School me on compressor pedals

[jpervin]

What will a good compressor pedal do for my guitar/amp rig?
What are the drawbacks to using a compressor?
Do they play nice with other pedals?

 

[ManUBobby7]

top of the line favorites here include Empress, Forest Green and Diamond. I got an Empress - its transparent- doesnt colour the tone and you can dial in the squish for the tele stuff etc etc. $300 and you're done for good.

 

[jocfan1]

Personally I use compression to smooth out my volume. I'm not a country player, so I don't like the super-clean, squashed flat chickin' pickin' sound that screams, "COMPRESSION!" but I've been really happy with a slight squeeze on my tone so if I go from heavy strumming to light picking I don't get such a huge variation in volume or the amount of overdrive my amp produces. Even good compressors can be a bit of a pain to dial in just the way you want, but if you get it set right it's amazing.

I haven't played too many high-end compressors, but that's mostly because the first one I tried was the Keeley, and I loved it. Bought two of the 4-knobbers, one for electric and one for acoustic.

 

[jkokura]

^ Bobby, you didn't answer his question, you just talked about favourite compressors around here.

1. If it's a good one, it will compress your signal, leading to a smaller range of dynamics with your playing. In other words, it will bring down the peaks and bring up the valleys.

2. The drawbacks are that you have a smaller dynamic range to work with if that's important to you. Also, some compressors are said to 'colour' your tone, or in other words, people don't always like the way they sound.

3. Depends on what you mean by 'play nice'. It's an effect. All effect pedals interact with each other, so really it depends entirely on the circumstance.

I will note that you asked about what it will do for your rig, and if it'll play nice with pedals, but you didn't share anything about your rig. That would be helpful info for us to answer your questions.

Jacob

 

[HurricaneJesus]

I've got an analogman comprossor that always gives me that Lowell George sound for slide work. You can also get a cool Andy Summers-type thing with a chorus and delay (so I guess it does play well with others) but whenever I kick on my wah in front of it the volume jump is kinda jarring.
I've also got a block logo and recently aquired script logo Dyna Comps which sound very similar to the Analogman but the analogman has a 9v jack and a knob to adjust the attack (helpful for fine-tuning) so that's the one that stays on my board.

 

[ManUBobby7]

^ Bobby, you didn't answer his question, you just talked about favourite compressors around here.

1. If it's a good one, it will compress your signal, leading to a smaller range of dynamics with your playing. In other words, it will bring down the peaks and bring up the valleys.

2. The drawbacks are that you have a smaller dynamic range to work with if that's important to you. Also, some compressors are said to 'colour' your tone, or in other words, people don't always like the way they sound.

3. Depends on what you mean by 'play nice'. It's an effect. All effect pedals interact with each other, so really it depends entirely on the circumstance.

I will note that you asked about what it will do for your rig, and if it'll play nice with pedals, but you didn't share anything about your rig. That would be helpful info for us to answer your questions.

Jacob

OK ^^^ What he said

What will a good compressor pedal do for my guitar/amp rig?
What are the drawbacks to using a compressor?
Do they play nice with other pedals?

Yes I agree, you should state what your rig is and what sounds you're trying to achieve. I was giving you a good start to research if you're gonna get one, but ya whats ur budget etc etc.....

I Personally played direct into tube amps for 20 + years, now that I got this empress compressor , its always on, its that good...... I use it for old school funk, country, 80's, jazz, early to modern rock, whatever, you just adjust how much compression level you want mixed in with the signal, and how much sustain you want etc etc - so once you've figured that out, there is no drawbacks.

And if you like the sound of your rig, a good compressor will "compress" or crunch it, then amplify it so your hearing more of what you like. Hope I'm not sounding like a salesman, I just really love that compressor!! lol

 

[Bufferz]

they can be used to get that clean crisp funk guitar / maroon 5 sound. As well as "chicken pickin" nashville sound