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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
 Posted - 05/03/2006 : 22:25:21
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I'm going to have to fess up and admit that I'm a bit ignorant about how to correctly use one. I know in principle how they're supposed to work, but does anyone have any suggestions as to the correct approach to take when dialing in settings?
I won a CS-2 yesterday and it's on the way here. Initially I was thinking that I probably would never really have use for compression, but I'm wondering if it could be used to add additional sustain to notes effectively.
C.K.
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FRANZONI
Double Platinum Member
Ireland
3543 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2006 : 04:52:07
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i have a cs3 and i use it after the wah in front of all my other pedals basically to drive the dist/overdrive/fuzz a little bit harder and to use as a booster for clean solos... i set it,level 60% tone 50% attack 100% and compression about 30%... i think some of these later boss pedals get a lot of bad press a lot of it depends on the guitar and amp you use..... i had a mxr micro amp years ago and it did nothing for me as a booster pedal,i also had a aria compressor which i'm sorry i sold......heard a lot of good things about the cs2 though.....at the end of the day there's no bad sound its all down to personal preference especially with compressors,i use effects to get the sounds i want ... i also found compression handy for sustaining chords ie when your doing volume swells to create 'synth' effects, mix in some echo and modulation effects and a couple of amps in stereo....  |
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StratoSphere
Double Platinum Member
Canada
2232 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2006 : 13:40:47
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| most people like to use compression before everything to drive other pedals. some like to use it after everything, especially if you use a lot of effects, so all your effects sound equal volume. either way is good i find. |
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Dingus
Silver Member
USA
472 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2006 : 17:48:26
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The problem with compression: Noise/Hiss
When I originally got what Boss so colorfully labeled as a Compressor/Sustainer. I thought "Alright, I finally can get some sweet sustain"
Little did I know that most people who would "professionaly" use a Stock Boss CS-3, would barely turn their Sustain knob up at all and used it mostly as a compressor for things like chickin pickin.
After going through all 3 Versions of the Boss CS-3. I have determined that they all suffer from the same awful hiss when the sustain is turned up. Now in theory sustain is just boosting the volume at the end of a note or chord where it would normally decay. This is therefore called sustain and works really well on things like a piano/keyboard.
The reason I believe this hiss is created when the sustain is turned up is the same reason you can't crank the volume on a record player up without usually hearing hiss. It's because the hiss was there all along, and it was below your threshold of hearing until you boosted it.
Now in my quest to find a compressor pedal without this hiss, I tried quite a few, I tried a CS-1, and a CS-2 as well as those 3 versions (Blk MIJ, Blk MIT, Slv MIT) of the CS-3, also some crappy old DOD Compressor, the Danelectro Mini one, and the Digitech Main Squeeze one.
About my setup:
Guitar: Fender American Standard Stratocaster/Gibson Les Paul Studio/Samick SG Copy/Ibanez GIO (completely upgraded, pickups replaced by Seymour Duncan Invader, and a Seymour Duncan Jazz, as well as the addition of a Roland GK2a Midi(GK) Pickup
Monster Cables going into Compressor/Sustainer
Monster Cables going into Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus Amplifier (When I run in stereo I send another set of cables to two smaller Marshall Amps.
Anyways with the basic setup of lets say: Les Paul> CS-2 (which is by far my favorite of the Boss Compressors)> Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus Amplifier
I still get quite a bit of hiss coming off the CS-2. That's mostly only noticable when a pedal after it like an overdrive or distoriton is kicked on.
So what's the problem you say, distortion is supposed to be noisy so the hiss of the CS-2 shouldnt matter.
I agree with you, but what about rests in songs?
When I rest for a whole note or so, I would like to be able to mute my strings without that awful hiss.
Why dont you just use an NF-1 or NS-2??
Well I have both of these, and they're fine and all, particularly the NS-2. But if I get the suppresion to a level where it is fast enough to catch me on just a rest, it decays the sound much quicker than it would without the compressor/sustainer.
And my original goal was just more sustain.
I also don't understand why people would use a Compressor/Sustainer to boost or drive things. I would just use an MXR Micro Amp for a boost, mine hits the spot for me and works just fine, especially compared to my Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster, which just kinda sucks.
My solution right now is to get another Boss CS-3 and have it modded by Mark Humphrey who apparently knows how to make those pieces of junk work right. I was gonna try either of the two CS-3 Mods by Monte Allums, but when I e-mailed him he just went on and on about how I could never really get rid of the hiss just supress it a little. Mark Humphrey has a much better reputation from what I understand, and as much as I love everything Brian Wampler of Indyguitarist does, the mod in his "how to modify effects book" just isnt enough for me as it involves replacing very few parts and he mentions that it only helps with the hiss, not eliminates it.
Anyway that's my long rant about Compression. Thanks for your time if you bothered reading all of it.
p.s. yeah I know, to whoever tells me to use the LS-2. But I can't afford all the Monster Cables it takes to run one of those right now, and I decided I'm only doing the top of the line Monster Cables from here on out, after a bunch of patch cables died on me the other day. |
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FRANZONI
Double Platinum Member
Ireland
3543 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2006 : 18:21:24
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| just to clear up the booster issue.. i use the cs3,if for example were doing some tunes ie dire straits etc or some country chickin pickin where the guitar has to be clean,i find the compressor helps to give the guitar a bit of an 'edge' not as a huge clean boost to drive an amp..... in the old days(before the good old internet)our choice of pedals in ireland was limited mostly to boss or arion,rocktek etc or if you were lucky an old mxr or electro harmonix secondhand... maybe i'm just set in my ways with the cs3....!!! |
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pawnshop_trash
Gold Member
USA
603 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2006 : 18:43:48
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I'm with you, Dingus... the CS-3 is the only Boss pedal I've ever sold, and I gave up on compression for guitar for pretty much the same reason (too much hiss, too little sound quality), although at this stage I'll probably keep my old CS-2.
and I also try to use only high quality patch/instrument cables these days. (forget repairing one -- that's a false economy.) if you're using buffered (like Boss) pedals, I guess the first cable (from instrument to first pedal) is the most important, though....
regarding Monster brand cables, have you (or anyone) noticed any quality difference between the older black and gold cables vs. the newer black and silver cables? |
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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2006 : 19:44:24
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Thanks very much to everyone for the responses. and I did read your entire post, Dingus... that was a very informative way of looking at things.
I had a CS-3 which I bought back in '93 or so, but barely took it out of the box (it's part of the phostenix collection now). I had gotten a PS-2 before it, and somehow I recall reading somewhere that the PS-2's shifting would work better if it had compression ahead of it. But I never really got that far along with any of that, and dropped out of playing for several years afterward, sold the PS-2 around that same time.
The one time that I did sit down with a compressor and worked with it at length was years earlier than that, and it was one of those cheapie plastic case MXR pedals -- remember those? They came out in 1981 or so. What I remembered about it was that it would squish the initial note attack down, and then increase the level of it as the amplitude decayed -- but unfortunately it added a lot of noise the longer you tried to sustain it. It was all very obtrusive to the overall sound and actually annoying. So I gave the pedal back to the salesperson.
I just thought that perhaps I didn't really know what I was doing back then, and in looking over my collection of sorts I realized that a compressor was one thing I didn't have, so I decided to give it another try for grins. Like pawnshop_trash, I'll probably hang onto it no matter what. I have an original Micro Amp, and there's clean boost to be had from the PQ-4, the BD-2, the OD-3 and the Morley volume/boost pedal, so I won't really need any boost from the compressor. But some of the other things you've mentioned will be things to experiment with.
This was a great response from all of you, though -- thanks again...
C.K.
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phostenix
Gold Member
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2006 : 20:20:03
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Any amplifier will add noise, the question is how much. As a note decays & the compressor tries to keep it at a certain level, the gain of its amplifier increases & so does its noise. As long as the noise is much less than the guitar signal, you don't really notice it, but as the compressor starts to increase the gain and the original signal is getting smaller & smaller, pretty soon the noise is real obvious.
The chicken-pickin' sound is cool if you're going for that, and using a compressor in front of a pitch shifter or harmonist makes sense because it will tend to even out the level of the guitar signal, making it easier for the shifter to detect the frequency of the note acurately. Analog chorus, flanger, and delay pedals that can be overdriven to distortion also benefit from a compressor in front of them to help limit the signal. Some chorus & delay pedals have "compander" chips in them to do that for you.
I've always wanted a compressor to be transparent as far as the attack of the note is concerned, but give some added sustain at the end. I have not found a box that does that yet. The CS-1, CS-3, ME-50, Ibanez PUE-5 all squish the note as well as sustain it. I picked up an Arion compressor the other day that was the squishiest thing I've ever heard. It couldn't come close to being transparent. As you play, it pumps & breathes like crazy. Great if you want heavy compression with distortion on rythym stuff, but not what I'm looking for. I haven't played through rack gear compressors, but my guess is that the high dollar stuff would be able to achieve better sustain with less noise & allow for adjustment of the attack to be more transparent.
Grace and peace,
Steve
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redzone
Copper Member
United Kingdom
35 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2006 : 22:23:31
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| The Boss RCL-10 compressor/limter from the MicroRack series has a built in noise gate, this should keep the noise down. |
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StratoSphere
Double Platinum Member
Canada
2232 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2006 : 23:27:58
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| i have an RCL-10 and i cant even notice when its on... it must be very subtle...but it does have built in noise gate |
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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
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phostenix
Gold Member
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 05/05/2006 : 02:13:33
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My favorite pedal name is the Toadworks (I think) compressor. It's called Mr. Squishy. Me gusta.
I've heard that (one of ?) the Danelectro compressor is supposed to be a clone of the Ross for much less. It might be worth checking out just to see if that internet rumor is true or not.
Grace and peace,
Steve
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1964
Copper Member
39 Posts |
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kAz
Copper Member
USA
8 Posts |
Posted - 05/05/2006 : 15:33:27
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Hi, I have CS-2.
I basically use it to create an atmospheric effect, letting the chords ring.
For this effect, I connect RAT -> CS-2 -> CE-2 -> DD-6 with CS-2 sustain all the way up. You will be able to deal well with the noise if you adjust the level. I don't have much problem this way.
And reverb makes the sound much cooler.
This way you can get a nice ambient effect. I sometimes do this just to relax with the lights out at night. |
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Topic |
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How To Use A Compressor?
