It's the dynamics game that many play, whether full bore and untethered into the front end of a cranked amp, or spiked bluesy compressed licks squashed like heck. At the risk of sounding like an anal insensitive prig, I've got three comps in regular rotation. I don't need them on a lot of what I do, but they sound so different from each other in good ways that I've got a specific use for them all:
Pedalworx McSqueeze: An Orange Squeezer clone (single knob) that fattens up everything nicely, though it must be kept below 10:00 to both not "over squish" or boost too much. I especially love it on bass, really expanding the girth of the lower midrange. It's a simple addition that has a million uses, from J.Marr-inspired Jonny Buckland lines (ultra ducks!) to gentle comp and boosted chunks into the next dirt pedal.
Janglebox: A mostly one trick pony(though decent in other settings) that adds more sparkle to your jangle. Dumps twinkling fairy dust on single coils in a wonderful way, though I limit my use to mostly arrpegio dancing on the Ric 360-12. Sounds so good to introduce a bright guitar tone into a busy mix that doesn't overpower things, and curiously helps retain the fullness of mid-position-pickup jangle action without sounding fat and squashed.
Moollon Compressor: I wish I could talk nicely about this thing without tooting the company horn. It's ridiculously quiet and colorizes the guitars tone in a very tasteful way, and is a great addition to doing funk on the ol' Strat along with excellent sustain on distortion lines with a really sweet decay. Needless to say, Blues Saraceno's praise of it when he visited the booth at Winter NAMM '09 was a pleasant surprise none of us expected.
I also spend a few weeks with a Demeter Compulator, and loved it on both bass and guitar. Very little colorization whatsoever(i.e. fantastic on bass), but the way it slightly softened the ceiling sounded extremely natural. Don't need, but really liked it.
Optical compressors now outlawed in the EU?
Moderated By: mods
Yes.timhulio wrote:Dynacomps sound great.
Are there any ROHS compliant LDRs?
Next question?
Oh, OK. The issue is with Cadmium Sulphide (CdS), a material that predates transistors. There are other materials whose resistance varies with illumination, e.g. doped germanium or silicon. They're often used in opto-couplers - see >>this one at Banzai<< and others referenced in >>Bajaman's "Optical Limiter Revisited" thread<<