Hypergravity compressor and settings review-type thread.

[hamfist]

Hi guys, I thought I would start this thread to add to the rather meagre amount of info on the www about this compressor when used for bass.

 

The back story is that I have had plenty of experience with compressors over the years including owning many of the big hitters like the Empress, the MXR, the Seymout Duncan, the Compressore etc, and consider myself pretty confident with the various compression values. And this last point is pretty important because the Hypergravity is an incredibly powerful little thing and the "instructions" available anywhere from TC are simply laughable. It also does NOT come set up for bass at all. It also has  NO metering so you have to be able to use your ears.

 

I started a long thread a few years ago about the Specracomp, which pretty much has the same brain as this thing but with only one physical dial on the pedal. I initially raved about it but it ultimately let me down as it would not store the settings I was programming. Super frustrating, and I simply could not trust it at a gig so it went back and I lost all trust in all the toneprint-type devices from TC for a few years.  

 

I then settled on just using the Dual compressor on board my Trace SMX head, which has been great. Supplemented at times with a multiband comp on the Line6 HX Stomp. THese things have basically been my bass rig for a good handful of years now, and is the reason I have been so minimally active on the board for those years. I've just been playing !

However, it has now come to the point that the Trace really needs new Output caps and I was only really using the HX Stomp for compression and a bit of EQ, so in the interest of tinkering about I decided a whole new rig was required.

Incoming has been an Ashdown 12 band 600 head, which in some ways is the natural successor to the Trace SMX (minus the comp). Which left a hole for a compresssor which needed filling.

 Trying to keep to relatively sane budget I was looking around the £100 mark, and tried the Orange Kongpressor, which was interesting and fun but not really what I wass looking for, so it went back. My interest then started to go towards TC again. Maybe it was time to give them another chance.  It doesn't seem like anywhere has Spectracomps in stock at all at the moment so it had to be the Hypergravity.

 

   After a week - I am seriously impressed with this little green box.  The Toneprint app works well, once you find your way around it. THe pedal has had zero problems with holding the settings I program it with. And the power of a digital thing like this is awesome.  I am a huge fan of multiband compression. I like to squash the sub-300Hz fairly well, with a reasonable amount of make-up gain - all to keep a good control on the bottom end. I then like to squash the lower mid range just a bit less, but with less make-up gain (thus lowering it a bit in the mix). The top end I only give a little bit of squash to, as this is where my dynamics live. THis pedal just allows me to completely tailor make exactly what I want to do.

 Its a pretty transparent comp. Its not exciting, but it can do exactly what I want it to.

   I love the ability to be able to map any parameters to the front 4 dials. I use ....

 

Dial 1  - Threshold for all 3 bands. Lows mids and highs all at different settings. Lows having the lowest threshold, mids a bit higher, and highs with the highest threshold. You can specify 3 different parameters to one knob, all at differeng levels - cool !

Dial 2  - Overall make-up gain - acts pretty much as a master volume.

Dial 3 - Additional make up gain for mids only - this really allows me to dial in my mid range exactly.

Dial 4  - Additional make up gain for lows - Allows for exact dialling in of the bottom end.

 

Simply perfect.

 

I still don't really understand what the 3 way switch on the pedal does. Maybe it gives 3 different versions of the toneprint loaded. THe instructions don't really even mention it. I was expecting to only get my programmed toneprint settings on the "toneprint" middle setting of the switch. But, no .....changing toneprint seems to change the compression on all 3 of the settings. Weird, but I shall only be using it on "toneprint" anyway, so it matters little to me.

 

Another minor thing that TC really missed out on IMO, is that users can't easily swap self-programmed toneprints. the only way is by sharing pictures of the settings, which is what I shall do. Compression settings are of course, not ideal for swapping between different rigs or even basses, but here are my settings. For relatively standard output J bass pickups.  If you use these, you will likely need to adjust the range of thresholds (and make-up gains) to fit your own bass, but it may be a good place to start.

  I suspect I will tweak them a bit as the weeks pass, but I'm pretty happy with how these sit at the moment. Hopefully might be of use to someone. Its a good basic bass-oriented multiband compressor with gentle compression of the highs, a bit more squash of the mids and even more compression, and thus better control, of the lows.

 

NB - updated screenshots - 12:18 1/7/22

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 2, 2022 by hamfist

[Dood]

Brilliant post!

 

I think it's fair to say that the HG and Spectracomp are one of the same, just that the HG has the more physical controls. I think the HG is great and I still have the HG Mini and Spectracomp sat on my pedal shelf here, even though they aren't in "active service". I've a bit of a thing for TC compressors as it happens and I have owned many of them:

 

Triple C stereo

C300 (x2)

Nova Dynamics (x2)

Hyper Gravity

Hyper Gravity Mini

Spectracomp

Gforce Rack

G Major 2 Rack (x2)

G System

 

Parallel and Triple Band Compression is my secret sauce that I've been using for over 20 years, I love it!

[Dood]

As for the three way switch, you have IIRC:

 

Vintage - a preset full band compressor program

Spectral: a preset multi band program

Toneprint: Your own program selection 

[hamfist]

44 minutes ago, Dood said:

As for the three way switch, you have IIRC:

 

Vintage - a preset full band compressor program

Spectral: a preset multi band program

Toneprint: Your own program selection 

THats what I absolutely thought it would be, but in use, its different. I'm too busy playing around with other stuff to identify it exactly at the moment though.

 

Does yours function exactly like that ?

Edited July 1, 2022 by hamfist

[Dood]

7 minutes ago, hamfist said:

THats what I absolutely thought it would be, but in use, its different. I'm too busy playing around with other stuff to identify it exactly at the moment though.

 

Does yours function exactly like that ?

 

I've only got the Mini version now which has just three controls and no switch. Sorry I can't go back and test as I sold my full-size version a long while ago. Come to think of it, as a bassist I only ever programmed my own TP's anyway too! How are you finding the results differ?

[itu]

Dealing with settings is easiest with a table. The Spectra settings were available years ago, and I found a comprehensive table from Germany. I think I still have it somewhere.

 

I have three HGs. Love the product, but tweaking was a true pain in the beginning.

[hamfist]

20 minutes ago, Dood said:

 

I've only got the Mini version now which has just three controls and no switch. Sorry I can't go back and test as I sold my full-size version a long while ago. Come to think of it, as a bassist I only ever programmed my own TP's anyway too! How are you finding the results differ?

OK, I've worked out whats happening, on my pedal at least. The SPectra and vintage dial mappings take on the parameters assosiated in the downloaded toneprint. So in my downloaded multiband (Al's bass), the Attack and Blend dials are now programmed to control mid and lows gain respectively, instead of attack and blend. So ..... on the Spectra and Vintage settings those dials will control mids and lows, not attack and blend.

 It makes the vintage and spectra behave differently depending on which toneprint is downloaded.  Its an odd thing to design, but there it is, thats what they've done.

[hamfist]

Screenshots in the first post now updated to give a greater range of control for each parameter for greater and lesser amounts of compression used.

[Dood]

25 minutes ago, hamfist said:

OK, I've worked out whats happening, on my pedal at least. The SPectra and vintage dial mappings take on the parameters assosiated in the downloaded toneprint. So in my downloaded multiband (Al's bass), the Attack and Blend dials are now programmed to control mid and lows gain respectively, instead of attack and blend. So ..... on the Spectra and Vintage settings those dials will control mids and lows, not attack and blend.

 It makes the vintage and spectra behave differently depending on which toneprint is downloaded.  Its an odd thing to design, but there it is, thats what they've done.

 

Now that IS odd! Also doesn't make sense in my mind either, but hey-ho an odd choice that may be useful for some! Thanks for investigating, its interesting!

 

 

[Japhet]

Looks like there's enough adjustments and parameters on that for me to make a complete and utter pig's ear of how it performs.

[Simon C]

This was previously posted elsewhere on Basschat but probably fits better here.  The only change to the original post is the position of one of the white dots in the photo.  I’d initially set the level too high so had to dial it back a bit.
 

I was going start a new chat but then found this one.  I thought it might help others if I posted how I’d got my Hypergravity working.

 

I’d bought the pedal after trying it out at Anderton’s with the “ Beauty and the Beast “ toneprint by Rudy Sarzo, which at the time I bought the pedal was the only bass specific one.

 

 Once I had the pedal I tried it with the Rudy one and also built one in the Toneprint editor that a bassist was using in their Spectracomp and had posted in Talk Bass.  (Incidentally I found the editor ok to use with my rudimentary knowledge of compression). I preferred the Rudy one, so decided to work with it.

 

 The 1st step was to set all the knobs centrally. I started with my main bass ( a G&L L2000 Tribute) and style of playing (finger). I found I needed a bit more of the compressed sound so turned the blend knob to about 2pm - that’s the gold sticker in the photo.

 

 Then I moved to my other bass: a Sire V7 fretless.  The pick ups aren’t as hot as the G&L, so I’m using the level to balance the volume between  instruments. The manual (once I found it) explains the interaction between level and blend, so I used that info with my ears to back off on the amount of compressed signal in the output. The white stickers are the result.

 

 Then back to the G&L for slap (the red stickers) and pick ( the blue ones).  The blue sticker for the blend knob is turned all the way clockwise, so no dry signal when I’m using the pick. These took more time to set up, perhaps because I’m not particularly good at either of them, don’t play them frequently and needed to move more of the knobs.  But it was worth it, particularly for pick playing, which now sounds like a bass played with a pick rather than a horrible muddy mush.

 

Unless there is a coloured sticker the knobs are at the 12 o’clock position.  So for the G&L finger style all knobs are at 12 o’clock other then the blend.

 

 I’m really impressed with the compressor.

 

 Hopefully this is helpful to someone.

[Lozz196]

Great idea having the different coloured stickers for the different basses, genius!

[bassman1982]

Just stumbled upon this thread. I got a Hypergravity recently and had a few questions, after creating a Toneprint using the settings from the Captain East Toneprint on the Spectracomp which someone shared on Talkbass a while back. 

 

1. When doing the Knob Mapping, if I select Compressor Threshold All for the Sustain knob, will the knob function as a single band compressor, even though I entered parameters for low/mid/high under the Compressor tab in the Toneprint software? What's the difference between setting low/mid/high vs All? 

 

2. Are there best practices for the values I should enter in the Knob Range section for the Sustain knob or is this a matter of using your ears only? I don't know if a starting point of -10db makes sense vs -20db and so on. 

 

3. I was able to beam a Spectracomp Artist Toneprint to the Hypergravity. Wondering, when I do this, does the Toneprint translate to the Hypergravity correctly, or are some attributes/parameters lost since the pedals are distinct? I have no way of A/Bing since I don't own a Spectracomp. Also, if I beam a Spectracomp Toneprint to the Hypergravity, how do the knobs function? No idea how they're mapped. 

 

4. Blend is a linear positive line from 0 to 100%. When I move the Blend knob to the right -- meaning more comp, less dry signal -- the output reduces... a lot. Is this normal? I expected a volume drop but not an immense one. 

 

5.  Is there a way to save a custom Toneprint to the mobile app so you can beam it? Or is the only way to load it onto the pedal via the desktop app?

 

6. I checked out the parameters of some of the Toneprints in the Hypergravity and the knob mapping varies from Toneprint to Toneprint. This means you'd need to memorize the functions of the knobs for each Toneprint you use, which seems extremely complicated. If I modify the knob mapping for all the Toneprints I'm going to use, and make the knob mapping identical for each Toneprint, will that affect the sound of the Toneprint? 

Edited March 7 by bassman1982

[Simon C]

On 06/03/2024 at 21:46, bassman1982 said:

Just stumbled upon this thread. I got a Hypergravity recently and had a few questions, after creating a Toneprint using the settings from the Captain East Toneprint on the Spectracomp which someone shared on Talkbass a while back. 

 

1. When doing the Knob Mapping, if I select Compressor Threshold All for the Sustain knob, will the knob function as a single band compressor, even though I entered parameters for low/mid/high under the Compressor tab in the Toneprint software? What's the difference between setting low/mid/high vs All? 

 

2. Are there best practices for the values I should enter in the Knob Range section for the Sustain knob or is this a matter of using your ears only? I don't know if a starting point of -10db makes sense vs -20db and so on. 

 

3. I was able to beam a Spectracomp Artist Toneprint to the Hypergravity. Wondering, when I do this, does the Toneprint translate to the Hypergravity correctly, or are some attributes/parameters lost since the pedals are distinct? I have no way of A/Bing since I don't own a Spectracomp. Also, if I beam a Spectracomp Toneprint to the Hypergravity, how do the knobs function? No idea how they're mapped. 

 

4. Blend is a linear positive line from 0 to 100%. When I move the Blend knob to the right -- meaning more comp, less dry signal -- the output reduces... a lot. Is this normal? I expected a volume drop but not an immense one. 

 

5.  Is there a way to save a custom Toneprint to the mobile app so you can beam it? Or is the only way to load it onto the pedal via the desktop app?

 

6. I checked out the parameters of some of the Toneprints in the Hypergravity and the knob mapping varies from Toneprint to Toneprint. This means you'd need to memorize the functions of the knobs for each Toneprint you use, which seems extremely complicated. If I modify the knob mapping for all the Toneprints I'm going to use, and make the knob mapping identical for each Toneprint, will that affect the sound of the Toneprint? 

1 and 2 I don’t know.

3. well done.  I didn’t think that was possible.  The answer to the question is also “I don’t know.”😀

4. I don’t think mine does.  If you look at the coloured dots on mine above, the gold, red and blue dots are for finger, slap and pick on the same bass. If there isn’t a dot then the knob position is 12 o’clock. I don’t recall having to adjust volume on the bass when switching from pick to finger (I don’t really slap).  I’ll check this the next time I use it that may not be until the end of the month though. I use the Rudy Sarzo Toneprint.  You could try putting it in yours and see what happens with the blend.  Also note that there is a relationship between the level and blend.  If the level is all the way to the left, then if you turn the blend to the right you may well get a volume loss.

5. I can’t remember as it’s a long time since I did it.  
6. I would have thought it will as (if I’ve understood correctly) you are in effect changing the compressor settings.

Edited March 8 by Simon C

[itu]

On 06/03/2024 at 23:46, bassman1982 said:

4. Blend is a linear positive line from 0 to 100%.

 

6. If I modify the knob mapping for all the Toneprints I'm going to use, and make the knob mapping identical for each Toneprint, will that affect the sound of the Toneprint? 

4) Do you really need the blend when you are already in deep with all parametres? I don't see any benefit with dry signal, when the levels, and processing can be tweaked with such finesse. For me ON is 100 % ON, and therefore I have used the blend knob for other parametres. After all, by compressions nature, signal level has usually areas, where compression is not present at all.

 

6) I have not seen this happening. Sounds strange if everything is set only to different places. Have you really checked every function and value there is?