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Darkglass Super Symmetry - Compressor


Mwoit
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Very much so.

I am holidaying in Lanzarote until next weekend, so I imagine my bass direct preorder is sitting in my work office as I type. Frustrating!

Heard great things so far, think Darkglass have knocked it out the park at this price point if it is truly a great bass Compressor.

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[quote name='Bass Pedal Geek' timestamp='1442515483' post='2867544'] I got a review unit from DG a week ago or so. If you're want to hear how it sounds, I have uploadet the full review along with a bundh of audio clips here: http://bass-pedals.com/darkglass-super-symmetry-review/index.html [/quote]

Great review - you've said it all, really! I've been playing with mine for a week now, and can confirm that it is a joy to use. And I would underline what you say about transparency - it is REALLY transparent. Which may not be what everyone wants from a compressor, but it is absolutely what I want, so I am well chuffed with it. And those blue LEDs ... :gas:

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[quote name='GrammeFriday' timestamp='1442586920' post='2868034']


Great review - you've said it all, really! I've been playing with mine for a week now, and can confirm that it is a joy to use. And I would underline what you say about transparency - it is REALLY transparent. Which may not be what everyone wants from a compressor, but it is absolutely what I want, so I am well chuffed with it. And those blue LEDs ... :gas:
[/quote]

Yeah, I dig the transparent tone too. Right now I am constantly changing my mind about whether the Empress or the Super Symmetry gets the main comp spot on the board. Maybe I have to take off the Forest Green, but I also love that - for NOT being transparent ;-)

Desicions, desicions, desicions...!

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@Bass Pedal Geek: one thing your review doesn't say anything about is how quiet the Super Symmetry is. I don't have very extensive experience with compressor pedals, but the SS is by far the quietest I have ever tried - in fact it seems uncannily hiss-free, to my ears at least. Obviously it starts to hiss a bit if you really crank it, but even then it is quieter than some pedals are at even low to moderate settings. Which is another reason to love it, I think!

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Sorry for not putting up a demo (not had the time and I will not do it justice) but this video is pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CqDPnOHXW0

I agree it on being super transparent and very quiet. I've only played around with it using my pedal board and DI (rig is at the parent's sadly) but I can't wait. Replaced my MXR M87 with this.

Edited by Mwoit
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Although compressed internet files will not paint an accurate picture it seems there is yet another great compressor with a decently small footprint and that is well suited for bass on the market. Cali Bass, Keeley Compressor Pro, this all seems to be getting a lot of praise. Good times!

One thing I do notice is that the SS does not have clear labeling, that is pretty much a must for me wrt ratio, attack and release. Does the manual give clear instruction on that front?

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  • 2 weeks later...

[quote name='bobe01' timestamp='1442698751' post='2868902']
any info about ratio on these?

thanks!

ps, no fancy finish, like on this pic?


[/quote]

That finish is there, that is just a very high res photo :)

So, I have had mine for over a week now so I'll make a few comments. Bit of a disaster initially, the preorder I had wasn't working on arrival, pedal wouldn't engage so had to send it back. Mark at Bass Direct fortunately had one left so exchanged with no problem and once again Doug at Darkglass was very apologetic and helpful when speaking to him about it and checked that I had it sorted. Great customer service once again.

The pedal itself is a work of art. Perfectly crafted from the custom one piece enclosure and it looks the mutts. The LED meter is very cool and very visible without being too bright or distracting. It also seems to be fairly accurate. Struggles to keep up when playing fast and constant runs but if you suddenly start playing harder or softer it will react immediately, so it may well have been designed that way.

It is COMPLETELY transparent, I cannot see that it colours your tone at all. It's a compressor, so it is difficult to talk too much about it as you really need to play with it and see how it reacts to your playing to understand. But for me it really tightens up my playing and works fantastically well with my other DG units.

I prefer this to the Cali76 Standard I had, by some way; I found that pedal, whilst sounding really cool, colours your tone too much and always seems to compress a little harder than I would like, in any setting. However, they are very different compressors so it isn't a matter of one being[i] better[/i] than the other e.t.c. This excels at clean, transparent, punchy compression.

I think the price is [i]very [/i]good for a boutique pedal of this quality, coming in at £70 less than the Origin equivalent, a chunk less than the Diamond, Empress, Keeley.... I mean, the rrp of the MXR bass comp is more; the street price is £40 or so less, but that isn't much of a difference at all considering mass produced vs handmade.

And it has, like, a million blue LEDs, so thats obviously improves everything :)

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Nice reveiw Kev, it really does look gorgeous! I would like to try one of these still dispite being very happy with the compact cali.

[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1443511113' post='2875280']
I'd still like to know the actual compression, attack and release numbers.

I saw on TB that Doug said he hadn't actually calculated them yet!

Was that not part of the design process?
[/quote]

Bongo over at the other forum said he didn't know exact numbers but the Attack was pretty fast and the knob only covers a small range where as the release covers a very wide range from fast to slow, that's all any one seems to know at the moment?

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