Back in the day when Trace Elliot was very much the "real deal" or the safest brand to buy into as a serious bassist, their dual band compressor was legendary. It was bundled on a number of their amps, preamps and was available as a sepererate pedal too. I had one for many years (as well as a AH 450Sm head).
Back then a dual band compressor was a way to keep your lows and highs and seen as an early attempt at a dedicated bassist's compressor. It works and it's great. However a lot has changed since then.
I used a EBS MultiComp for many years and it too has a Multiband compressor option. It works great and it's very simple to operate. One knob for compression and one knob for gain. It's a very simple and effective dial in, but doesn't offer much in the way of "studio" control.
I flipped this for a Source Audio Ultrawave, which has a very comprehensive twin channel compressor built into it. I used a few patches purely for compression and it is very effective. It offers more control than a lot of other top spec compressors but it also offers a simplicity of use similar to the EBS unit. what i like about the ultrawave is the ability to have a completely different set of compressor settings dialed in and then fade between them using one of the pedal knobs. Using a band pass filter on either channel allows the user to dial in a pair of specificly tuned compressors as a patch and then fade between them. This is super versatile and where it becomes true a multi band compressor. However, I go more milage on fading between two really specific compressors.
The Source Audio Atlas takes compression to an entirely new level. I have compression type models to choose from. These are really good models of the components that compress, the heart of every type of compressor ever made. So there's the ability to re-create almost any compressor ever made, or download a patch from the cloud from someone that's done the hard work for you. Recently I built a patch that allows me to blend between a VCA compressor (think MXR) and a Tube Compressor (think Markbass). This single patch is by far the most versatile compressor I've ever used and far more flexible than a multiband compressor could offer. On top of that, I also have another 5 patches and a further access to all 128 patches via midi. I have relesed similar variants of this approach combining A Mark Bass compressor with a Diamond Compressor, a MXR compressor with a Diamond and a few others. There are all available on the Neuro Cloud under my Neuro user name of Gazzajagman.
My Atlas current load out is Patch 1: a recreatiuon of my Ultrawave Compressor (a pair of snappy compresors with vastly different settings) cros2 fadable.
Patch 2 is an awesome SA patch called the "Citrus Vintage" which is pretty much an Orange Compressor with a full array of compression adjustments (effectively a 6 knob Orange squeezer).
Patch 3 is my MarkBass (vari-mu) and Diamond (opticial) Compressor patch. And I rearely need anything outside of these three patches because they service my needs so well.
So while a dual band compressor is a joy to behold, the Source Audio Atlas really makes this approach look very out dated and offers a toally unique approach to bass compression that really moves the game on in several big steps. In my opinon, the Atlas is a last word in compression. You can even side chain every model if you want to.
