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Best easy to use compressor?

Chris F

Chris F

May 8, 2022
48
86
Birmingham, AL
#1
I play in a worship band and currently use a JHS Pulp N Peel as my compressor. I like it, but it adds a little grittiness that I would rather not be added from the compressor. I have found that if any pedals have too many knobs/switches I have trouble picking a setting, get frustrated, and look for something else.

I wish I could go somewhere and try several side by side, but it's hard to find somewhere that keeps a ton of bass pedals in stock.

What would you guys/gals suggest for me?
 
#6
7BFA02B0-60CE-4D46-B798-E9C3F4E9D9C6.jpeg


Doesn't get much simpler….
 
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#8
Both mxr bass comps are good...the simplest of the two being the bass dyna comp.
I've used a philosophers tone...theyre ok, the compression circuit is quite transparent, and you do have the ability to dial in a bit of "grit" if needed for other gigs. Not a fan of the design of the pedal though.
My experience with the tone corset is that it will color your tone a bit...to some it's pleasing, to others may want more transparency.
Spectracomp is simple, but even with the ability to adjust...I lost patience with it a long time ago. TC does have hyper gravity comp, that would probably be better for myself.
I use a dbx rack comp....although it has more features, it's not on my pedal board, so I don't mess with it. The noise gate is great. The limiter is far better than the onboard limiters on bass heads.
So something like that may be worth thinking about as well.
 
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#9
Teck_Instructor said:
TC Electronic SpectraComp
1 Knob, for easy, use as is.
If you want to get more complicated, you can load different profiles from TC into it.
If you want to get way more complicated, you can edit the profile yourself.
That way you can do REALLY easy, but if you don't like the original sound, your not stuck.
Click to expand...
+1 for SpectraComp
 
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#15
Chris F said:
I play in a worship band and currently use a JHS Pulp N Peel as my compressor. I like it, but it adds a little grittiness that I would rather not be added from the compressor. I have found that if any pedals have too many knobs/switches I have trouble picking a setting, get frustrated, and look for something else.

I wish I could go somewhere and try several side by side, but it's hard to find somewhere that keeps a ton of bass pedals in stock.

What would you guys/gals suggest for me?
Click to expand...

When I got into compressors, I started with the MXR Bass Compressor. Even as a newb, I found it easy to set up with the instructions that came with it.. the tweak from there to taste... used it every Sunday for service for several years before getting my Cali 76cb
 
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#16
For me it would have to be the good old EBS Multicomp. Idiot proof, great sound/feel and three different modes that should cover most needs for simple "one knob" on-stage compression-

There are no separate controls for attack/release/ratio, which is a good thing when you want to keep things simple. Basically it's just one knob adjusting the amount of compression and one knob for make-up gain. The metering is ultra-simple but effective: The power LED will flash stronger when the compressor kicks in harder.

There are some even simpler comp pedals out there of course but I prefer the tone and "feel" of the EBS. It's not too aggressive. It will control the dynamics in a nice, smooth way. It's more or less impossible to ruin the tone with this pedal, even for someone new to compression (which is by far the hardest effect to get right when using compressors with more controls/options).

If you want to dive deeper into the EBS there's also a trim pot inside to control the balance between compression of highs/lows in multiband mode. I've never felt the need to touch this trim pot but then I hardly ever used multi-band mode at all. Normal mode did everything I needed for easy, idiot proof on-stage compression. Tube mode if I wanted a slightly "warmer" tone.

The EBS Multicomp was extremely popular a couple of years ago but seems to have gone out of fashion a bit these days. It's still as good as ever and would be my first choice for an easy to use comp pedal.

There were some reports about poor switches in some older EBS pedals. Maybe it's not a good idea to buy these used. But in my experience this was never about poor switches but about the soldering joints to the footswitch cracking under pressure. I've repaired several EBS pedals with "defect switches" simply by making sure the nut on the footswitch is fastened properly and then re-flow the solder joints to the footswitch. If any of you have an EBS pedal with a seemingly defect footswitch this is definitely worth trying (but I won't rule out the possibility that there may also have been a batch with poor switches at some point in the past).
 
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