Hiwatts-n-Gibsons
Well-known member
Have you thought about pulling a rectifier tube and pair of power tubes from the Stiletto with it on the tube rectifier setting? It should give you some gorgeous bloom, sag, and power amp compression.
BeZo
Well-known member
I like where the amp sits right now. Besides, I need the power to run the full stack.
I'm still just running the EQD Warden for compression into both amps. I think I want to try that Diamond though. I should DM Wayne...
griff10672
Well-known member
come to me Bezo .............
BeZo
Well-known member
What mods would you do besides the guitar/bass switch? Would it even need a guitar/bass switch? EQ?
griff10672
Well-known member
I could add a EQ bypass switch .... a Hicut filter ... that will reduce some noise ... especially if you're using it with a OD/Distortion
as far as a Bass knob .... you would have to pick bass or guitar from the get go .... there's to many parts that need to switch to go from the original to the Bass version that was released a few years after the original
BeZo
Well-known member
I think the guitar version is fine. I like the MXR Bass Compressor on my bass board. Is this still in a standard size enclosure, or are you going to need a bigger box?
griff10672
Well-known member
pretty sure I can get it into a 125B ....
CJ7
Member
I just ordered the Abasi Aggressor. If I can remember I'll report back when it arrives next week.
TheGreatGreen
Well-known member
One of my favorite comps is the Origin Compact Deluxe. It manages to compress without changing much about the balance of the guitar’s frequencies. A lot of compressors can warm up the guitar too much and sort of round off the highs, but the Origin doesn’t. It maintains the top end sheen even with a lot of squish dialed in.
Another good one is the Suhr Woodshed Comp. It’s great for more subtle stuff. It kinda lifts up and embiggens the quietest playing into being a bit more audible and full sounding without really impacting the heavier handed playing. It’s great for keeping all the parts of dynamic playing audible without squashing things too much.
I don’t like running compressors on anything with more gain than you’d get out of something like a 2203, but for cleaner or EoB stuff, the right comp is magical.
Another good one is the Suhr Woodshed Comp. It’s great for more subtle stuff. It kinda lifts up and embiggens the quietest playing into being a bit more audible and full sounding without really impacting the heavier handed playing. It’s great for keeping all the parts of dynamic playing audible without squashing things too much.
I don’t like running compressors on anything with more gain than you’d get out of something like a 2203, but for cleaner or EoB stuff, the right comp is magical.
eero
Active member
try a compressor also for lead... you will be surprised (with the right settings)
CJ7
Member
So I received it and played around a bit with this. If you're a fan of Tosin and AAL and their sound, this is a cheat code to instantly get a lot of the bass-y-ness and definition/clarity Tosin/Javier have, especially from The Joy of Motion and onward.
The Good:
- looks great. Not very important, but it's simple but elegant. Also when it's on the logo glows white, and when it is actually compressing it turns purple. The harder the pedal works the darker the purple shade is. Purple's my favorite color, so I love this.
- Sounds amazing. My tapping, selective picking, and legato immediately gets more articulate. I A/B'd it with the compressor in the Helix (my only amp at the moment) and it's night and day. All of my picking has received the tonal boost and clarity as well. It really gives a bit of bass to it to help distinguish each note in, say, fast gallops or fast down picking sections. The best demo that really shows this is the one Spiro did.
- Controls - very simple. I like simple to understand.
The Bad:
- very noisy. My pedal settings are fairly tame, both compression circuits are rather low, and it's crazy loud on high gain. I only was able to tame some of the static-y noise by bypassing my drive in the Helix and lowering the gain on the amp model (Revv Purple). I need to record some samples and see if the static/noise will be heard in a mix, or if I'm just overthinking it. With low compression settings it's not bad, but noticeable.
- this thing gets very bass heavy very fast. I had to cut some bass on the eq of the patch because it was booming. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but worth mentioning if you don't want a super bassy compression.
All in all I'm happy with it. I'm looking forward to getting a tube amp later this year and playing with it outside the Helix. On my clean channels this thing was great. I'm curious as to what settings Tosin uses for his high gain tones. I know AAL isn't crazy high gain, so I'm sure he can get away with more than I can on my Revv Purple channel. I'm also going to make a more mid-gain channel when I have time to play with it to see if that makes this thing shine.
If you want a transparent compressor, don't even consider this. It almost feels like this is a bass booster and tonal shaping pedal with the secondary effect of compressing, but I play a lot of tapping and selective picking, and it is perfect for that. It also gives that staccato'd effect to my fast picking, which I didn't know I wanted until I heard it. If I can tame the noise and/or the noise doesn't effect the tone in the mix than this pedal will be 10/10.
G
gclef
Member
I rarely use compression.
The only time is when I want a humbucker tone from a tele. I add midboost and some gain to match tone, and then compression to get that humbucker feel.
The only time is when I want a humbucker tone from a tele. I add midboost and some gain to match tone, and then compression to get that humbucker feel.
Q
QVonesh
New member
I loved my old Keely Compressor pedal
CJ7
Member
Update - I had some time to mess with it, and I started clean with a new patch on the Helix. I've been on an ENGL kick lately, so using their Fireball patch i was able to get this thing quiet with higher settings than previously. I then was able to change up my Revv Purple patch to also tame the noise.
New Settings:
Level: 9:30
Bloom: 11:30
Smack: 10:00
Previously my Level was closer to 8:30, Bloom at 10:00 and Smack at 7:30-8:00. So I've really upped the amount of compression in both circuits and increased the level. I really don't know that I'd want (for what I play) to be much higher than this anyway.
Turns out the type of OD I used on my Revv patch didn't like the Abasi. I changed "Horizon Drive" over to the 808 and that killed the noise greatly. I also use the "Noise Gate" now on both front and back gates instead of a mix of the "Hard Gate" and "Horizon Gate". The Revv still gets more noise than the ENGL patch, but I prefer the sound of the ENGL with less gain, so this was to be expected.
Overall this really solved my only issue with the pedal. I love the effect. Sorry to derail this thread, but I wanted to make sure if anyone was put off by my comments that they could see it was my patch building skills' fault, not the pedal.
