Compression, sustain, and necessity

Jake555

Jake555

Nov 2, 2010
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Toronto
#1
Hey all,

The mxr m87 is $300 in Canada and I can get a like-new one for 175. Pretty good price, but I just don’t know if i need a compressor. I read that dynamic control is in your fingers and using a compressor is cheating … i don’t care if I’m cheating, but i do also highly value technical ability. So if it’s cheating it mostly doesn’t matter imo.
I’m recording a demo and I notice that when I play chords the initial attack of the chord is hearable but quickly tapers off, I’m thinking new strings or a compressor would fix that (sustain). If I can get away with new strings for sustaining I’ll just buy coated strings, I really prefer less than a month old Ernie balls anyway, and elixirs are great!
Also I’m doing a little Instagram cover of Combustion by Meshuggah and it’s very hammer on/pull off, and I feel like a compressor would excel here with the right settings. But like, does flea use a compressor on his fingerstyle songs? I’d say my style is fairly aggressive fingerstyle. My style is flea fingerstyle Tim Commerford , a little distortion and aggressive fingering.
 
#2
Compression is not a substitute for poor technique. Compression can even out the volume between your lower and higher strings that can't be achieved through better technique alone. Sure, changing your pickup height might help, doing all sorts of things might help, but compression is used for any number of reasons by different people. You might find people like me who use it different points in the chain for different reasons: I like it to tame synth pedals and even things out, and with the synth pedals, it really helps the sustain of a dying note, and I like it as a tone sculpting pedal in getting a bit more fatness and tightness. For many, compression is an always on effect, largely for tonal benefits, but a lot of players love transparent compression that does what it needs to, but doesn't impart changes to the tone. If you're looking for compression to help with sustain, it will do that.
 
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#3
Chances are, everything you've ever heard on an album was compressed, every individual instrument. It might not have been a pedal, it may have been applied by the mix engineer, but everything short of jazz has compression applied for the last couple decades.

Tim C. uses a compressor on his boards.

A compressor with a clean blend allows you the best of both worlds: your clean, uncompressed bass parallel to the compressed signal, and you can mix to your taste.
 
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#4
It's all to do with your style and the compressor settings. If you like doing alot of hammer-on, pull-off technique and heavier style music, you'll probably appreciate it.

Also, it can be as heavy or transparent as you want it to be dependent on settings and if you have a good unit. People who are super anti compressor probably think all of them are going to squash your dynamics etc but that's not true at all with a proper setup.
 
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#6
There are some really great and useful posts on parallel compression that are worth checking out. I use the Empress Bass Compressor which has a clean blend that J Posega writes about above. I have it tweaked so my attack is largely in tact, but the wet sustained compressed sound comes to the fore as the dry note diminishes. For me, it's an always-on-pedal (along with my EQ) which also helps my other pedals downstream behave a lot more predictably.
 
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#7
I never use compression when rehearsing at home. I sometimes use it at gigs.

My favorite bass tone was way back in the day when I could crank up my 70's SVT rig to the point where the power tubes would begin to clip: overdrive. Another factor was the sustain that came from volume, plus pushing the limit of the 8x10 cab. These days an SVT is way too much rig for me to haul around, so if I want that tone I use an overdrive pedal, plus a compressor for sustain.

Important note: compression has a steep learning curve, so it may take some time for you to become familiar with it.
 
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#8
Ive mostly used Ampeg and Mesa amps and have used the onboard compressor.
I use it a bit to compress excessive attacks.
That's it, never needed more.

Anyway, I've always spent more time finding my tone with my fingers than with pedals and stuffs.
 
#9
Technically, I have some patches with 2 parallel mono lines running two hardware compressors (dbx160A and Keeley Bassist) at either end of the chain and two digital compressor/limitor modules (Empress ZOIA) in your chain at various points between various type of pedals. I personally have a use for 3 separate pieces of hardware compressing 4 bass channels. It is quite fun.
 
#10
Jake555 said:
Hey all,

The mxr m87 is $300 in Canada and I can get a like-new one for 175. Pretty good price, but I just don’t know if i need a compressor. I read that dynamic control is in your fingers and using a compressor is cheating … i don’t care if I’m cheating, but i do also highly value technical ability. So if it’s cheating it mostly doesn’t matter imo.
I’m recording a demo and I notice that when I play chords the initial attack of the chord is hearable but quickly tapers off, I’m thinking new strings or a compressor would fix that (sustain). If I can get away with new strings for sustaining I’ll just buy coated strings, I really prefer less than a month old Ernie balls anyway, and elixirs are great!
Also I’m doing a little Instagram cover of Combustion by Meshuggah and it’s very hammer on/pull off, and I feel like a compressor would excel here with the right settings. But like, does flea use a compressor on his fingerstyle songs? I’d say my style is fairly aggressive fingerstyle. My style is flea fingerstyle Tim Commerford , a little distortion and aggressive fingering.
Click to expand...

Don't listen to those opinions. It is hard to believe that there are people still saying such nonsense.
There is a variety of options when it comes to pedals and effects, including compression. Use and abuse them.

Personally, when I started playing bass, I did not have any pedals. Then a fellow bass player told me about the utility of having a compressor pedal. I tried it, I liked it, and I never looked back. So go ahead, and give it a try.
 
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#11
I have only been a bass player for over 3.5 years. I recently bought the Boss CS-2, Japanese version as my first ever compressor pedal. Only used it at home so far but trying not to get used to it and perhaps only add a bit of compression in rehearsals/gigs so that I still work on that consistency of technique at home, but keep tone/sound/volume at bay during gigs and rehearsals.
 
#13
I use heavy fingerstyle a bunch of the time, and I set my always on compression to kick on when I start to dig in. It lets the attack sound more aggressive without a big jump in volume.
 
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#14
Jake555 said:
But like, does flea use a compressor on his fingerstyle songs? I’d say my style is fairly aggressive fingerstyle. My style is flea fingerstyle Tim Commerford , a little distortion and aggressive fingering.
Click to expand...

Basically every song you heard that was recorded in the last three decades has had some amount of compression applied to it.
 
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#16
JimmyM said:
If they want to add it at the board, that’s fine. I don’t want it in my rig. I used to until I found I liked my sound much better without it.
Click to expand...


Yeah, it's a tricky question.
Most FOH people will add filtering and compression to the bass signal.
(Almost) every studio master record has compression applied - either to the bass track, or to the band mix during mastering, or both. So what you hear, both in concert and on records is not necessarily what Flea heard when he played it.

Does Flea use compression? Suppose he is strictly against the use of compression pedals and plays straight into his amp - but the RHCP mixing crew uses compression on his channel on every gig. Plus the studio engineers use compression on his signal, too - for the records.
Suppose every single bass note you as the end consumer ever heard coming from Flea has had compression applied, but never by the man himself. Does he use compression?
 
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#17
el murdoque said:
Yeah, it's a tricky question.
Most FOH people will add filtering and compression to the bass signal.
(Almost) every studio master record has compression applied - either to the bass track, or to the band mix during mastering, or both. So what you hear, both in concert and on records is not necessarily what Flea heard when he played it.

Does Flea use compression? Suppose he is strictly against the use of compression pedals and plays straight into his amp - but the RHCP mixing crew uses compression on his channel on every gig. Plus the studio engineers use compression on his signal, too - for the records.
Suppose every single bass note you as the end consumer ever heard coming from Flea has had compression applied, but never by the man himself. Does he use compression?
Click to expand...
How should I know? I’m not privy to his channels on the board. I not only don’t know, but I really don’t care. I don’t do anything just because someone famous does it.
 
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#18
JimmyM said:
How should I know? I’m not privy to his channels on the board. I not only don’t know, but I really don’t care. I don’t do anything just because someone famous does it.
Click to expand...

JimmyM, in TalkBass circles you yourself are someone famous and people do things the way you're doing them.
Of course you don't follow trends, you set them!
(this might be a jest, but every good joke has a kernel of truth)
 
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#19
Compression is a valuable tool to become comfortable with IMHO. In and out of studios, they usually start setting me up by asking if i use bass lines with dynamics that are integral to the song- if not, i get to record with subtle compression.
When recording i often enjoy the sound of engineer-decided compression- it’s the “magic in the mix” that resulted in my doing audio engineering.

I have a 1984 boss cs-2 which i practice with, now and again.

(I prefer to avoid using pedals when I’m practicing at home alone but if I’m working on songs the pedals may be a feature)

I’ve got my pedal set to what i’d deem “invisible” - i don’t notice it but it’s there, if i take a break and noodle for a bit i can hear it compressing and making everything more uniform, adding a bit of sustain.

i would suggest if you are interested in progressing and understanding bass better, invest in an affordable-not-bad compression/sustainer and experiment. Feel/hear what it adds and what it takes from your sound.

experiment, “extreme” settings are good for getting a frank idea of the parameters you work with.
Then set it for a subtle but beneficial effect.

Don’t get accustomed to perfecting your tone/playing using comp though.
Compression is to make things easier in the studio and to compensate for any inconsistencies/tonal weaknesses you don’t pick up on when practicing without it.

:)
 
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#20
el murdoque said:
JimmyM, in TalkBass circles you yourself are someone famous and people do things the way you're doing them.
Of course you don't follow trends, you set them!
(this might be a jest, but every good joke has a kernel of truth)
Click to expand...
Hahaha! Well thx for that even if it’s not entirely accurate ;).

Sorry…just a little curmudgeonly today for some reason.
 
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