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Reasonable, go-to compressor pedal for bass
- Thread starter Mo Boogs
- Start date
Keeley Compresor Pro with the bass settings he provides in the manual sounds pretty damn good. I know a guy that plays a Keeley Bassist and he has some of the best tone around. The Origin Cali 76, Empress Bass Compressor Mk II, and the Dark Glass Hyper Luminal all get rave reviews. Honestly, you can't go wrong with any of them! If I was doing a simple bass / pedal compressor / amp setup, I'd probably go for the Compressor Pro in the effects loop, or with the Empress in front of the amp (obviously, I like to make my life complicated, as referenced in my signature 
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The Diamond is a simple one-control compressor, wonderful tone enhancer and has useful well-designed eq.
The Empress is a full-featured compressor with a fun and useful tone switch.
Broughton Omnicomp has most of these features and has a bit of the Diamond tone.
The Fairfield Accountant is not specifically made for bass guitar but it works, it’s fun (can’t explain why I say this but it’s true) although could maybe use some tone thickening somewhere in the signal chain, really interesting dirty tone. One of these days I’ll get a Damnation Audio Dirtfixer for this and the Fairfield Barbershop.
The Empress is a full-featured compressor with a fun and useful tone switch.
Broughton Omnicomp has most of these features and has a bit of the Diamond tone.
The Fairfield Accountant is not specifically made for bass guitar but it works, it’s fun (can’t explain why I say this but it’s true) although could maybe use some tone thickening somewhere in the signal chain, really interesting dirty tone. One of these days I’ll get a Damnation Audio Dirtfixer for this and the Fairfield Barbershop.
The same guy I referenced above also runs a Fairfield Barbershop. He must be onto something!
The Diamond Bass Comp is the absolute best compressor I have ever used. I use a 1982 Boss CS-2 also sounds incredible
I can confirm that the Mira is very good and a while ago they were blowing them out for under ~$100.
I’ll say the unit67 is my favorite. It doubles as a “switch bass keep gain staging the same” pedal with the big level knob. Not as controllable in the compression though.
For slap a multiband or something with a HPF sidechain can be helpful. (The Mira has this also).
Three I can recommend:
- Keeley Bassist A super clean transparent compressor. Easy to dial in and virtually impossible to make yourself sound bad with it.
- Mad Professor Forest Green Another very capable and easy to use compressor that "just sounds good" and adds a little special sauce to your sound.
- Ampeg Opto Comp Inexpensive very bass oriented compressor that adds some nice girth to your sound.
- Keeley Bassist A super clean transparent compressor. Easy to dial in and virtually impossible to make yourself sound bad with it.
- Mad Professor Forest Green Another very capable and easy to use compressor that "just sounds good" and adds a little special sauce to your sound.
- Ampeg Opto Comp Inexpensive very bass oriented compressor that adds some nice girth to your sound.