Anybody who uses compressor with their high gain settings?

Hansen

Experienced
I just saw this video


This guy uses compressor together with his noise gate for tight high gain presets. Anybody who uses compressor here and where do you put it in the chain?
 
I put mine first in the chain. Like this: comp>drive>gate>amp>delay>verb>Cab

That’s pretty much how all my patches start out.
 
aaaactually! I just had the optical line comp on my clean channel and by accident left it on on my high gain scene. It is incredible! So tight, spanky and really pushes the speaker
 
I play with this from time to time, and was trying it last week as well. I was putting a comp first in the chain. This is something I normally never do with analog gear, but many times I find digital units to be "overly dynamic". The Axe can be OK, but Line 6 gear for example, I can barely play without a compressor in every high gain preset. It is like I have to hit the strings as hard as I can constantly, for it to sound right. A little compressor first in the chain can kind of even out that response, and make single notes sound as powerful as chords. I usually only use light settings though, like a compression ratio of 2-4. Any more and it sucks all your dynamics away. It really helps your high gain not sound weak when you are not slamming your strings. I could possibly accomplish the same thing using EMG pickups, I dunno, but I find this helps in many situations. I usually never use a Comp and OD together though, since an OD Drive will add it's own compression.
 
I personally don't use broadband compression on high gain guitars because it usually causes more problems than it solves.

The reason why that guy might like broadband compression for his Periphery tones is because the compressor is mainly being triggered by low-end spikes. What that does is make your tone more edgy and harsh. Yeah, it'll feel like your tone is more "in your face", but at the price of fizziness.

I opt for using multiband compression at the end. I use it only to work on the mid-bass and low-mid frequencies. Your low-end remains untouched. Your guitars sound full. And you have control over just how much of those frequencies you want to let through.
 
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I play with this from time to time, and was trying it last week as well. I was putting a comp first in the chain. This is something I normally never do with analog gear, but many times I find digital units to be "overly dynamic". The Axe can be OK, but Line 6 gear for example, I can barely play without a compressor in every high gain preset. It is like I have to hit the strings as hard as I can constantly, for it to sound right. A little compressor first in the chain can kind of even out that response, and make single notes sound as powerful as chords. I usually only use light settings though, like a compression ratio of 2-4. Any more and it sucks all your dynamics away. It really helps your high gain not sound weak when you are not slamming your strings. I could possibly accomplish the same thing using EMG pickups, I dunno, but I find this helps in many situations. I usually never use a Comp and OD together though, since an OD Drive will add it's own compression.

Would you care to share your settings and say where you place the COMP in the chain?
 
I would never have a compressor first. Especially for high-gain. That's going to bring all the hiss and other noise from the gain really up-front and make the gate work super hard. The cleaner the signal your noise gate has to work with, the more accurate it'll be.

Also, it depends what frequencies the compressor embellishes. Something like a Ross compressor which has a great bloom on the bass would probably create a bit of mud and may even cause a bit of a peak which might throw off the noise gate a bit too...

I'd always have the compressor after every other effect (that isn't modulation\delay) so that the compressor is only compressing the guitar sound instead of the guitar sound + every other artifact.

But at the same time, I hate this djenty keyboard guitar crap, so YMMV.
 
Would you care to share your settings and say where you place the COMP in the chain?

I dont really have specific settings since it is very guitar/pickup dependent. I usually just put the Comp first in the chain. Leave Attack and Release about noon. I will put the ratio about 3-4. Nothing very drastic. I will then play a palm muted riff, like 2-3-5-2-3-5 on the A string or something and then chug on an E5 chord on the top string. I will lower the threshold until the single note riff sounds as powerful as the chugging chord. Usually around 10-11 oclock. I will then adjust the level to be about the same, or slightly higher than with the Comp block off. I put this in front of a high gain amp like a 5150 or Recto. Like I said, you dont do this for a drastic effect, or to create a lot of noise. It is just a little evening out to make sure you dont have to slam the single notes to sound as aggressive as the chords.
 
Sorry I originally posted this in wrong thread:
I don't think a compressor is very useful for high gain patches. No coincidence you'll see a couple comps in the same rig of 99.999& of country pickers: they play cleaner tones.
Gates however, are a must in high gain stuff especially for the way a gate uses high and low cut! Example: I finally got a great high gain patch setup and there's just one tiny little thing that's completely killin it that needs to be fixed/eliminated; I love a massively thick, low string legato slide sound, the gate helps get rid of unwanted string scratch sound by simply using the high cut knob to gate them high frequencies which are present in the annoyance.
 
I personally don't use broadband compression on high gain guitars because it usually causes more problems than it solves.

The reason why that guy might like broadband compression for his Periphery tones is because the compressor is mainly being triggered by low-end spikes. What that does is make your tone more edgy and harsh. Yeah, it'll feel like your tone is more "in your face", but at the price of fizziness.

I opt for using multiband compression at the end. I use it only to work on the mid-bass and low-mid frequencies. Your low-end remains untouched. Your guitars sound full. And you have control over just how much of those frequencies you want to let through.

Could you please share a screenshot on how you set up your multiband compression at the end of the chain?

Also, how would I set up a compressor in the axe fx to get triggered from low-end spikes as well?

I would really like to test both these instances and see what I like best.. Thanks in advance!
 
I used to use comp on most of my high gain patches up until about 2 months ago. I don't like how it effects the dynamics of my playing. I also feel the natural timbre/character of the amp gets diminished somewhat. I guess depends on your style of playing for a particular song. I do like it for heavy, in your face, riffs at times but that's about it.
 
Could you please share a screenshot on how you set up your multiband compression at the end of the chain?

Also, how would I set up a compressor in the axe fx to get triggered from low-end spikes as well?

I would really like to test both these instances and see what I like best.. Thanks in advance!
Here you go. Play with lowering Thresh 1 until it starts ducking just enough on the Axe's front panel screen.

 
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