Emma electronics compressor

[Phil-osopher10]

So I bought this a while back and I sort of understand the principles of compressors I wonder if I need it? Would it be better to just work on my technique what do you use them for?

[topo morto]

You can't do everything with just technique - slap and pop is always going to be louder than delicately picking out a few harmonics, so if you want to combine different techniques in the same song, a compressor can be your friend.

Compression also buys you longer sustain - though you don't need a compressor to get compression, as fuzzes and distortions also have a compressive effect.

[EskimoBassist]

It really all depends on the kind of style and type of music that you play. If you're driving lines in a punk/rock/metal band for example, you probably don't need any compression, as you would be maintaining the same loud dynamic throughout. However, if you were to be playing something which demands a more delicate touch, perhaps involving harmonics or if you were slapping, compression would be very helpful to even everything out and retain a sensible level of volume for all the notes that you are playing, be they slapped, popped or lightly plucked.

In my band I play out gentle harmonics in some songs together with sustaining notes underneath them and sometimes slap, so it's a helpful little tool to bring some control to my bass signal. Especially as I also use a multitude of effects, and compression before an octave pedal helps it to behave nicely, so I use it as an always on pedal; I just set it and forget about it. Yeah I can get away without using compression, but I don't like to as without it I have to rethink some of my basslines, to compensate for the dynamics of different playign styles.

[51m0n]

[quote name='Phil-osopher10' post='1256783' date='Jun 4 2011, 08:19 PM']Would it be better to just work on my technique what do you use them for?[/quote]

A compressor will not fix bad technique, that's just nonsense, if anything they make bad technique more obvious.

You can use them for adding sustain, adding punch, ducking (sidechain), smoothing off attack, gentle levelling, transparent levelling, completely redesigning the transient of a signal, crushing a signal until its a lifeless pulp on the floor all beaten and bruised. None of which is the wrong thing to do, its just a question of picking the right one to do at the right time.

If you don't have the controls on the device in question, or decent metering on the device, or the knowledge of how to use them you will usually do the wrong thing unless you have a fair amount of experience with them.

[Phil-osopher10]

Well I don't play slap. I play rock and more melodic stuff, however I don't really know how to use it. Would I be better off selling it or just trying to play with until I start to understand it better? I would also like to move into recording nothing serious just being able to mess around. Would it be more clear to me then?

[topo morto]

It's actually kind of tricky to learn compression with most pedal compressors, because a lot of them don't have the full set of controls a studio compressor has, and more importantly they don't have metering that shows you how much gain reduction is happening. You can get a much more flexible rack compressor for cheaper than most decent stompbox compressors. If you want to mess around, and your signal chain allows it (it'll want to run at line level), maybe grab one of those to learn on.

But at the end of the day, if you don't need one, you don't need one! And as I said before, most people get compress[i]ion[/i] without using a compress[i]or[/i].