Issue With A Compressor

[stewblack]

One of my compressors is behaving very strangely. 

It's a Russian made pedal with 'straightforward' controls. Volume, tone, attack, sustain. Nothing to frighten the horses. 

Here's the thing. When I finish fettling, having found what I'm looking for, it seems to suck up all and any background noise it can find from the other stomps, and blares this out at a nice even volume. 

There is really very little noise from the other pedals but I can't use the compression how I want to without this unlooked for side effect. 

If I am using drive, chorus or drive, phaser the cacophony it manages to hoover up is astonishing. 

It's last in the pedal chain and has me beat. 

Any ideas? 

Edited May 27, 2021 by stewblack
grammar

[fretmeister]

Normal behaviour for a compressor.

All the low stuff gets boosted including the crap you don't want to hear - particularly for drive pedals.

Could put the compressor in a different place in the chain, and also experiment with different power supplies to the other pedals to see if that helps reduce the noise they are making.

[stewblack]

Thank you. I get that lifting quiet and cutting loud is kind of its job but this is picking up barely audible noises! 

[fretmeister]

Your sustain knob will either be a Ratio control or a Threshold. Different on different makes - and I hate that they don't label them properly!

Adjusting that with the attack control might let you reduce the nastiness a bit, but possibly at the cost of not quite having the effect you want from it.

 

A good isolated power supply can work wonders though. 

 

What drive pedal are you using? They are often the worst offenders for background noise - sometimes they are making it, but also they are massively boosting any noise that exists in the system before it reaches the drive pedal - as far back as your pickups.

I went EMG + posh power supply many years ago and I can't see me going back just because of the noise issues.

[Osiris]

20 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

Normal behaviour for a compressor.

All the low stuff gets boosted including the crap you don't want to hear - particularly for drive pedals.

Could put the compressor in a different place in the chain...

That's what I was thinking too. Maybe try the compressor first in the chain so it's not picking up the noise from the other pedals to see if that helps. It ought to unless there's something else going on that's adding to the noise. 

[stewblack]

I have heeded the advice above. The dirt is from the same brand of pedals and I usually like to compress after envelope filters to keep things tidy.

However I will try compressor first and add a limiter to the end. 

I shall report back. 

Thank you @Osiris and @fretmeister

[fretmeister]

I tend to go bass > envelope filter > octave > compressor > drive.

[stewblack]

Interesting. I like the octave first but I must try switching it. 

[stewblack]

Also dirt before an envelope can be great. 

[Osiris]

I tend to go bass into compressor into amp so I can't really help with placement suggestions 😃

[stewblack]

13 minutes ago, Osiris said:

I tend to go bass into compressor into amp so I can't really help with placement suggestions 😃

This board is, frankly, ludicrous. 3 envelopes, a fuzz, an overdrive a bass synth, an octave, a chorus and a phaser. Oh and a synth. 

Ridiculous. 

[paul_5]

When I used a compressor I always put it before the octaver, then the envelope to give them a decent chance at picking up the transient.

[stewblack]

On 27/05/2021 at 19:49, paul_5 said:

When I used a compressor I always put it before the octaver, then the envelope to give them a decent chance at picking up the transient.

Missed this post. So:

Bass > comp > octave > envelope? 

Doesn't the envelope need to be sensitive to the strength of your pluck? I wonder if the compressor compromises this? 

Of course I could just connect up the pedals and try it 🤷🏻‍♂️ 

But it's easier to lay around asking you 

[paul_5]

Depends on what sound you want from the envelope. I’ve had pedals set up this way to give the octaver a uniform signal to help the pitch detector, and it also gave the envelope filter a fixed input for uniform synth style attack, like I said, depends what you’re trying to achieve - analogue synth tones, or ‘porn bass’!

[stewblack]

3 minutes ago, paul_5 said:

porn bass

Ha!

I have had a little play and it's different with different pedals, as you say it all depends on what you are looking for.

[SumOne]

On 30/05/2021 at 11:09, paul_5 said:

Depends on what sound you want from the envelope. I’ve had pedals set up this way to give the octaver a uniform signal to help the pitch detector, and it also gave the envelope filter a fixed input for uniform synth style attack, like I said, depends what you’re trying to achieve - analogue synth tones, or ‘porn bass’!

A bit off topic but I like Octave into Envelope Filter but the octave tracks best with a compressor before it and envelope filter sounds best with compressor after it to tame peaks. Buying two compressors seems excessive but Helix can do it and includes 2x fx loops of separate pedals for re-routing, and can have parallel/series routing options (eg octave and filter running parallel is quite different to series) these routing options are the biggest selling points of the Helix pedals for me rather than its in built effects.