Compressors...yay or nay?

[SuperSwede]

Yay, I love to kick in a compressor when I play country licks!

[tot_Ou_tard]

Yay & nay.

I usually play without, but I'll occaisionally dial in a little subtle compression. Every once in a while I'll crank up the squish.

Very cool to have the different sound & feel. My adventures in compression are usually short-lived & off it goes. But I'm the same way with overdrives & I never use distortion or modulation. As a beginner I want the maximum dynamic range to really get to know my fingers & the strings, guitar, pickups, & amp.

[Jimi75]

Definitively, N A Y!

[goonrick]

Depending on the amp, a compressor after a distortion or in the FX loop of an SS amp does wonders. I have long used a Rocktron Surf Tremolo (which has Hush NR and a single-knob compressor built in) in those situations to great effect. Robert Keeley recommends this approach as well.

I'm not too big a fan of compression before a high gain stage, but it's fine before a clean channel. I think it's all in how you use it and it's highly variable on how decent a compressor you have. Crappy comps don't help anything any time... YMMV

[schenkadere]

Picked up a new old stock, made in the USA DOD Milk Box Compressor for 40 bucks yesterday. Not bad. A little hissy as usual, but lots of squish if you want it...good sustain, good gain, and "hi frequency expander" to put back some lost hi end if you like. This is the model with the ridiculous function names like "spill". The later one with the normal names is made in China.

Good bang for the buck. One of the better stomp box compressors. Not quite as good as my old DOD FX-80B...which was much less hissy, but also much more subtle and in turn...less fun.

I tried out the Boss CS-3...OMG what a useless piece of garbage...I can't believe they still sell that pedal.: