Spent about 15 minutes with it to wrap my head around it and it does exactly what I want it to do... Which is help control my dynamics without changing my tone. It's so transparent that I can't tell the difference between on and off. Love it.
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NPD... Keeley Bassist Limiting Amp/Compressor
- Thread starter zachoff
- Start date
This is the name I keep seeing come up. I am in the market for a compressor and really quite confused. I had been using a DynaComp and it's way to squishy. Just looking for transparency and a little sustain and harmonics. This might be the one for me too. I'm wondering what all the fuss is over optical compressors. I sense they are a "cheap" alternative to the real thing. Again NOT sure on this.
The Keeley Bassist is fantastic. Very transparent and easy to dial in.
Congrats! You picked a good one, didn't ya'? You'll be pleasantly surprised if you have to contact Keeley with any questions or concerns with the pedal...
... top notch customer service, in my book! Enjoy!
... top notch customer service, in my book! Enjoy!
It will give you limiting and some sustain. It will not add anything to the signal. If you want “thickening” or a bit of warming then the Keely Bassist isn’t going to give that to you. It’s very transparent by design. A Wampler Ego or Ovinlab Smoothie might be a better choice if you want a little secret sauce added to your sound in addition to peak limiting and some more sustain.
The DynaComp (I own one) works great if you want to get an old school early Gilmour vibe going with a guitar. But it’s a really old design and doesn’t (IMO) work very well for bass, which it wasn’t ever intended to be used with. It really sucks out some of your lows. And it’s noisy. So I’m not surprised you aren’t too happy with it. Fortunately there are far better compressors to pick from today.
Optical is just one more way to design a compressor. Like an optical tremolo. And it’s definitely not done to make it cheaper. A top quality optical compressor will go for as much as it’s VCA counterparts.
This article (and website) will tell you everything you need to understand about what these boxes do and how they do it. There’s also a large number of reviews to read for just about any compressor you may be considering getting. So be sure to checkout http://www.ovnilab.com for solid info on compressors.
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Thanks for your insights and suggestions, I appreciate them.
GC had Keeley on special for Memorial Day @ $109 so I just pulled the trigger
Good price! That’s less than you’ll see them going for used most times. Every so often, if you catch GC at just the right time, you’d be hard pressed to find a better deal anywhere.
Thread corrected, ordered Keeley compressor plus for $109 [wrong] cancelled it and re ordered the bassist
Went thru a number of compressors before trying the Keeley Bassist and I love it. Nice and transparent and very good at compression and limiting. I pretty much set all the knobs and 12:00 and let it do it’s thing.
I have one in my pedal chain and it will not be going away until it dies or quit or leave the house on its own. 
Glad you caught it in time. The Keeley Compressor+ works great with guitar. Got one for my guitarist SO and she loves it. It can also work with bass sorta. But I really don’t care for it as much. It’s optimized for use with guitar.
So a Compressor+ might go well with Ric or similar. It didn’t sound half bad with a Peavey T-20 and a set of steel roundwounds when I was playing with her’s a bit. But it doesn’t (IMO) work well at all with something like a PB or Jazz. If I wanted a similar vibe that does work well for bass I’d be more inclined to use my old goto combo which is: a Southampton Fifth Gear into a transparent limiting type compressor like a Keeley Bassist using a light touch on the settings for both. Really hard to get a bad tone or feel using that pairing.
Question, when setting the threshold on my Keeley Bassist, I turn the bass guitar volume all the way up and adjust the threshold to blinking between the green and red, in other words "on the edge". Is there a preferred method amongst you Keeley guys??
I mostly use my ears, but I find when I’m in the sweet spot, I get the red LED about 20 - 40% of the time, depending on style/song.
You know, I started with threshold getting the light barely blinking (about 2:00) with gain at 12:00. Sounded great. Backed the threshold back a bit and it still sounded great. If I have the threshold between 7 and maybe 10 I can tell a difference, but after that it's really not that noticeable until I hit record and can actually see the waveform.
This is a review of the Keeley GC 2 which is the guitar version of the Bassist. I found it very informative.
Keeley Electronics GC-2 Limiting Amplifier Review – Best Limiter Pedal?
Keeley Electronics GC-2 Limiting Amplifier Review – Best Limiter Pedal?
