Keeley Bassist Limiting Amplifier:
From Bongo
This is a new design from Keeley, completely different from his previous comp pedals, based around a VCA chip in the same style as dbx uses. So these new Keeleys are competition for other VCA pedals such as the Carl Martin Comp-Limiter and the Maxon CP9Pro+, particularly of interest to anyone wanting a "dbx 160A in a pedal".
The only difference between the GC-2 and the Bassist is one capacitor that causes the GC-2 to react less to peaks in the lows. This means the Bassist will be a more effective hard limiter, while the GC-2 will be a bit less restrained sounding. Apart from that they have the same tone, frequency range, and effect.
The knobs include Compression (ratio), Threshold, and output Gain. The range of ratios goes all the way from 1:1 to infinity:1, so it covers every function from clean boost to light and medium compression all the way to hard peak limiting, which it does reasonably well. The threshold knob also has a very wide range, so it will respond well to instruments with very low or very high output.
It also has an LED that indicates whether your signal is over the threshold. However it does not indicate the amount of compression with varying brightness; it's just green for "under threshold" and red for "over threshold".
The action is smooth and even, with no "dip and swell" or other artifacts. The attack and release times have no controls, but they adapt themselves to the peak levels of your signal. Higher peaks get faster attack times and slower releases, which is a good basic premise. Most users won't have any practical issue with this arrangement.
It has very low noise (almost none) at most moderate settings. It only becomes noisy if you choose a very heavy setting, which is to be expected with most comps. There is zero loss of either highs or lows, and no humps or scoops in the middle. The tone is quite neutral and close to transparent. It doesn't add any "tone magic". The highs can sound a bit congested or dulled during heavier compression, which is very common with this type of comp design; I've commented on every model made by dbx having the same effect on the highs. Aside from this, the tone is just what you feed into it.
The construction quality is excellent, and it looks sharp and modern. The housing is the small MXR size. It runs on Boss-standard 9V DC. The footswitch is "true bypass".
