Compression issue ?

[Bassmike62]

****, what have I done...

I had a good set-up tone-wise, but a little noisy to my taste, so I (gulp) tinkered with it. Used it today at rehearsal and got an ugly loud "thump" whenever I hit a string I didn't play in the last 3 seconds or so. The thump subsided after the 1st few notes notes, but came back, disappeared, came back (that's why I'm GUESSING it's a compression issue). Never got this before. I plugged the bass directly in the head and didn't have the problem, so it's probably related to my pedalboard set-up.... or not.

I play Peavey Grind Basses (4 and 5 str) though a Hartke 5500and 215 cab. Pedal board chain goes as is:

BASS > tuner > wah > NS-2 (LS-2 in the send-return, with following pedals looped in LS-2: BSW > FX25B > Bassballs > Small Stone > Flanger) > CS-3 > SansAmp > CEB-3 > RV-3 > BBE > AMP.

I'm using the NS-2/LS-2 linked as indicated in the Boss operator manual.

I had the 5500's compression knob almost at full today, to try to prevent speaker damage.

Anybody had this ? Any clues on how to solve it ?

Thx for your help guys...

[bongomania]

Yeah, it sounds like between the CS-3 and your amp's compression, you were WAY overcompressing your signal. Turn both of them OFF. Now set ONE of them to its most minimal setting. Then if you need more compression, slowly and carefully tweak it up until it's doing the job enough without squashing your signal too much.

[Bassmike62]

I've been using this compression set-up (CS around mid-chain and Hartke knob) for about a year and never had this problem.

Up until this last set-up change, I had the CS-3 in the NS-2's send-return loop together with the Bass Big Muff. The LS-2 was set independently from the NS-2 a little before in the chain (with all the filters in the loop and the flanger at the end before the RV-3 and the BBE).

Since it's not looped in the NS-2 anymore, could THAt be the reason I'm having this problem now ?

[bongomania]

It's possible that the signal level going into the CS-3 before was much lower than it is now. If that was the case, then you would have set the "Sustain" knob higher to get noticeable compression; then when you took away whatever was cutting the signal level going into the comp, suddenly you are way way overcompressed. So for example moving the NS-2, or some other small change you made in the pedal chain, could have caused this change in levels.

This sort of thing can also happen with a capacitor that's going bad, so it may be that one of your pedals needs repair.

[Bassmike62]

The overcompression thing makes total sense. I tried the same set-up with my practice amp at home this morning and didn't get the thump (my practice amp doesn't have a compression knob). I'll be on the lookout for bad capacitors as well, but its probably overcompression.

Bongo, thank you for your help ! I'll retweak the compressors or play around with the signal chain.