I use flats on a Stingray as my typical tonal starting point. I roll most of the highs off of my bass and play through a Fender Bassman tube amp. I say all this to say that my tone is fairly old school and dark. Many of the YouTube compressor examples I see are folks with rounds and a really bright tone and slapping. I slap and am curious what if any benefit I would get out of a compressor with flats or if that will have any effect at all. Is there still much to be gained tonally from a compressor when you have a darker old school tone?
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Compression and flatwounds?
- Thread starter armybass
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- compression flatwounds
Tonally, not much.
Pretty much you would only "benefit" from the volume clipping aspect in my view (if that would even be a benefit in your situation).
Oversimplified, it chops off volume spikes. So if your pop is a ton louder than your slap, it will level that out for you.
But if your style doesn't produce a lot of volume spikes you may not benefit from a compressor at all.
Pretty much you would only "benefit" from the volume clipping aspect in my view (if that would even be a benefit in your situation).
Oversimplified, it chops off volume spikes. So if your pop is a ton louder than your slap, it will level that out for you.
But if your style doesn't produce a lot of volume spikes you may not benefit from a compressor at all.
I'll offer a general response just to get your thread bumping, but I would think that superior compression would improve your tone to the extent you wish to wring all available detail out of your tone. And the harder the squash it, the more juice you'll wring.
Also a general thought, but of my sound maven pals has says that all things being equal, a bit of judicious compression nearly always improves a mix or track. He said the human ear and the way we tilt our head is an example of how when we listen we protect against peak transients and the like.
All that and $4.95 gets you a grande latte at my local Starbucks. Happy Holiday, and subbed to thread.
If you're playing through an all-tube amp, then you're already getting some compression from the power section of the amp, and more may be redundant if you're not getting any spikes.
I think it all depends on what comp you use. I've been trying to develop a taste for it again lately, and I just discovered that simple old school circuits like the Dyna Comp and CS-2 are pretty cool for adding some juice to the low end, plus you can play lightly and get big fat loud notes that pop out. I just got this little $20 compressor called the Kokko Compressor which is based on the CS-2 and it's excellent for that kind of thing. I don't think it's a necessity, but it does do some interesting things with big low endy sounds.
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A lot 60s and 70s recordings have judicious use of compression with flat wound strings.
?
The Dyna Comp/Ross Comp and the many nee plethora of comps based on this circuit are well-documented at losing low end.
The low end they lose isn't important to old school bass tones, IMHO.
^This.
Unless you’re clipping and need additional limiting on your signal I wouldn’t bother. I’m a believer in the benefits of using compression when it’s needed. But I never use outboard compressors when I’m plugged into an all tube amp.
Hmm…Now that I’m thinking about it I just realized that the light compression settings I favor tend to make what I’m playing through sound and respond as much like a good tube head and old school 15” cabs as I can get it.
Who knew?
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I have a Stingray with flats as my only bass, and my compressor is always on. The only time it’s off is if I need huge low end for reggae or the like. I love the fat squish!
i just ordered one for $18 and change off of amazon. it'll be fun to play with.
have you had time to play with your kokko compressor? if so, what do you think of it so far?
Oh yeah, I've played it pretty extensively. I ended up liking the Boss LMB-3 better overall, but the Kokko juices up the midbass and low mids in a very cool way IMHO. What I didn't like about it is it takes a little too much dynamic range out of the equation. Like if we play a song where I need to be quiet, I found that it doesn't want to quiet down as much as I'd like. I've found that to be par for the course with most pedal comps, though, and it's why I'm enjoying the LMB-3 more. It's a limiter and doesn't really mess with quiet dynamic range. It can, but doesn't have to, whereas the Kokko does. But it's still a good little pedal. For $20 I'll never complain about the job it does.
thanks for the response
i've had virtually no experience with compressors. i figured if i enjoyed this one, maybe i'd grab something better. but to get my feet (or should that be strings?) wet, the price was hard to argue with.
Come on, dude. You're not dealing with a newb here.I suppose they can, although I'm not sure what the cutoff point is, and I wouldn't be buying a compressor in place of an HPF if I needed an HPF.