Compression pedal - am I using it right?

[lex666]

Hey guys, I was jamming away on my amp this weekend and encountered something that had me thinking if I was using my compression pedal correctly.

Here's some background: I mostly play metal covers like Metallica, Sabbath, RATM etc. I bought the Boss CS3 thinking it would even out the tone of my heavy and fast riffage. I wanted it to smoothen out my low e (which can sound boomy) and make my solos sound more even and balanced. I've been using it with satisfactory results for about 3 years. I only use the amp distortion on my Marshall amp.

anyways, this weekend I switched to the clean channel and realized the CS3 was seriously robbing me of tone. The volume level was less than half of normal. When used with a gain channel, no volume is lost. It also seemed to squash my tone - no sustain - no ringing notes. None of these problems are exhibited when using 1 of my 2 gain channels. Switching the pedal off gave me great tone, it was much louder too.

Am I using my compression pedal wrong? Do I have it set up incorrectly? Or is this normal for a compression pedal when used on a clean channel? Is it working the way I think it is on a gain channel to improve my sound?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[wahwah]

Re: Compression pedal - am I using it right?

Switching the pedal off gave me great tone, it was much louder too.

I think in that one sentence, you answered your own question and discovered the truth about putting compression between guitar and amp. Dynamic range is a beautiful thing, and a device designed to eliminate it is counter productive. Great for country pickers wanting to get more twang in their thang, but that's about it. Literally, compressors in between guitar and amp, suck. Look at them not so much smoothing things out as squashing the life out of them. I'd say try going without it for a while and see how it goes.


Cheers......................wahwah

 

[TeleJr24]

Re: Compression pedal - am I using it right?

How much compression are you using? Just a little, moderate, a lot?

 

[baritone]

Re: Compression pedal - am I using it right?

I make sure the set the knobs of the amp first, without the compressor on. The base tone should be satisfactory before the compressor is engaged. After that, I turn on the compressor (or any gain-based pedal) and use its knobs for fine-tuning.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: Compression pedal - am I using it right?

Different settings for clean and distortion is almost a neccesity.

 

[lex666]

Re: Compression pedal - am I using it right?

Different settings for clean and distortion is almost a neccesity.

that must be my problem then...

for my distortion channels it sounds just fine. I have set up like this:

level - 1:00
tone - noon
comp - 11:00
sustain - 11:00

on a distortion channel is sounds just fine. No significant loss of signal. on a clean channel the volume is robbed my at least half.