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Found a DOD FX84 Milkbox - Opinions and settings tips?

MakoMan

MakoMan

Oct 17, 2011
2,179
2,473
Ottawa, Canada
50proof.yolasite.com
#1
When I say found, I mean literally. Was over at a friend's house this morning who asked me to take a look of some old guitars and pedals he had (one of those guitars turned out to be a 1958 Valco Supro Dual Tone, but that's another story :D).
Anyway sitting in a box with a bunch of other pedals was this extremely dirty DOD FX84 Milkbox compressor. As, I have been toying with the idea of trying a compressor, and even searching local classifieds for a cheapie, I immediately confiscated it :hyper:
Although it is apparently not designed for bass it seems, from the little info I could find by searching, that the Milkbox will work fine as a bass compressor. I've been playing around with it today and it seems to work great. I'm fairly new to bass and not really completely sure what to do with a compressor but it definitely has potential. I just need to play with a bit more to find the settings I like.
If anyone could provide opinions about the Milkbox or suggest some settings it would be greatly appreciated, as would just general tips on using compression.
 
#4
Its a great compressor, I actually prefer it over the EBS multicomp which costs roughly 3times its price.

It compresses the top and let the bottom flow through, resulting in a slightly thicker sound when u turn it on. I set the compression usually around 30 to 40%. The 3rd and 4th knobs less than 20%. Adjust the volume accordingly to the compression, as you turn up the compression the volume gets louder aswell.
 
#6
I urge you to find a way to sound great without it. Perhaps not now, but some time. I really like mine but also like to turn it off and have my tone not be a disappointment.

At first I found it difficult to set it up so that there wasn't a big volume spike with it ON because I liked the way it sounds boosted (like a pre) so much, but for me it's there to tame my chain and spikes before my phaser and preamp so that the phaser sounds killer and doesn't add too much or take too much away from my overall volume.

Now I can rock it on the bassballs and not worry about clipping my WTDI (eden pre) because I like to leave that set pretty hot - and when I have my phaser on as well in EF mode (like an envelope filter) I don't worry about huge spikes because I can then use the compressor on the eden pre to just even out those spikes and not worry about a huge dynamic range. When it's all clean, milkbox off, WTDI bypassed, I don't have a big dip and also am back to my standard oldschool J-Bass through an amp tone that's still so great.

Especially with the 'is it in my head or does my pedalboard make my clean tone better' tasty bypass, it's one of those great finds at the local small town music store for about $50.

Have a lot of fun with that attack knob. Without a threshold control to set the slope/knee to your playing, the attack is the only way you can get peaks to protrude from an otherwise evened output. Mix that with the expander feature and there's no wonder why the FX84 (?) is one of the few really esteemed DOD pedals.
 
#8
I know this thread is ANCIENT but the Milkbox is an amazing piece of kit. I've got one of the original ones (with the silly names, not the explanations!) and with it set to 75%, 25%, 50% and 0% (left to right on the knobs), this thing sends just the right amount of signal to my Zoom B3 and sounds fabulous. Pick one up if you can!!
 

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