Becos CompIQ Mini vs the Keeley Bassist

[jschulman]

I love the sound, or lack thereof, of VCA compression. For years the Keeley Bassist has been a reliable part of my board. But last week I learned about the Becos CompIQ Mini. I bought it right away and it has replaced the Keeley as the "always-on" compressor on my board. Here's what I found:

- They both use the same THAT 4320 chip, and they sound very similar. There's no dramatic difference in the sound of either pedal. The Keeley makes my transients sound fantastic, and the Becos does too. They're both completely transparent, low noise, low distortion, no real color to speak of.
- Basic controls are the same: Threshold, Ratio ("Compression" on the Keeley) and Gain. Dialing in a similar compression template is a breeze.
- Becos has a switchable sidechain filter. According to the manual, the "normal" mode already attenuates frequencies below 1k, allowing lower frequencies to pass through unaffected. However in "deep" mode, "more of the lower end frequency (an additional -12dB@130Hz) is freed up to prevent triggering compressor kicking in too early". In deep mode my low end remains strong and it makes all of my pedals down the chain sound better. Again, I suspect the Keeley does something similar, since that pedal has no loss of low end to speak of, but with the Becos set to deep my low end just seems fatter. Maybe this is an auditory illusion on my part? Or maybe the sidechain on the Becos is allowing more of my low end to pass through?
- Metering on the Becos shows gain reduction with significantly more clarity and specificity. This is huge for me. I'm colorblind, and the green/red indicator LED on the Keeley drives me insane. These colors look identical. The Becos has a 5-LED gain reduction meter which gives me much more insight into what exactly the pedal is doing.
- Attack time - I can choose between "slow", which sounds similar to the speed of the Keeley, and "fast", which is a much more dynamic squeeze and will work well if I ever want to use this with my guitar.
- Soft vs Hard knee - This switch is a pain in the ass to access on the Becos, but the Hard option combined with the fast attack setting gives this pedal more power as a limiter. It also sounds good if I really want my transient to pop. Soft combined with a slow attack makes transient sound subtle, complex and creamy, and it's the setting I see myself using most.
- Wet/Dry blend - Another giant plus for the Becos. One studio trick I love is using a Dbx160 plugin to smash my drums or my bass, and then adding the dry signal in parallel. On the Becos I can get silly with my threshold/ratio, giving myself a strong, exaggerated transient, then mix in some dry signal to make it sound more like a natural part of my tone. This makes the Becos a much more flexible bass compressor than the Keeley.
- Microscopic footprint - How Becos got all of this into such a small enclosure is magic. This thing is TINY.

So yeah that pretty much covers it. The Becos is now my go-to. Anyone else try these two pedals back to back?

 

[Slaymus]

Thanks for the detailed review ! I'm a VCA compressor guy and I really liked the Bassist, but there was a little bit too much compression on the low end when the treble (d-g strings) was perfect. Seems like the Becos with its sidechain will be the answer for my search (and tiny size as a bonus).

 

[scubaduba]

+1 for the Becos. I too would gladly take it instead of the Keeley Bassist. Great comp/limiter in a small package.

 

[boing]

The Bassist and the Becos have both been mentioned in threads about limiting at the end of the pedal chain. Given the HPF on the sidechain, would either of these be less useful when dealing with low frequency spikes from filters and other modulation effects?

 

[jschulman]

For a while I did use the Keeley at the end of my chain, and it handled low spikes well. I haven't done the same with the Becos, but I'd imagine it should be fine with a relatively high threshold, fast attack, and the side chain set to normal.

 

[CassiusRegular]

I love Becos products, you cannot miss

 

[600 Ohms]

I've owned both, and while I liked the extra features on the Becos, I found I never was happy with either Fast or Slow attack, and the Soft or Hard knee... somehow the Bassist just sounded more natural to me, with its simple controls. Ultimately, I sold both and kept a Keeley GC-2, which is the Bassist, but lets a few more dBs of low end through the sidechain. The GC-2 managed to make popped and picked notes fatter—they seem to add low end, probably the extra gain kicking in before being clamped down on. The Becos was brilliant, it just didn't have as much of a vibe for my liking. I'm glad yours is working for you.

 

[NotAnOnto]

Thanks to all who contributed to this topic, this was exactly the info I was looking for. Let me revive the thread with a question.

I have a Keeley Bassist at the end of the signal chain (after octaver, drives, and phaser), and I like how it sounds, however I feel like it clamps down too much when I turn on the octaver (MXR Bass Octaver Deluxe). I think what is happening is that the comp reacts too much to the low end of the sub-octave.

I think the Becos Mini would serve me well with the side chain, however I love the simplicity and form factor of the Keeley, and now I am tempted by the GC-2. If the GC-2 reacts less to bass frequencies, would that solve my problem of the compressor clamping too hard on the sub-octave?

In general, I am a bit confused by the difference between GC-2 and Bassist. If the GC-2 reacts less to bass frequencies, wouldn't that make it more appropriate for bass guitar? If that is so, why not market the GC-2 to bassists? Why make another similar pedal that is called "Bassist"? Or am I missing something?

 

[600 Ohms]

I think the Becos Mini would serve me well with the side chain, however I love the simplicity and form factor of the Keeley, and now I am tempted by the GC-2. If the GC-2 reacts less to bass frequencies, would that solve my problem of the compressor clamping too hard on the sub-octave?

It would only solve it by about 2dB more low end escaping, tops. It's a minor difference.

In general, I am a bit confused by the difference between GC-2 and Bassist. If the GC-2 reacts less to bass frequencies, wouldn't that make it more appropriate for bass guitar? If that is so, why not market the GC-2 to bassists? Why make another similar pedal that is called "Bassist"? Or am I missing something?

In my opinion, and I've said this elsewhere here, the GC-2 is the better bass compressor. I'll go on record as saying that Keeley got the marketing backwards, while getting the product so very right. But these are functionally identical units minus the difference I can hear (above) and some people will not hear that difference.

If I was you, I'd just back off my threshold a bit, but if you want a "one-setting" pedal, yeah this might bug you slightly.

 

[NotAnOnto]

It would only solve it by about 2dB more low end escaping, tops. It's a minor difference.

Thanks, then I won't bother with the GC-2. I might order the Becos at some point, I'll report here if I do.

 

[Johno Dunn]

I own the Becos, but have never owned a Keely. I agree with everything the OP wrote. I have always leaned more to opto comps, but love what the the Becos does. I run my comp in one of the loops in my Bass GT1000 CORE, and have it set so I have a dry signal and a compressed signal running at the same time. This gives me a very transparent compression, but allows my initial transients to really pop, then finish with a very creamy and full tone. Exactly what I was looking for in a compressor. Makes my fretless really sing!

 

[Wfrance3]

I have had the Keeley before, and just changed over to BECOS. It's a solid pedal, small footprint, and has the added blend knob. I have tried quite a few compressors over the years. The thing I never quite made peace with is the (for lack of a better description) soul stealing that happens to your tone with processing. - Especially if you have a passive bass with decent pickups, processing just steals a certain amount of the mojo. I like how my bass sounds plugged straight into an amp. Anything I add takes a little of that away. The BECOS lets you add some of that back, gets you a nice and tight, clean boost, and a little extra sustain. It's a keeper for sure.

 

[n!k]

I have the Keeley Bassist on my big board and Becos CompIQ on my small board. I agree that side by side I can barely tell the difference in sound between them. Keeley definitely has some kind of side-chain compression going on because they don't react differently that I can tell. I'll keep both on the big/small boards but I think I prefer the Keeley overall. I use it as a hard limiter so I don't use the blend knob on the Becos, it's always 100% wet. I think the Fast knee is a little too fast where you can get some clamp/chug kind of sound, so I use the Soft knee. The Keeley feels a little more smooth to me, a little more transparent when I play. Sometimes the Becos clamps down on something loud and squishes; the Keeley just seems like it makes it no louder than it should be, it's hard to explain but it feels different. Other than how it seems to respond and the smoothness, you really gotta hand it to Becos for making something so good in such a tiny package.