Do I need A Compressor?

[Gabriel Corso]

Hello everyone!
How are you doing?
I was goofing around and taking a look at some guitar pedal effects and Stumbled across a Compressor from biyang.
What really caught my eyes was the Design at first, and that it was not an expensive pedal. Also, i have read very good things on the internet about it.
But I have never used one before. And the only information that i have is that it compresses all the frequencies and make them uniform, resulting in a really cool sound.
My questions are:
1. Do I need one even if I have a Maxon overdive which i always use as boost?
2. What are the other functions of the Compressor?
3. If i turn it on mixed with a chorus and a delay for example, will it be a good combination ? I really have minimal knowledge on Compressors, hahaha.
The thing is that i always read the many guitarists love their compressor pedals and i cant understand why.
Keeo rocking, guys!!!!
G.

 

[Filip Tomiša]

Compressors role is to lower the dynamic of a sound, so imagine this; you have a song and the song has quiet and loud parts, and imagine a quiet part is a person who is 160cm tall and the loud part is a person who is 190cm tall, it’s a big difference right? That means the song is pretty dynamic. That’s what dynamic is, difference between the quietest and loudest part of a song. Now imagine that you compressed that song and a person who was 190cm now became a person who is 170cm tall, and now you would have the quietest part (person who is 160cm) and the loudest part (person who is 170cm) and that’s not a really big difference. That means that the song now isn’t dynamic cause it’s pretry much the same sound level during the whole song.
Basically what your compressor pedal will do is that it will boost your sound a bit and it will compress your sound if you start playing really loud so it keeps the balance of your sound.
You don’t really need a compressor on distorted guitars cause they are already compressed

 

[Gabriel Corso]

Firstly thanks for the quick answer my friend!
That was an amazing explanation, i really appreciate it.
But then You say that i should stick with my overdrive and other pedals in order to get a good sounding?
And that compressors are not that Important for electric guitars?
My current set up is:
EHX Big muff
Maxon OD 808
Boss DS1
Delay miGHTY SOUNDS
Chorus Fuhrmann (Brazilian hand made pedals).

 

[Ed Seith]

Any distorted signal, whether by natural overdrive, amp gain, or pedal, is compressed as part of the distortion. The only time you would or should see a need for a compressor on an electric guitar is on a clean channel. A compressor does really nice things to a clean electric guitar. You can certainly TRY it on distorted guitars, but it’s unlikely to have any desirable effect.

 

[Gabriel Corso]

If I use a compressor + my mason Overdrive. Will it get a good sound? Or compressors are better used just for clean guitars?
Thanks Ed!!!

 

[Filip Tomiša]

It’s better to use a compressor on a clean sound. Your overdrive pedal will compress the sound and all you could do with your compressor pedal is to just boost a little bit of your signal.

 

[Gabriel Corso]

Oh, now i see.
I think i might invest in other guitar pedal then.
Because even though I do like to shed my telecaster without any effects, I dont think that a compressor is a must.
Guys, thank you very much!!
Have a good one

 

[Rad Synner]

Alright here is one thing not explained about those effects. First of, you have two main type of effects: Dynamic and temporal.
temporal are all the chorus, delay, reverb and such so we dont care about those in this topic. Dynamic are all the compressor, drive effects and such.
In short, dynamic effects will have a direct effect on the soundwave you create while playing guitar. So, lets say youre playing a chord: The pickups will take the soundwave and go through your, lets say, overdrive peadl. What the overdrive pedal will is boost the whole soundwave to go over its limit pressure or and the soundwave will be saturated.
What the compressor will do is adapt the overall volume of your playing to your performance. It will adjust the dynamics of your playing. Filip’s explanation is pretty good.
in short, if youre playing alone by yourself, no you dont really need a compressor. A compressor doesnt really add anything to the overall tone though thats not entirely true either because there are some pedals that do add some more ”color” to your tone but it wont be the cheap ones for sure. The rack compressor more likely. But yeah, the overdrive and the compressor do not have the same role and their use in the pedal chain effect can be really awesome if done properly.
When I play live, a compressor is quite important to have a steady volume and to have good dynamics.
Hope my explanation are clear and apologies in advance if i made mistakes as english isnt my first language and sound is sort of a complicated subject! I hope it helps!

 

[Gabriel Corso]

Guys, I must thanks all of you for these explanations – I am sure it took some time to write. Thanks!!!
I mainly play by myself at home and record guitar covers and songs.
But sometimes I do play with some friends at their places. Do you think that the compressor will help my guitar sound when I do play with them?
Thanks again guys!!!!

 

[Filip Tomiša]

No problem, I mean if any of your friends have a compressor pedal ask them if you can borrow it to test it and if you hear a huge difference and if you like it then buy it but you can do just fine without one. I think EQ pedal is more important than compressor cause you can get different sounds from your guitar, for example if you need more low end (bass) you can just boost low frequencies or if you want more “air” in your sound you can boost high end frequencies. Syn even mentioned an eq pedal that he uses and really likes in a recent interview. It’s called Mooer EQ, you can check it out.

 

[Gabriel Corso]

I will sue take a look at it!
There is so many options…
The bad thing is that none of my friends have one. So I will try youtube haha.
Thanks man!!!

 

[Rad Synner]

Yeah but be careful with EQ pedal because heres the thing: In the frequency spectrum, every insturments has its place in it. When you go through either an EQ pedal or EQ rack, its more to clear up space for something else. If you decide to boost your bass on your EQ pedal, you could either bury the bass and kick or get buried by them. When doing an EQ, youre doing in a way to give each instrument its own place to play in the frequency spectrum so each instrument can sound clear and not buried up. For exemple, the lead guitar will have a little boost in the high mids while the rythm guitar will mostly play in the low mids. Bass and kick will both be more present in the bass: thats depending on the style of music. In metal, the kick will be highier than the bass due to the fact that we want a kick with more attack therefore not a bassy fat kick but a precise and clear kick so the bass will be more ambiant but still that depends a lot on the music. Vocal are more in the high mids too but its not too hard to put it apart from the the lead guitar if done right. anyways, i dont want to speak too much but my personal advice would be to not use an EQ pedal for tone when playing with other people because if you dont know what youre doing, you will simply not hear your guitar!

 

[Filip Tomiša]

Yeah that’s true but that comes to play when you start mixing a song. If you are playing at home for fun I think it’s cool to use eq cause you can improve your sound. Of course you can mess up your sound also but you can do that with every pedal if you don’t know what you are doing but it’s not that hard to figure out how to use it.
Syn said about that Mooer EQ that you can leave everything flat (meaning you don’t boost or cut any frequency, you just get the “color” of the eq” and that your sound just shines.

 

[Rad Synner]

Well no actually. You use it also when playing live with other instruments or in a practice room. Though I agree with you that if youre alone, doesnt matter. But when youre playing with a full band, you also need to EQ everything. When doing live shows, there are a lot of EQ’s (depending on the gear you have and that the venue has). But yeah Syn’s EQ will also go through an EQ in the mixboard so its not the only EQ in the chain. and yeah well he uses it for the color, thats a common thing that happens too.
But yeah, when youre alone at home, it really doesnt matter that much

 

[Gabriel Corso]

I’ve heard a lot of good things about eq’s. But I think that they are a little hard to use.
But for me. As a amateur that has a band to play sometimes.
You think that a compressor or an eq will be best ?
Guys, thanks again!
Great community

 

[Filip Tomiša]

You can go to a guitar store and test out the pedals, i’m sure the store will let you do that. You might not have the same gear that you have at home but you’ll get the basic idea of how each of them work and maybe then you’ll be able to decide what’s best for you.

 

[Rad Synner]

Im totally with Filip on this one!

 

[Gabriel Corso]

Guys, thanks a lot!
I really appreciate it.
Tomorrow I am going to the store to test some of those pedals and decide which one is the best for me.
Keep rocking!!!
Awesome explanations