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Suggestions for affordable compressor


markdavid

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Hi all

Am after getting a compressor pedal but have noticed that a lot of them are very expensive (£200 for a pedal, your having a laugh) , I am after something that does a decent job for an affordable price (sub £100) and after suggestions.

Basically to give an idea of what I am after, one of the places I practice at has an Ashdown head with a built in compressor, I tend to turn it to about half way, I don't slap but I love the extra punch that a compressor provides due to the slight squashing effect it seems to have so I guess I am not after a super subtle effect and am using it more as an effect than controlling dynamics

thanks

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You can't go wrong with the various compression models on the current Zoom units (B3, B3n, MS-60B, B1on), there's atone of stuff to play with in there to keep you going for ages. 

TC Electronics Spectracomp - there's a tone of stuff regarding this superb little pedal on here and online generally , all of it true (just ignore any comments by @Al Krow xD

The Boss LMB-3 is also worth a look for cheap and cheerful punchy compression. 

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4 minutes ago, Osiris said:

You can't go wrong with the various compression models on the current Zoom units (B3, B3n, MS-60B, B1on), there's a tone of stuff to play with in there to keep you going for ages. 

TC Electronics Spectracomp - there's a tone of stuff regarding this superb little pedal on here and online generally , all of it true (just ignore any comments by @Al Krow xD

My only comment is I've found @Osiris to be spot on when it comes to cheap compression remarks. But I guess you should ignore that. The guy clearly has tone.

Edited by Al Krow
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23 minutes ago, markdavid said:

Hi all

Am after getting a compressor pedal but have noticed that a lot of them are very expensive (£200 for a pedal, your having a laugh) , I am after something that does a decent job for an affordable price (sub £100) and after suggestions.

Basically to give an idea of what I am after, one of the places I practice at has an Ashdown head with a built in compressor, I tend to turn it to about half way, I don't slap but I love the extra punch that a compressor provides due to the slight squashing effect it seems to have so I guess I am not after a super subtle effect and am using it more as an effect than controlling dynamics

thanks

Have you looked at the many Comp threads that have been active on here over the past few weeks. They are hard to miss, and their numbers are growing every day ;-). Im surprised anyone needs to ask anything about comps now with all this information to hand.

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2 hours ago, Osiris said:

You can't go wrong with the various compression models on the current Zoom units (B3, B3n, MS-60B, B1on), there's atone of stuff to play with in there to keep you going for ages.

 

Def worth a look, I used the Dyna Comp model on the B3 and it was pretty good. Plus you get a tuner (and many other effects) so you can keep to the same amount of pedals, assuming a pedal tuner is used of course.

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4 hours ago, Osiris said:

You can't go wrong with the various compression models on the current Zoom units (B3, B3n, MS-60B, B1on), there's atone of stuff to play with in there to keep you going for ages. 

TC Electronics Spectracomp - there's a tone of stuff regarding this superb little pedal on here and online generally , all of it true (just ignore any comments by @Al Krow xD

The Boss LMB-3 is also worth a look for cheap and cheerful punchy compression. 

random Q - how much "worse" are the Zoom compressions than stand alone units? 

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25 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

random Q - how much "worse" are the Zoom compressions than stand alone units? 

If you're taking a hypothetical average Zoom compression patch and comparing it to an average stand alone compressor, I'd say 28.64% worse.

If however, you're looking at best of the Zoom compression patches and comparing to the very best stand alone compressors e.g. Cali 76CB or Diamond Bass Comp you're probably talking about nearer 68.37% differential, in terms of the Zooms falling short.

Fortunately you're under instruction to ignore any comments I make, so best if I now hand over to @Osiris to give you something a little less scientific but perhaps correspondingly more accurate.

Edited by Al Krow
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Ideally, a compressor should have some sort of meter so you can gauge what it's doing, otherwise you're just twiddling knobs & pretending you know what you're doing.  Though there's a lot of compressors without meters that do a decent job, but I think the user may have to guestimate things.

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46 minutes ago, xgsjx said:

Ideally, a compressor should have some sort of meter so you can gauge what it's doing, otherwise you're just twiddling knobs & pretending you know what you're doing.  Though there's a lot of compressors without meters that do a decent job, but I think the user may have to guestimate things.

You can use these things called your ears to judge things. Meters and gauges and all that is great, but ultimately what sounds best may look ‘bad’ on a meter.

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42 minutes ago, jposega said:

You can use these things called your ears to judge things. Meters and gauges and all that is great, but ultimately what sounds best may look ‘bad’ on a meter.

Aye, okay.  xD

The thing with a compressor is that you're using it to level out your sound (to bring up the quieter notes & trim the louder ones down a bit) & that's not something that's instantly noticeable to most people just with the ears.  If you have a meter showing you where the note db is, then you can make the appropriate adjustments to stop notes spiking above/below that level.

There's a whole thread on here that's dedicated to compressors & how they work.  I'd suggest searching for it, it's a good read & very informative.

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8 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

random Q - how much "worse" are the Zoom compressions than stand alone units? 

For the sake of coherence it might be worth ignoring the previous 'answer' to your question ...

The Zoom compressor models are actually very good in my experience and are among the strongest features of the current crop of their multi-fx units. I mainly use a TC Electronics Spectracomp but there's a few venues we play where I don't have room for my board so I use my MS-60B on top of my amp for tuner and compression duties. I've had great results with nearly all of them. There's several different models offering different types and flavours of compression so there's probably something in there that you'll like. My personal favourites being the M-Comp model for the punch it adds and the 160-Comp (I think that's what it's called) for a more transparent compression. There's also a squishy optical compressor and a scooped dual band model plus several more to experiment with. 

But as with any compressor you really need to understand how they work in order to get the best from them. That's not meant to be patronising but if you look through other compression threads on here you will see that the whole subject is widely misunderstood. But let's not have that conversation again here, please :dash1:xD ;)  That's not aimed at you, by the way @LukeFRC.

Regarding metering, yes it's useful (again, on the assumption that you know what it means and how best to use it - and and again that is not meant to be patronising) but it is not essential. As @jposega says above the best metering you can get are the free ones that came fixed to the side of your head :)

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1 hour ago, Osiris said:

Regarding metering, yes it's useful (again, on the assumption that you know what it means and how best to use it - and and again that is not meant to be patronising) but it is not essential. As @jposega says above the best metering you can get are the free ones that came fixed to the side of your head :)

You'll need to have very good hearing & still need to know what you're doing.  The point of compression is to not hear what it's doing.
When it comes to relying on your ears, there's a chance that you could either over compressing or not do much at all.  There's also the chance you'll get it right, but you might never know.
I'm not saying you should only buy a compressor with a meter, but a meter is better than using your ears unless you know exactly what you're listening for.  I think (& I might be wrong here) that most pedal compressors have parameters pre determined to a degree to make it harder to over/under compress than what a compressor with metering would allow.

Here's a useful link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130215154741/http://blog.basschat.co.uk/setting-up-a-compressor/


Reading the OP's post again though, he might be best suited to a 1 or 2 knob compressor.

Edited by xgsjx
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8 hours ago, xgsjx said:

You'll need to have very good hearing & still need to know what you're doing.  The point of compression is to not hear what it's doing.
When it comes to relying on your ears, there's a chance that you could either over compressing or not do much at all.  There's also the chance you'll get it right, but you might never know.
I'm not saying you should only buy a compressor with a meter, but a meter is better than using your ears unless you know exactly what you're listening for.

True. 

But my personal preference is still to use my ears. I should probably clarify and expand that to say that it is not a good idea to set up the compressor in isolation as you run the risk of over compressing your sound as you have rightly pointed out, but set it up playing in context with your band, i.e. using the rest of your gear (i.e bass, amp, cab, any other effects) at gigging volume with other musicians. That way it is much easier to tell when you are going overboard with it and to get things right.   

Anyway, back to affordable compressor recommendations ... :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest adi77
On 3/23/2018 at 22:55, Mudpup said:

Get the Seymour Duncan Studio in the classifieds........dead easy to use/get a bad sound/overdo it (delete as appropriate)

 

was gonna say the same thing

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