compressor pedal

Have any of you used a compressor pedal when jamming or playing live? I'm trying to get a feel of what the benefits would be. I usually play with distortion.

Or is a compressor used more often with a cleaner sound?

~Rusty

Hey rusty. In a .nut shell used for distortion it will bring more sustain and fatness and can produce a hiss sound.
And make loud volume softer.
For a clean ,channel it will give you a bit clicky tone with alot of ssustain.

Originally Posted by: bbzswa777Have any of you used a compressor pedal when jamming or playing live? I'm trying to get a feel of what the benefits would be. I usually play with distortion.

Or is a compressor used more often with a cleaner sound?

~Rusty

A compressor does exactly what it says, It compresses the frequencies. That is to say that it removes certain frequencies and leaves whatever is not removed. What those frequencies are is due to how you set up the pedal's settings.

The idea is to get rid of frequencies that don't add to your sound and leaving behind the desired frequencies.

It can be quite effective for distorted and overdriven tones like axe was saying. With good tone/EQ settings, compression can bring out the really good, fat tones.

It's a dangerous tool because many people overuse it. Worth looking in to. I never used one but really, I used my Dunlop Wah in the 'full down/on position' which filtered out certain frequencies and sort acted like a compressor. It made a difference...though I did that because I wanted a Wah and couldn't afford a compressor. When I found out that leaving it one helped my tone. I stuck with it.

Now? I'd get an actual compressor. More adjustability.

Look in to it.

So it would definitely be a good idea to get a noise gate as well? Because that way I could leave out unwanted buzzing before the signal goes into the compressor. Right?

I wanted to make a noise gate to possibly use with the ROG Thunderbird, then a friend suggested the octagon/stop sign would be funny as a noise gate. So looking for noise gates and found the AMZ Q&D 2, which is a compressor as well and still fits the stop sign joke and has a mute function.