subtle, barely detectable,  up to pretty heavy, very noticeable, and prominent, and just about everything in between, but it will color your tone no matter what, though in my opinion only for the better, and to some extend you will still have a reasonable control over to what degree that is, though the fact that it is powered by 2 preamp tubes run at proper high 300V voltage definitely will set it's unmistakably imprint on everything you run though it, at least to some degree, no matter how you chose to dial in it's controls.

Here's a professional bass player that uses the EHX Black Finger primarily as his always on tube preamp stage (he mentions it briefly and demonstrates it shortly around the 04:37 to 05:44 time stamp of the video):

 

Edited June 7, 2020 by Baloney Balderdash

[Merlino]

Hi!

I have the Nemphasis VT Comp, and I agree with Lee it is a easy and hi-end pedal. 

I also have a lot of other compressors: Cali76 CB; Keeley Compressor Pro; 3Leaf Pwnzor; Trace Eliot Smx 

But the Nemphasis still my favourite and my "always on" pedal. The Keeley is also great, and it is in my pedal board as a limiter after the Nemphasis.

Sorry for my English, it''s not my first language 🙂

Edited June 7, 2020 by Merlino