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Which sucks less? The Behringer BLE400 (£17) or the Digitech XBS Bass Squeeze (£35)? I'm looking to get a cheap bass compressor by a week today.

I could get the Behringer and the Behringer Bass EQ for about the same price as the Digitech.

Not had the bass ones but I've just used my boss guitar compressor

Isn't that Behringer a clone of one of the Boss limiters? And is a limiter rather than a compressor? /irritating pedant twat

Is there really much of a difference, EQ if present aside, between a bass compressor and a guitar one?

If you've got a guitar compressor then I'd give that a go first before buying anything else. I've got an LM-2 and it seems to work fine for either guitar or bass. Likewise with my MXR Custom Comp. I've also got a Mooer Blue Comp (Boss CS-1 clone IIRC) but don't think I've ever tried that with bass.

I'm not a toan snob though, and am frankly a hack on bass.

Yeah a limiter functions a little differently. I have the behringer you mentioned but havent gotten to use it much and never compared it to anything else, just basically got it to limit the volume of my digitech bass synth.

Not to be all tl;dr regarding the options, but keep in mind that both Dyna Comp and Orange Squeezer clones can be fantastic when paired with basses. The discontinued BBE Orange Squash in particular is a cheapo gem worth searching out on the used market.

For me and bass tone, simple circuitry means less colorization, if not good colorization that a bass in particular can use. Almost 11 years on with more use than any other pedal in the collection, I'm extremely partial to my old Pedalworx McSqueeze. Fattens up with mild boost (excellent when picking too) and doesn't get all plunky. Everything under 12:00 is very useful.

When it come to using guitar pedals for bass, it really depends how cheapskate the production engineering went. If the pedal is not designed so that the pass band (frequency range) allows the octave lower of the bass guitar you may run into issues. It may be worth trying out my Marshall Ed on bass but I assumed it would be designed to cut the lower (mains-hum-range) frequencies that an guitar doesn't normally need.

The Behringer BLE400 has controls for compression ratio and threshold so I think it's a little more than a simple limiter.

The dedicated Level, Enhance, Ratio and Threshold controls provide easy and intuitive sound shaping. Just set the Ratio control for the amount of compression you want and adjust the Thresh(old) control to where you want the compressor to kick in. Then, turn the Level knob to match the volume of your bass when the effect is switched off.

Andi, can you nominate a cheap clone (preferably one I can get from Amazon.co.uk) you think might be worth looking at? The current MXR Dynacomp is available for about £50 but I was hoping to get away with somewhat less, e.g. the >>Caline Hot Mushroom<<. It could be that I can change some coupling caps on a guitar compressor to ensure adequate bass response.

Design nerdery fao timhulio and Mike:

As I was ordering a case for the V, I included an order for the Behringer BLE400 bass pedal. It arrived yesterday but I didn't get around to trying it. Watch this space, but don't bate your breath.