Liko
New member
Hey guys,
Looking to replace my Boss CS-3 in my pedal board. It does a passable job, but first it's a guitar pedal, so all its settings are based on what a shredder needs in order to shape their distortion. That's nice to have, but I find I need more control for good clean work, especially for bass. Second, it's a Boss, so it's buffered, and I'm trying to reduce the amount of buffering in my board (I started out all Boss, then I replaced a couple of pedals with Hardwires and haven't looked back since).
My criteria are:
* Full control set (threshold or input/output level, ratio, attack and release)
* True Bypass
* Pedal, not rackmount
* Useful settings for both bass and g****r
* Wide adjustment range, allowing anything from subtle taming of peaks to improve average gain, up to trash-compactor levels providing synth-like tones
* Soft-knee option if I can get it (slightly different from a simple variable attack time, it slows the speed at which the gain is adjusted for more subtle kick-in)
* Very clean-sounding by itself
A quick Google search found the MXR M87, which has everything except soft-knee/hard-knee switching (it's one or the other, descriptions don't say which), in a nice compact package. Dislikes include the vintage-style exposed toggle instead of the hinge-mount switch cover of a Boss or Hardwire (just something I have to get used to; the pedal won't be a "stomp box"). The $190 price tag is a bit of a crunch, but I'm looking for a really good pedal and there are definitely more expensive examples.
Looking to replace my Boss CS-3 in my pedal board. It does a passable job, but first it's a guitar pedal, so all its settings are based on what a shredder needs in order to shape their distortion. That's nice to have, but I find I need more control for good clean work, especially for bass. Second, it's a Boss, so it's buffered, and I'm trying to reduce the amount of buffering in my board (I started out all Boss, then I replaced a couple of pedals with Hardwires and haven't looked back since).
My criteria are:
* Full control set (threshold or input/output level, ratio, attack and release)
* True Bypass
* Pedal, not rackmount
* Useful settings for both bass and g****r
* Wide adjustment range, allowing anything from subtle taming of peaks to improve average gain, up to trash-compactor levels providing synth-like tones
* Soft-knee option if I can get it (slightly different from a simple variable attack time, it slows the speed at which the gain is adjusted for more subtle kick-in)
* Very clean-sounding by itself
A quick Google search found the MXR M87, which has everything except soft-knee/hard-knee switching (it's one or the other, descriptions don't say which), in a nice compact package. Dislikes include the vintage-style exposed toggle instead of the hinge-mount switch cover of a Boss or Hardwire (just something I have to get used to; the pedal won't be a "stomp box"). The $190 price tag is a bit of a crunch, but I'm looking for a really good pedal and there are definitely more expensive examples.
