Fairfield Accountant for both in one mini pedal?
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Best Compressor and Drive in one pedal?
- Thread starter Thom Fioriglio
- Start date
Yeah, I know…”I paid good money for this…the OctaFilter section should be a tad more useful”. Mine is the v1 and pretty much ignore it. On the plus side, it’s truly an all-in-one with the tuner and XLR / DI which I found highly desirable and willing to accept the compromises and certain concessions.
Riis
The JHS Pulp N' Peel works well with passive basses but with active basses it distorts even with the dirt turned off. That's why I'm getting rid of mine.
I think the Keeley Bassist might suit your compression tastes.
Thank you. I’ve owned the Keeley before and really loved its simplicity and regret selling it. Very easy to dial in what I needed. I think this might be the way to go. I do have overdrive on my Fender Rumble 800 with a foot switch, so OD on a compression pedal isn’t a necessity.
You have to be careful when using a compressor pedal with bass. Most compressor pedals that I've tried in the past will destroy your bottom end because the low frequency band will push your compressor too hard, particularly when you're just trying to cut a little off the top and adding a bit more sustain. I'd recommend looking at one that has a blend/mix knob, or even better, a HPF with sidechain (or both). This way, you can just focus on the higher frequency bands and bypass the low frequencies. I have both the Origin Effects Cali76 Compact Bass and the Empress Bass Compressor which has these features and work perfectly for me. And just like you, I also wanted a little crunch for some songs, but most overdrive pedals that I've tried just colored my natural bass tone way too much and had features that I'd never use (like too much distortion and cheesy fake tube saturation). After ordering and returning many pedals, I've found that some booster pedals offer a bit of crunch when you crank them up a bit. This was exactly what I was looking for. I tried a bunch of preamp pedals, but this was overkill. Then I tried a bunch of dedicated boost pedals and settled on the Wren and Cuff Phat Phuk B, which kind of blew my mind. It's a magical one-knobber. That's all I currently use for pedals. I plugin to the Cal76 or Empress compressor first, then into the Phat Phuk. I do this so that when I turn on the boost, it doesn't affect the compression. I know you're looking for an all-in-one solution, but wanted to warn you about the compressor issue with bass.
By drive do you mean dirt as in distortion as opposed to overdrive? Because most compressors have a huge amount of makeup gain on tap and can easily be used as clean overdrive pedals if you set the compression ratio to 1:1 and set the threshold setting to something like -10dB. That effectively turns the compression off and you’re left with an overdrive pedal that can push the front end of any amp into breakup.
EHX Bass Battalion
I have a lot of comps and a LOT of drives and several combos.
Fairfield Accountant is a horrible novelty pedal, at best. It’s an awful comp and at best a sub-standard niche-sounding drive. I say this as a big fan of their Barbershop, FWIW.
JHS Pulp & Peel v4 is OK as a combo, but the drive can be finicky. Especially if you’re feeding it varied or hot dynamics / inputs. Think of it more as a comp.
I don’t like reports of people having problems with the Humbolt when feeding it hotter inputs, or having to tweak too much to make that work. Enough to scratch it off my list, despite wanting to like it. People have had issues with the Collaboration Devices pedal too… maybe just the v1?… best to search any comp in the huge compressors thread by Scubaduba and read the various user reports.
EHX Battalion is good on both the comp and drive side, easy to set, powerful effective EQ, and smart switching options, DI, etc… and inexpensive. Quiet, no issues with hot inputs. Tough to match it for features and sound, irrespective of price.
I have a lot of comps and a LOT of drives and several combos.
Fairfield Accountant is a horrible novelty pedal, at best. It’s an awful comp and at best a sub-standard niche-sounding drive. I say this as a big fan of their Barbershop, FWIW.
JHS Pulp & Peel v4 is OK as a combo, but the drive can be finicky. Especially if you’re feeding it varied or hot dynamics / inputs. Think of it more as a comp.
I don’t like reports of people having problems with the Humbolt when feeding it hotter inputs, or having to tweak too much to make that work. Enough to scratch it off my list, despite wanting to like it. People have had issues with the Collaboration Devices pedal too… maybe just the v1?… best to search any comp in the huge compressors thread by Scubaduba and read the various user reports.
EHX Battalion is good on both the comp and drive side, easy to set, powerful effective EQ, and smart switching options, DI, etc… and inexpensive. Quiet, no issues with hot inputs. Tough to match it for features and sound, irrespective of price.
Two flavors at ends of an outlier continuum: Fairfield Accountant and Becos Stella.
Was going to say Becos Stella as well. I use one and dial in a little saturation to get the tone results I like.
Why have these two functions combined into one pedal? If you go with two separate pedals then your options will open up significantly without the compromises that will likely result from a combo pedal.
For live sound, one can quickly realize diminishing returns when trying to parse out a perfect sound or feel, imagined or otherwise. Recording is another story. Maybe.
I wanted to like the Darkglass Infinity. Preamp, drive, comp, Di all in one. I just thought it was too driven. The Bergantino Super Pre has what you want. Both those are expensive - especially the Berg - and maybe more than you want/need.
Kinda eyeing this one.
I’ve had many a compressor come and go, the Ovnilab Smoothie has stood the test of time. It does not have a separate boost or drive function, though if you kick it in before other drives it hits them harder.
I use it always on, so its sole function is compression. Challengers have come and been vanquished, the Smoothie squashed them all.
Yeah, I did that.
I have a Pulp n Peel V4 on one of my boards. It sounds great with my LTD B206SM and Cort C5 Plus, but distorts and sounds like poopy with my Ibanez BTB747 & 746, the BTBs' signal being pretty hot.
Oh this looks interesting. And a good price. How is the compressor? That’s my main priority
I’m running my Collaboration Devices with an active jazz, and having no issues with noise or it farting out on either channel. I think the issues were fixed on the v2.
Kinda annoying that that the VU meter isnt accurate though… But looks cool!
Kinda annoying that that the VU meter isnt accurate though… But looks cool!
