Chorus and compression

[muthagoose]

Hi, I'm fairly new to this whole effects ordeal, but I've recently become interested in buying a compression and chorus pedal. But I have a few questions regarding them.
(I'm sorry if these questions have been answered in other posts, but I don't have enough time to browse the forums in search of answers )

Anyways...

1. What exactly is possible with a compression pedal? From what I've read it is mostly used to even out your sound, a cutting highs and raising lows kind of thing. I've also read that you can vary your tone a great deal with a compression pedal, giving you a punchier tone, which is mainly what I am interested in. What's the deal-i-o?

2. Is it possible to damage any sort of pedal in any way? Like using the pedal together with another type instrument or a microphone?

3. If I want a chorus pedal and a compression pedal which will let me tweak my sound as much as possible, what should I look into? Any special brands that are recommended or that one should stay clear of?

Thanks in advance!

 

[hyperlitem]

Im not a big pedal fan but ive used a few in my time but my knowledge is defintately not extensive so if someone wants to help me out thatd be great. Im not into recording effects as thats more what i do so i hope most of this stuff crosses over.
1. Commpression doesnt really lower your highs and help your lows, it basically squishes your frequency range down so your only projecting the middle most of the section of your signal. This brings is more into the human audible range and therefore, "puts it in front" I had a compressor for a while never really used it didnt miss it when it was gone. Its good for certain types of music but not one i played. Compression is a studio engineers best friend more or less though so i do a deceant amount of post recording compression

2. You cant damage a pedal by plugging anything wierd into it. The pedal could damage your amp though if you had something really screwy going. The only way to damage a pedal is by physical abuse or putting too much voltage into it.

3.Whenever i used pedals in the past i was always a fan of single effect units or rack effects. Most of the processors ive used that tried to combine a few effects together have sucked in my experience. I like Boss stuff and some digitech stuff, but ive not heard good things with digitechs bass stuff. You could always go high end but if your looking for something in a lower price range boss is the way to go.

Hope that helped, like i said im not super versed in pedals and effects but no one had responded so i figured id pitch in my 2 cents.

 

[RAM]

Compression, like hyperlitem said, is pretty much a way to "compress" dynamics to smooth out a bass line. I'm not familiar with compression pedals as I haven't owned one since I bought a DOD back in the early '80's (which is long, LONG gone). My old EBS Fafner had a compression section that I used a little bit, but didn't notice anything mind blowing. Then again, I wasn't tweaking it much, either.

Chorus is something I use a little bit more. I own a Fulltone ChoralFlange, which is an extremely expensive pedal - $279, IIRC. It's true-bypass, which means when the pedal is disengaged, the signal that passes from my bass to my amp is uncolored by the pedal. Some people feel true-bypass is the only way to go, others don't. The issue is whether the pedal sucks tone or not.

To me, the ChoralFlange is a very warm and natural sounding chorus. There are a lot of great ones on the market that I've played and many more that I've never even seen. Some others I like (but not as much as my Fulltone) is the EBS Unichorus or TC Electronic SCF. These are also very expensive, but sound excellent!