I've actually had this pedal for about 8 months now but I realised there weren't that many reviews of it online. I think it's a shame that such a brilliant pedal hasn't gotten more attention so I wanted to put down some of my thoughts about why I like it so much.
1. The Blend Controls. The Blend control on the VG work differently to many other compressors, you start with a fully compressed sound at 0 and blend your clean tone back into it. This solves the main compressor woe of losing all your top end sparkle and brightness, as can have your fully compressed sound with just a touch of your own tone to breath some life and sparkle back into it. It's a small twist on the formula but I think it makes it a lot more musical (and useful to country chicken pickers!) than the standard blend controls on other comps.
2. The EQ switch. This one works along with the blend knob, you can choose whether to blend in your Full clean tone for a beautiful rich studio compressor sound, only your high end for a bit more jangle and sparkle, or just your midrange which might be the most useful mode for high gain players. For jazz sets I run it in Full to get a really rich, huge sound that fills out my clean tones.
When I was practising for a rock set I realised the real value of this switch: I was running it in front of a few drive pedals, and when I clicked it on in Full range mode I found the boost to the lows added a bit of woofiness to my drive sound, but flicking it into Mid mode meant that only my midrange was being fed through the pedal resulting in a really tight, clear distortion tone that still had all the sustain and consistency that compressors are best at. The mid setting allows it to live with distortion and drive in a way that I've struggled with other comps in the past, it's REALLY good.
3. The volume. Not much to say but there's a freaking huge clean boost on tap here. Even at 12 o'clock it's boosting you way past unity gain. Whatever circuit they are using for that boost helps it sound very warm and big and helps balance out how precise and even (EQ wise) the compressor part of the circuit is. It completely destroyed my need for a clean boost on my board.
It's also a very quiet circuit, even with the Sustain cranked up and the pedal volume fairly high it doesn't produce much noise. (It IS a compressor, if you have single coils or noisy pickups or pedals before it, it'll still amplify a lot of background noise)
The only small gripe I can find with the pedal is that the Attack knob doesn't have much range. I haven't noticed a gigantic difference between different settings, its just enough to give you a tiny bit of control over your attack. The pedal has a pretty quick (fixed) release time which sounds smooth and level, no over-the-top rubber-y squish sounds to be found here.
TL;DR: I like it a lot. If you love compressors at all it's extremely worth checking out. If you aren't a fan of compressors because they make your sound too dark, or they don't work with your drive pedals then the unique way the blend knob and eq switch work might just be enough to change your mind on this type of effect and is thus worth checking out anyway.
1. The Blend Controls. The Blend control on the VG work differently to many other compressors, you start with a fully compressed sound at 0 and blend your clean tone back into it. This solves the main compressor woe of losing all your top end sparkle and brightness, as can have your fully compressed sound with just a touch of your own tone to breath some life and sparkle back into it. It's a small twist on the formula but I think it makes it a lot more musical (and useful to country chicken pickers!) than the standard blend controls on other comps.
2. The EQ switch. This one works along with the blend knob, you can choose whether to blend in your Full clean tone for a beautiful rich studio compressor sound, only your high end for a bit more jangle and sparkle, or just your midrange which might be the most useful mode for high gain players. For jazz sets I run it in Full to get a really rich, huge sound that fills out my clean tones.
When I was practising for a rock set I realised the real value of this switch: I was running it in front of a few drive pedals, and when I clicked it on in Full range mode I found the boost to the lows added a bit of woofiness to my drive sound, but flicking it into Mid mode meant that only my midrange was being fed through the pedal resulting in a really tight, clear distortion tone that still had all the sustain and consistency that compressors are best at. The mid setting allows it to live with distortion and drive in a way that I've struggled with other comps in the past, it's REALLY good.
3. The volume. Not much to say but there's a freaking huge clean boost on tap here. Even at 12 o'clock it's boosting you way past unity gain. Whatever circuit they are using for that boost helps it sound very warm and big and helps balance out how precise and even (EQ wise) the compressor part of the circuit is. It completely destroyed my need for a clean boost on my board.
It's also a very quiet circuit, even with the Sustain cranked up and the pedal volume fairly high it doesn't produce much noise. (It IS a compressor, if you have single coils or noisy pickups or pedals before it, it'll still amplify a lot of background noise)
The only small gripe I can find with the pedal is that the Attack knob doesn't have much range. I haven't noticed a gigantic difference between different settings, its just enough to give you a tiny bit of control over your attack. The pedal has a pretty quick (fixed) release time which sounds smooth and level, no over-the-top rubber-y squish sounds to be found here.
TL;DR: I like it a lot. If you love compressors at all it's extremely worth checking out. If you aren't a fan of compressors because they make your sound too dark, or they don't work with your drive pedals then the unique way the blend knob and eq switch work might just be enough to change your mind on this type of effect and is thus worth checking out anyway.
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