Diamond Bass Compressor reviews please?

[tonymcbony]

Hey folks,
for those of you with this compressor, do you think you could put up a brief review, with what and how you use it?
Aside from bongo's excellent review, I find it quite hard to get good reviews on this.

[tonymcbony]

bump

[FunkyBassline]

As a disclaimer I am by no means an expert on this subject but... I bought this pedal from bongo a month or so back and I can say that it is amazing. It adds a whole new depth to your tone and with the tilt EQ you can really hone in on the sound your looking for. I don't know much about peak limiting but it works beautifully with evening out slap licks and keeping crazy effects in line. I really can't find a downside to this pedal and have recommended it to several friends. Although as a side note I was running it off of a BBE supa charger at 9v for awhile but bought some of the adapters from voodoo to bump it up to 24v and it made a noticeable difference, although in what I don't know it just sounds more refined (more compression maybe :S).

[tonymcbony]

Sweet, that's great to know! I've got one on the way. I'm not that into the limiting side of things, more the tone shaping as I don't slap.

[zippydog]

Disclaimer:
First, I'm not Bongo and I'm also no compressor expert. I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Select last night and as a bassist, I exist just one food chain link above village idiot.

What I've tried:
I've had a couple of rack compressors that served only to confuse me, a Demeter Optical Compulator, a Maxon compressor (for about 10 minutes), the original Diamond compressor and now the Diamond Bass Compressor.

Three word review: I love it.

Bottom Line:
Easy to use for those (like me) who don't know or care to know the finer points of compression, but like the effect of cleaning up signal peaks, adding punch and smoothness. No low bass suck or dramatic over-squeeze, no "breathing" or "pumping" or added hiss - just great control with NO extra noise.

Used With:
Active basses and a few other pedals.

Powered:
18v from Dunlop DC Brick. Recommend 18v for added headroom & clarity.

Features:
Compression knob takes you from very light to pretty squeezy for those who like that sort of thing. I hold mine at around 9:00 or 10:00. Plenty of control for me. The EQ knob tilts from center indent. I keep mine around 12:00, but you can tweak pretty dramatically if you choose. Volume knob. I use this just to keep the signal at unity gain...(around 10:00) that's it. Freq. toggle - tilt to taste, up or down. True bypass...nice. Build quality is world class...its a tank in a school bus yellow box.

Placement:
I have my Diamond Bass compressor first in the signal chain, before amp modeling (Tech 21 Blonde and VT Bass (soon to be a Deluxe) and then Analogman chorus (not a big bunch of effects on my board, as I'm more about tone shaping vs. filters or distortion). Last pedal before my Radial DI is a Submarine Designer.

Sound:
Clear and transparent. No real coloration to tone (unless you get wild with the EQ knob), just nice clean control added to your existing sound. Smooth and quiet. I'm not a slap player, but I've messed with turning up the compression and it really sounds smooth and sweet when I pretend that I can slap. I'm a finger-style player, though, so very light compression (9:00 - 10:00 on the compression knob) is perfect for me. I do notice the Diamond at work when I dig in - even at these low compression settings. Its there...keepin' my sound even and clean.

Final Thoughts:
If I lost my pedal board, the two pedals I'd rush to repalce are my tuner and this pedal. The rest I could live without if I had to. 'Nuff said.


P.S. One last thing...the folks at Diamond are fantastic - great communicators and highly responsive to owners. You can't beat that personal touch and they're great at it!

[tonymcbony]

Wow Zippydog, thanks for the comprehensive review, and the amount of effort put in there! Sounds like I'll be a happy man with it on my board