Should i be interested in a compressor pedal?

[thefruitfarmer]

I would say the trick is having the ability to blend in the compression with the uncompressed signals.

That way you can have the extra punch and eveness without sucking all the dynamics out of your playing. There is a happy sweet spot that when you find, and it may take a while to hear it, adds that something extra.

Not always necessary for everyone of course.

Happy with a Wampler Ego, which has the blend control on it. You could use a blender like Boss LS-2 and a compressor without a blend on it, but then you have to pay the £85 for it and have an extra pedal to take up space.

Played without mine the other day and missed it, it tidies up my playing quite a lot.

 

[Worldeeeter]

Nope!

 

[Matt O]

For recording, compression on bass is a pretty good idea, some would say it's a necessity. Allows you to bring the bass forward in the mix without blowing everything up. In the studio, I don't use a pedal comp though, I run without and let the engineer handle it with an LA-2A or something fancy like that.

Live is a different scene. I went for years without a compressor in my signal chain, until a very well respected sound man suggested I give one a try. I tried a few different comps and found that if it had more than two knobs, I couldn't get a good sound. That says more about me than the pedals, btw.

I settled on a BBE Optostomp, the old quieter version. It's simple, 2 knobs and a switch! It's an optical compressor, so it acts a bit like an LA-2A and it's capable of soft compression, which is what I'm after. I don't use it very often, it actually depends on the stage. If the stage is super live or boomy sounding, I'll run it. They key is finding its sweet spot where it's not squashing and it's not boosting, it's just leveling and that depends on the stage. It really can give me that tight connection with the kick drum if I dial it right on one of those hopeless sounding stages.

Anyway, do I need one? Probably not. Does it help out every now and then? Yep.

 

[BottomsUp99]

I think it's a really useful item to have in your "toolbox". I've got an old analog Ibanez CP10 which also provides good sustain. A compressor will offer TONS of versatility to other effects too if you experiment with where is in the path.

 

[taylor16]

I wonder that same question myself time to time. I take the compressor away and then I feel sad.

 

[mc900ftj]

I run mine at the end. I don't want compression before my effects, and I like to even out the clean/effected volume a bit

I tend to run mine in the middle of my chain. I've found that some effects work better with the more even signal the compressor delivers, like my octave pedal. Some effects that rely more on signal dynamics, like filters, seem to "prefer" being before the compressor. My $0.02.

OP: Mine's almost always on, for *subtle* compression even when playing fingerstyle.