compression & od/dist -before or after??

[russ5254]

Hi fellow guitarists,
I am just starting out with pedals, was using cheap multifx all the while

Hope you can share your experiences with compressor placement. A lot of ppl said to put it first.
So I put my dyna comp before od but I end up losing dynamics.. cannot roll off the volume to clean up the dirt. But single notes sustain well and volume is consistent.

Look forward to your sharing.. thx!

 

[VidaK]

since the compressor would output your playing at roughly the same volume, the distortion pedals are going to receive a similar input as before, even if you have rolled your volume off by half

if you would like to be able to lower the gain of distortions / clean up the dirt by rolling volume knob, you can use very light compression, or just remove the compressor from your chain entirely

I myself only use compression for my clean signal

 

[CyanideJunkie]

Both ways work fine. You can place your comp before your dirt to ensure that it receives an even signal albeit at the cost of dynamics, or you can use it after your dirt as a way of smoothing out your lead tone. Bear in mind that compressors raise the noise levels of effects units placed before it, so you might want to keep an eye on your gain levels if you go the post-dirt route.

 

[russ5254]

=Vidak
Yup I like it for the clean too. Can get more consistent volume for rhythm work, especially when doing those funk chords.

=cyanidejunkie
I will try placing it after and see how different it is. I am using a noise clamp for the dirt pedals so hopefully that can bring down the noise level.

Thanks!!

 

[zesn]

I put mine before all my drives/dirt.

Overdrives and dirt pedals are already compressing to get that distortion sound,
If you put a compressor after that you'll be raising the noise floor.

 

[russ5254]

=zesn
you are right about the noise floor! the hiss is amplified if the dyna comp was placed after OD and the output is not set appropriately.

Thanks for all the advice guys!!

So after all the placing experiments with the dyna comp, my current chain is:

guitar -> vibe -> phase -> noise clamp input -> send -> OD -> Distortion -> return -> noise clamp out -> dyna comp -> wah/vol -> pitch shift -> chorus/flange -> delay

Putting the dyna comp after a noise gate with send/return loop helps a lot - it is almost as quiet as if it was first in the chain.
But to begin with, this pedal is known to be "noisy" anyway depending on output level...

So when i play with a light touch on overdrive, the signal to noise ratio is fortunately still good enough to mask out the noise. The volume becomes very consistent between hard and soft picking and when i stop playing, the gate kicks in and it is actually back to the regular noise floor level.

Also when playing clean the comp is still working as it should to smoothen the sound or make it more "clicky"/"squashy.

To some, it might sound a bit "processed" in the sense that when you play lightly with OD the volume drop dynamics is not there anymore.. but i have my vol pedal to help compensate for it.

Currently using the comp as a mild volume boost too (output a little above unity gain) to make the solo lines stand out. It works for both clean and dirty now... woo hoo!!