NPD: MIJ Ibanez Compressor

[Chistopher]

I found a cool pedal at the Guitar Center today for fairly cheap. I bought it mostly because it looked cool and I gave away my Boss compressor



I'll be honest, I havent been able to give it too much of a testing yet, but from what I found at the store, it does exactly what it's claims to do. I will say though that the battery system is the best I've used. Pull the tab on the right and the pedal opens, close it and it closes. Not the biggest fan of the input and output arrows facing the same way though.

I'll give a more extensive review tommorow. Maybe I'll jazz it up a little to try to boost the resale value on it :jester:

 

[Mincer]

That came from a very cool series of pedals- I remember them well

 

[Chistopher]

Sorry, I didn't have much time to look at this until today and I must admit it has me a bit confused. The way I understand it now, level is obviously volume, threshold is how loud the quiet signal gets boosted, It can go from no difference to everything input is the same volume at output. and the attack knob I *think limits the loud signals to a lower volume. I say I think because it's behavior is kind of weird.

I'll look further into it on Saturday.

 

[solspirit]

Good find man, they are cool looking.

 

[beaubrummels]

Level should be "make up gain", e.g. if you compress too much, it may sound quieter compressed than when bypassed, so with the level you can bring the level back to 0 / unity.

Threshold should be the db level that compression begins. A low threshold will begin compressing almost as soon as there's any signal. A high threshold will only compress the highest peaks and leave the rest of the sound as-is.

Attack is usually the 'knee' or the speed of the onset of compression. Having a slower attack allows some of the initial peak to get through, which gives you some 'pluck' in the sound. The 80's was loaded with this sound. Having a short attack just makes the compression pretty immediate and it should behave almost like a limiter, not letting any peaks get past the compression threshold.

All that said, I'd have to see an Ibanez manual to confirm they used the label names in a way that is standard for compressors.

 

[Mincer]

Level should be "make up gain", e.g. if you compress too much, it may sound quieter compressed than when bypassed, so with the level you can bring the level back to 0 / unity.

Threshold should be the db level that compression begins. A low threshold will begin compressing almost as soon as there's any signal. A high threshold will only compress the highest peaks and leave the rest of the sound as-is.

Attack is usually the 'knee' or the speed of the onset of compression. Having a slower attack allows some of the initial peak to get through, which gives you some 'pluck' in the sound. The 80's was loaded with this sound. Having a short attack just makes the compression pretty immediate and it should behave almost like a limiter, not letting any peaks get past the compression threshold.

All that said, I'd have to see an Ibanez manual to confirm they used the label names in a way that is standard for compressors.

This is exactly how I understand it to work.

 

[Chistopher]

See that's exactly how I would expect it to work but it isn't. Now that I've messed around with it a little more, I think the threshold control works in a very atypical way. Level is the "goal" volume, and if threshold is high, it will boost low volume to the goal volume, and if you set it low it will squash loud signals to that volume. I'll try and find a manual

 

[Seashore]

Here's a screenshot from the manual:

 

[jeremy]

well, there ya go!

 

[Chistopher]

Thank you that clears things up a bit. It definitely operates a little different than I'm used to though. The attack knob doesn't do much at all. And from my experiments the Level control is how you adjust the limiting on account of the unit not having much headroom.

If it were up to me I would remove the "Limiter" from the name

 

[beaubrummels]

Here's a screenshot from the manual:

Hmm, that makes it sound like the actual threshold is really fixed at a low number like -45db or so, and the 'threshold' control is really a ratio control, e.g. from 2:1 up to 20:1 and has a built-in make-up gain based on the ratio

 

[Chistopher]

That's closer to how it seems to work, but if you crank it too high, the loud parts get quieter.

 

[jeremy]

too much squash

 

[beaubrummels]

That's closer to how it seems to work, but if you crank it too high, the loud parts get quieter.

That's where your level control is supposed to help out. But hey, it's just a pedal.

 

[Mincer]

too much squash

Yeah, that is the point where it is squishing hard, and need to make up the gain.

 

[Blille]

Hmm, that makes it sound like the actual threshold is really fixed at a low number like -45db or so, and the 'threshold' control is really a ratio control, e.g. from 2:1 up to 20:1 and has a built-in make-up gain based on the ratio

The CP10 has an identical layout but the middle control is labeled “sustain”.

Just thought I’d make it muddier.

 

[Seashore]

Hmm, that makes it sound like the actual threshold is really fixed at a low number like -45db or so, and the 'threshold' control is really a ratio control, e.g. from 2:1 up to 20:1 and has a built-in make-up gain based on the ratio

Or maybe the ratio and threshold are both variable? Or maybe it's a high fixed ratio with a soft knee so it only squishes hard when the threshold is very low? They did change the name of the "threshold" control to "sustain" in the next version of this pedal.

 

[Seashore]

The CP10 has an identical layout but the middle control is labeled “sustain”.

Just thought I’d make it muddier.

Hah, beat me to it. I haven't tried these side by side but I bet they're the same pedal.

 

[beaubrummels]

The CP10 has an identical layout but the middle control is labeled “sustain”.

Just thought I’d make it muddier.

I think that's closer to the resulting behavior of combining ratio and make up gain.

 

[Seashore]

I would think if they had based it on a fixed threshold/variable ratio they would have labeled it "ratio" rather than "threshold". If it adds auto makeup gain as it knocks the original signal down, I could see it giving similar performance either way. It sounds like how the Soul Preacher works.

How does this one sound doing light compression at unity gain, or just slightly boosting? Sometimes cranking the output can result in more compression downstream and make it sound worse than it actually is.