They are in different classes, I agree. How about "best in class"? I think Bongo did something like that on his compressor site...
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Easy Compressor for live rig
- Thread starter BecDeCorbin
- Start date
Cali76 Compact Bass - awesome. Fat and aggressive, can do severe compression without sounding squishy. Retains the highs, the lows, and the attack. Attack, blend, and high pass are great features.
Fairfield Accountant - really cool squishy dirty sound, great sustain, but in the mix it gets a bit lost, maybe the attack is faster than I like.
Diamond - very nice sound, fat and shiny, not aggressive. A bit too subtle and not enough control for me.
Fairfield Accountant - really cool squishy dirty sound, great sustain, but in the mix it gets a bit lost, maybe the attack is faster than I like.
Diamond - very nice sound, fat and shiny, not aggressive. A bit too subtle and not enough control for me.
I like that, straight to the point, informative.
Have you tried the Cali76 TX to compare to the compact?
Great sound, transparent, easy to use, will give tone a nice push forward, reasonably priced
I have not. Size was an issue for me, so I didn't want to confuse myself any more than necessary. I'm planning to use this for live playing, so the transformer subtleties are probably not really noticeable there. Anyway for bass, I figured (rightly? wrongly?) that the parallel blend and HPF are more useful.
bongomania
Commercial User
Another vote for Diamond. Got mine about a year ago and I haven't looked back. It adds a certain sweetness characteristic to the sound. Hard to explain, but not complaining! And three knobs makes for a super easy, always-on pedal for me.
I read Bongomania's list.....wanted fat tone and not too expensive.
First pick was the Moen and I quite liked it....simple with a bit of phatness but it broke after a few months so I bought another one and dropped that one about 2 feet (tabletop to floor) and it broke too.
2nd pick....Empress, $$ but great comp (and made in Cda) still have it on my big board but replace it with the Smoothie most of the time
3rd pick.....Diamond.....loved it's Phatness and ease of use but $$ and not enough control but mostly just too big....I was building a 1590A board
4th pick.....sfx Micro Comp....pretty simple but just can't make up my mind on it (would like better control but keeping it anyway on my 1590A board
5th pick.....Smoothie......bingo Bongo !!!!! Not too many knobs, easy to use, small enclosure, PHATness.....this one stays for sure on my big board
Happy Comper
First pick was the Moen and I quite liked it....simple with a bit of phatness but it broke after a few months so I bought another one and dropped that one about 2 feet (tabletop to floor) and it broke too.
2nd pick....Empress, $$ but great comp (and made in Cda) still have it on my big board but replace it with the Smoothie most of the time
3rd pick.....Diamond.....loved it's Phatness and ease of use but $$ and not enough control but mostly just too big....I was building a 1590A board
4th pick.....sfx Micro Comp....pretty simple but just can't make up my mind on it (would like better control but keeping it anyway on my 1590A board
5th pick.....Smoothie......bingo Bongo !!!!! Not too many knobs, easy to use, small enclosure, PHATness.....this one stays for sure on my big board
Happy Comper
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Yes I have one and I think it really works well. The LED feedback really helps you hone in on the right setting because you can see the effects of your knob turning.
I use mine with a slow attack ,a fast release ,and a threshold that kicks in on harder plucks and slaps. It does its job and gets out of the way for the next note while allowing initial attack to stay intact.
Very much evens out the finger attack and cleans up the ghost notes.
Only complaint is it's easy to overdue it on the threshold knob because it's so small. Little turn goes a long way.
If you don't use a very fast attack and a long release you won't overly squash your dynamics or dull the tone.
Of course there are better ones out there ,however , the pedal format , the size , uses 9 v , LED feedback , and it's quiet make it a easy choice.
That's what I want ESP for live use.
@SV777 For the MXR's small knob problem, get a OK-nob or whatever the largest knob you can fit on it to reduce the turn ratio and better control the "threshold" (do you mean attack or release?).
***************
Bongomania puts it best on his Ovnilab site: "...particularly of interest to anyone wanting a 'dbx 160A in a pedal'."
I've got an LMB3, I don't recommend it for what you set out in the OP, and subsequent posts.
"I want to simply achieve smoother, more even dynamics/volume across the board. That's all I want, but I want it to deliver in spades.
I sometimes have a staccato tendency to my finger style and induce peaks that I don't want."
"I want whatever will give me the smoothest, most natural unsquashed even levels I can find. It looks like there are more good pedal options than there are rackmount these days."
As an aside. out of the Origin offerings, I liked the transformerless Cali76 Standard best, lucked out and was given one. It's totally transparent to my ears, but is still more complex to set than my other comps. Lots of great suggestions in the thread. Empress or MXR have the lights which really help when first getting to know compression, the Empress has that sidechain feature similar to the Cali76 Compact Bass has, but you get to decide what goes in the sidechain on the Empress. For ease of use, I vote Diamond, great if you like the tone (I do).
So, a slightly belated welcome to TB, BecDeCorbin — have you settled on something?
***************
Bongomania puts it best on his Ovnilab site: "...particularly of interest to anyone wanting a 'dbx 160A in a pedal'."
I've got an LMB3, I don't recommend it for what you set out in the OP, and subsequent posts.
"I want to simply achieve smoother, more even dynamics/volume across the board. That's all I want, but I want it to deliver in spades.
I sometimes have a staccato tendency to my finger style and induce peaks that I don't want."
"I want whatever will give me the smoothest, most natural unsquashed even levels I can find. It looks like there are more good pedal options than there are rackmount these days."
As an aside. out of the Origin offerings, I liked the transformerless Cali76 Standard best, lucked out and was given one. It's totally transparent to my ears, but is still more complex to set than my other comps. Lots of great suggestions in the thread. Empress or MXR have the lights which really help when first getting to know compression, the Empress has that sidechain feature similar to the Cali76 Compact Bass has, but you get to decide what goes in the sidechain on the Empress. For ease of use, I vote Diamond, great if you like the tone (I do).
So, a slightly belated welcome to TB, BecDeCorbin — have you settled on something?
Thanks SV777. I've obviously still much to learn about compressors. Been studying the dang things for a few years... still always something new to fathom. I asked 'cause a big knob on the attack or release might obscure the LEDs.
I would vote for the Empress. It's super easy to use largely because of its FANTASTIC metering, so you know exactly what it's doing (except when you're running heavy parallel compression, obviously). Noise level is fantastic too. There's also the Cali76 CB, on which it's hard to find a bad setting. Super easy to use and the built in sidechain HPF is fantastic. The metering jewel is garbage, though, and it's happiest on 18V. There are many other great comps out there (Markbass, FEA) but they aren't as easy to set up. The Markbass in particular has a gorgeous, extremely natural-sounding action but the controls have so much range you'll be tweaking for a while (and if you have another instrument, more so).
Well as with everything, it's a trade off since none have everything I want. I think that the internal side chain, hpf and blend of the Cali76 bass are making me lean toward it. If it were in a rack and had better metering, it'd be perfect for what I want.@SV777 For the MXR's small knob problem, get a OK-nob or whatever the largest knob you can fit on it to reduce the turn ratio and better control the "threshold" (do you mean attack or release?).
***************
Bongomania puts it best on his Ovnilab site: "...particularly of interest to anyone wanting a 'dbx 160A in a pedal'."
I've got an LMB3, I don't recommend it for what you set out in the OP, and subsequent posts.
"I want to simply achieve smoother, more even dynamics/volume across the board. That's all I want, but I want it to deliver in spades.
I sometimes have a staccato tendency to my finger style and induce peaks that I don't want."
"I want whatever will give me the smoothest, most natural unsquashed even levels I can find. It looks like there are more good pedal options than there are rackmount these days."
As an aside. out of the Origin offerings, I liked the transformerless Cali76 Standard best, lucked out and was given one. It's totally transparent to my ears, but is still more complex to set than my other comps. Lots of great suggestions in the thread. Empress or MXR have the lights which really help when first getting to know compression, the Empress has that sidechain feature similar to the Cali76 Compact Bass has, but you get to decide what goes in the sidechain on the Empress. For ease of use, I vote Diamond, great if you like the tone (I do).
So, a slightly belated welcome to TB, BecDeCorbin — have you settled on something?
Anything 500 series is a deal breaker for me. I'll not be a slave to the necessary module, or use all those rack spaces.
