TwilightOdyssey
Darkness on the edge of Tone
Re: Compressor pedals? What are they for?
It doesn't mean either good or bad.
It doesn't mean either good or bad.
Compressor pedals? What are they for?
- Thread starter jeromey127
- Start date
p4vl
New member
Re: Compressor pedals? What are they for?
Bad phrasing on my part. What does over/under compression sound like in a hot humbucker, a distortion pedal and/or a gain channel in a tube amp (in each case, I'm talking about a high gain)?
I ask because with a compression pedal if you want more or less compression or want your tone to be compressed in a specific way, you can dial it in. What does a gain channel with too much compression sound like?
Bad phrasing on my part. What does over/under compression sound like in a hot humbucker, a distortion pedal and/or a gain channel in a tube amp (in each case, I'm talking about a high gain)?
I ask because with a compression pedal if you want more or less compression or want your tone to be compressed in a specific way, you can dial it in. What does a gain channel with too much compression sound like?
TwilightOdyssey
Darkness on the edge of Tone
Re: Compressor pedals? What are they for?
Ah, gotcha. A good indication of how compressed your sound is can be discerned by the LACK of dynamics. Try playing softly. Does the sound clean up? Play medium, then hard. Does the VOLUME increase, or just the gain? Or neither; does it stay the same. The less dynamic tange you have, the more conpressed it is.
Ah, gotcha. A good indication of how compressed your sound is can be discerned by the LACK of dynamics. Try playing softly. Does the sound clean up? Play medium, then hard. Does the VOLUME increase, or just the gain? Or neither; does it stay the same. The less dynamic tange you have, the more conpressed it is.
TwilightOdyssey
Darkness on the edge of Tone
Re: Compressor pedals? What are they for?
I would say yes to this. Anything that eats up your available headroom is, ipso facto, compressing the signal.
Chickenwings
Alnico 6/8
Re: Compressor pedals? What are they for?
This thread can only really be answered by playing thru the gear and experimenting with the new palette of timbres and feels. Studio compression is one thing, but how it feels to play using a compressor in your instruments signal chain or even getting compression from other means such as overdrive or square wave distortion is not something that can be understood by words alone. The use of compression affects how you strike the notes, how you phrase and even the selection of chord voicings and whether your play legato, staccato etc. Knowing what the gear does mechanically, and understanding how it can be used expressively are two different universes.
This thread can only really be answered by playing thru the gear and experimenting with the new palette of timbres and feels. Studio compression is one thing, but how it feels to play using a compressor in your instruments signal chain or even getting compression from other means such as overdrive or square wave distortion is not something that can be understood by words alone. The use of compression affects how you strike the notes, how you phrase and even the selection of chord voicings and whether your play legato, staccato etc. Knowing what the gear does mechanically, and understanding how it can be used expressively are two different universes.
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treyhaislip
Well-known member
Re: Compressor pedals? What are they for?
+1 to this. Great posts here, compression was and is hard for me to explain but something I like to use.
+1 to this. Great posts here, compression was and is hard for me to explain but something I like to use.
Re: Compressor pedals? What are they for?
Pretty much anything that distorts or overdrives the signal will also compress it, as distortion essentially happens when the ability of a gain stage to reproduce the signal accurately is exceeded, causing the signal peaks to be "clipped" - literally cut off.
Pretty much anything that distorts or overdrives the signal will also compress it, as distortion essentially happens when the ability of a gain stage to reproduce the signal accurately is exceeded, causing the signal peaks to be "clipped" - literally cut off.
