Osiris

The Aguilar TLC is a very transparent compressor, which isn't a bad thing if that's what you're looking for. However, if you're looking for a compressor that adds some punch, character or tonal magic to your sound it's definitely one to avoid. If you're looking for those qualities the Cali is the obvious choice. But there's plenty of options available depending on the style of compression that the player wants.

Hopefully it'll work for you as well as it works for me! And as with a comps, you're likely to notice or feel it more when playing along with other musicians or to some recorded music. Just ignore the Enhance control knob as it can get noisy, although I sometimes dial in just a little, around 8 o'clock, to add a slight presence to one of my darker sounding basses.

I've not tried the Behringer myself, but it's a clone of the Boss LMB-3, which I have just been bigging up on another thread a minute ago . The LMB-3 a very underrated comp pedal IMO and a great starting point for those new to compression.

I don't have any recent experience with the onboard Ashdown compressors so I can't comment. But I'm not surprised that you didn't get on with the Ampeg Opto-comp if you're looking for a fast attack because as its name implies, it's an Optical circuit that is doing the compressing. The main characteristic of optical comps is that they have an inherently slow attack time, relatively speaking, and tend to swell into the note as it crosses the threshold. They are often used on bass to make the tone bloom more, as it seems to be called, but like you I don't care for them personally. If you want a fast attack, one that you can use that to help clip the initial transient, which in turn reduces the initial attack of the note thus softening it a tough, you'd be better off looking for a FET designed unit. I believe the Cali 76 is a FET based circuit but not 100% on that! The Boss LMB-3 is also a FET based comp and a very highly underrated pedal in its own right. Over the years I've been all round the house with compressors and got down lost down the rabbit hole of multi-band comps with and without parallel compression as well as loads of pedal and a couple of rack units along the way. But I started with the Boss (if we ignore the hideous experience of my Trace Elliot SMX years, the dual band comp on that being about its only saving grace) years ago and thought to myself "oh, it's only a Boss, there must be much better options out there" so I moved it on and spent the next few years going through as many different comp options as I could get my hands on. Then I picked up another one a couple of years ago as a cheapy pedal to use at home. It was then I realised that on some level I'd been trying to get every other comp to sound like the Boss! It has a fixed attack and release, but they are perfect IMO, they're pretty quick (to my ear) but they are spot on for keeping the transient in check while still allowing the character of the bass to come through. They're dead cheap to pick up used, really simple to use and just sound great, big and punchy and they help the bass sit just where it should be in the mix.

It could well be. Some compressors can darken your tone depending on what type they are (VCA, Optical, FET etc) and whether they're multi-band or not. The low frequencies in a bass signal have much more energy than the high frequencies, so assuming it's a single band compressor, when the signal crosses the threshold the compression clamps down on everything and pulls the highs and lows down equally by the ratio value. This results in a perceived loss of high end frequencies. It's not a fault, it's just how some comps work. If you're using the compression all the time you can just EQ some treble back in if you want it

My experience over the years of playing with both fingers and a plectrum is that to get a similar tone when switching between the 2 techniques is to use a thicker plectrum. For me, a 2.0mm plectrum retains the depth of tone you get from playing with fingers but has some extra bite in the high end. Not all plectrums sound the same - I find that the thinner the plectrum, the thinner the bass tone is. And conversely, the thicker your plectrum the thicker your tone. In my experience anything under 1.0mm just makes the bass sound thinner and more guitar like. For year I used 1.5mm which have more tonal weight than anything under 1.0mm, but once I'd tried 2.0mm I knew I'd found the balance that works when switching between the 2 techniques without losing the depth and weight of the bass tone. These are my current go to plectrum, virtually impossible to drop and they don't suck any low end from your sound. Jim Dunlop 450P2.00 Prime Grip Delrin 500 Picks, 2 mm

Me again. Just completed another easy peasy transaction with Ben, this time I bought a pedal from him. Bargain price, well packaged, fast and friendly comms and quickly dispatched. Awesome!

It will. It's as inevitable as Thanos @ossyrocks This topic has been covered many time on Basschat as EZ alludes to above. It's definitely worth doing a search to see what turns up, but there is a lot of misunderstanding about compressors and compression in general so take some of what you read with a massive pinch of salt. But in short, no, you don't need one. BUT... if you understand what they do and how to use them then they will make your bass sound more consistent and polished, and, depending on which type of compressor you go for they can add a ton of punch and/or character to your tone too. FWIW, I always use them as it just makes the bass 'feel' better to me.

Yeah, that was crap too, but it was cheap and very nasty - whereas the Trace rig was around £1200 even back then and had the bass response of a £50 mobile phone.

I'm more than happy with class D amps and their light weight form factor. Yes, there are some that aren't so great but there are some that are. For the past 5 years or so I've been using a Genzler Magellan and it has all the heft - I might as well be the first to say it - that I need and then some. Very much a deep, clear and weighty sound. I also have the 350 as a backup amp and have gigged and rehearsed with it many times too and have never come close to running out of power or struggling to make the bass be heard, that's playing in a moderately loud pub/function band. Certainly no depth or projection issues at volume. I think I've posted this before but the most gutless amp that I've had the misfortune to own was a Trace Elliot SMX head through a pair of 15" Trace cabs, back in the early 90's. These amps seem to be regarded as something magical these days but I have no idea why, it was at best a 1 trick pony, virtually no grunt or projection in the low end or the low mids and a seemingly constant spike in the 2-4Khz region that got fatiguing on the ears really quickly. A million tone shaping options on the pre-amp but nothing that really translated through the speakers into anything other than trying to make you sound like a clanky Mark King wannabe, albeit without any noticeable low end in your sound. A truly awful amp, IMO and IME. And a couple of years ago I bought an Ashdown Little Stubby because we all 'know' valves are the best and that I must surely be missing out with my meager class D amps 😀. It was alright but nothing spectacular. It certainly didn't blow me away in the way that the internet had told me it would 😱🤷‍♂️😀. Trouble is that to get it sounding anywhere near what I wanted (classic 70's on the edge of breakup type rock tones) at home, the reason I bought it, you had to push it too hard and loud at to be unusable without annoying the family and the neighbours. But it wasn't loud enough to realistically use in a band context either. I'm sure it's a great amp if you're able to push it without annoying a lot of people around you but I wouldn't describe it as any sort of life changing mystical experience. Certainly nothing to sway me away from my Magellans. After returning the Little Stubby for a refund I picked up an Ashdown Touring 220 combo for a steal from eBay. It's an all valve pre-amp into (I think) a 220 watt class A/B power section - but I'm happy to be corrected on the technical details if that's not right. It's a much more pleasing amp to my ears than the Little Stubby was and the passive EQ stack is great once you get used to it. And as much as I highly rate the Touring 220 combo, it doesn't do anything, or have more heft or whatever, than my Magellans. We're all different, YMMV, horses for courses, each to their own, etc. Just thought I'd better get that in before the ratting of pitchforks starts 😁

That's probably it then, I married a sensible one but often yearn for a metaphorical one night stand.

Agreed with all of that although the lack of a contour on the Mustang doesn't bother me in the slightest. The Sandberg (I'm still tempted to get Scratch-IT to make me a scratch plate with a photo of Lionel Blair on to fit to mine) is refined and oozes class and attention to detail in every regard. In contrast the JMJ feels much more uncouth - but it has a whole level of charm, character and an unquantifiable something about it that makes me pick it up more often than not over the 'Berg. To draw a particularly crap and inappropriate analogy, the Sandberg is the sort of girl you dream of marrying whereas the JMJ would do all manner of unhygienic things with you in a pub toilet if you bought it a Babycham and a bag of pork scratchings. Hope this helps.

They're great basses, IMO although I recently sold mine - Yeah, I know, but only because I prefer my JMJ Mustang. Not noticeable neck dive but then again I use a 100mm wide leather strap with a suede backing so there's a lot of inherent resistance to neck dive. A few people online seem to moan about the stock pickups but IMO they were very good, clean and clear with classic Fender sounds on tap. I had mine modded to include a blend pot as the stock 3 way switch was too limiting, but the blend really opened up the tones available, my favourite being around 60:40 mix of neck/bridge. Slim jazz like neck profile. Very good basses, IMO, with bags more tonal character than the Performer bass which is twice the price but just sounded a bit bland in comparison.

I've got no idea what the weight of a super light model would likely be but my ash bodied Lionel probably weighs less than 6 grams. I have to tether it to something substantial, like a drummer, to stop it blowing away in the breeze 😃