Versatile compression pedal, from transparent to "squished" and/or thick sounding

[xj98jeep]

Hello friends, I'm looking to get my first ever compressor. I really don't know what I want and I live in an extremely rural area so I really can't play any.

So, I'm looking for a pedal that can run the gamut. Transparent, mild compression to fully squished, and/or a thick/fat compressor tone as well. And if there are other tonal choices I'm unaware of, I'd love to be able to access those too.

Don't reeeally care about EQ adjustment as my basses are all active and I have an EBS valvedrive pedal but if a good compressor has a lot of eq options that's fine.

 

[Feral Feline]

... I really don't know what I want ...

I'll suggest you figure out what you want first. There is no jack-of-all-compression pedal out there that I know of. Different types of compressors yield different types of results for different types of needs/compression: OTA, OPTICAL, VCA and FET; then there are different circuit-designs within each of those aforementioned types that will yield different compression characteristics.

For transparency I use a Cali76, for mild tone-phattening it's my Diamond, for hard limiting my Boss LMB-3. For gigging... nothing.

There's the Compressor Review thread here on TB that begat its own web page and TB'er Bongomania's Ovnilab reviews as well, but maybe start with his FAQ first to determine what your needs are, then decide what your wants are and hopefully wants and needs will match.


It's a deeeeeeep rabbit hole to explore...

 

[squarewave]

Let me add that a feature I think is very useful when “learning” compression is the existence of an led, or better yet series of led’s that indicate what the compressor is doing with the signal.

My Keeley compressor Pro has an led that indicates crossing the threshold and seven more that show gain reduction from -1 to -20 dB.

 

[Lesfunk]

I don’t use compression myself but I’ve heard these are quite good