TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
This isn’t true- the HPF only affects the sidechain, the entire signal is still sent through the compressor. When you use an HPF on a sidechain, it means that the lows from your signal will no longer trigger the compressor (the sidechain is an independent signal sent to the threshold-sensing device in the compressor so it knows when to trigger- most often known when sending a completely independent outside signal like a kick drum to the side-chain of a studio compressor for interesting pulsing effects in time with the beat)- however once your playing passes the compressor’s triggering threshold the entire signal is still compressed. The sidechain HPF is useful for tightening the action/sensitivity of a compressor that is otherwise triggered too much by low-frequency transients (which can cause a compressor to trigger too often or even all the time with a bass or kick drum and squash your dynamics too much). A sidechain HPF won’t necessarily cause your signal to have more or less bass, it just affects the triggering of the compression.
Yes, but the sidechain doesn’t affect what signal is being compressed only when the compressor is triggered- the entire signal is still being compressed once the compressor is triggered
Yes. It may be easier to think of it in terms of kick drum compression- most of the signal coming from a kick drum is sub-harmonic in nature, and even little hits will create large sub-harmonic energy spikes. In the studio you would add a sidechain HPF to the kick drum compressor so that it was only triggering when there was an actual hit/attack on the note. The entire kick drum signal is still compressing, but the action of the compressor is tightened because it isn’t being triggered by this subharmonic noise. In the case of a bass guitar there can still be a lot of this subharmonic noise happening in between note attacks that can trigger the compression circuit in a way that doesn’t follow your playing dynamics, so a sidechain HPF will tighten up the response.
You’ll have to elaborate... I haven’t read all of this thread yet...
“All buttons in” mode is pretty quirky, and it should be quite audible when it’s functioning (it certainly is on my HL) regardless of the gauge function. Are you saying you can’t hear it working even with Threshold and Blend cranked? Most pedal gain-reduction gauges aren’t super precise/accurate, and there is usually compression happening before you ever see it expressed on the meter. In particular when you are using attack/release settings like yours, your nominal compression time is quite short and the “all buttons” mode changes this attack in quirky ways as part of its inherent tone ( here’s a cool explanation of the original that the HL was based on: What is "All-Button Mode"? ). The “all buttons in” setting is capable of some heavy compression on mine, but the visual reference in particular seems does seem somewhat less sensitive than the other ratio settings. It is very much an “effecty” kind of compression setting, so for me most of the subtlety I dial in with it is just about how much Clean signal I am blending in. I adjust it to ear (if it sounds good, it is good!), but if you need a visual reference I would adjust the time knob for a faster attack to see if it changes anything visually and set the threshold like that then return the attack knob where you like it.
