What sort of sound will I get with a COMPRESSION/SUSTAIN Pedal

[No1ZeppelinFan]

As title, I've heard Pagey speak of using these a couple of times. What sort of sounds do these pedals produce? I think the sort of "Whole Lotta Love" sound, Is that about right?

[Achilles Last Stand]

A compression sustainer, if you mean the Boss one or any in general will give you a tighter sound by boosting the bass and limiting the high end.

Therefore "compressing" the sound.

[cookieshoes]

As title, I've heard Pagey speak of using these a couple of times. What sort of sounds do these pedals produce? I think the sort of "Whole Lotta Love" sound, Is that about right?

First off, Page never used a compression/sustainer pedal onstage. He used a Tone Bender fuzz from 68-69, went straight into his Hiwatt amps for late 69-70, used a Univox overdrive pedal in early 71, and then used no drive pedals onstage whatsoever from late 1971 through to the end of Zeppelin. Whole Lotta Love was his Telecaster or Les Paul (the jury is still out), into what was probably his Vox UL4120 and a Rickenbacker Transonic cabinet.

If he's spoken about having used "compression" before, it's likely been in reference to the natural compression effect that occurs when playing a tube amplifier at a volume where the tubes begin to saturate. Once you hit the volume ceiling of how loud that amp is gonna go, the sound begins to compress. But that is what happens to all tube amps when they are cranked. Some more than others.

Otherwise, if you read that Page used compression, of course he used it in the studio. But there, that is an entirely different use of it. Compression from a studio rack unit is used to "tame" and "color" the sound of the mics that are recording the instruments. So, Page did use some compression on the mics that he put on his acoustics, just as compression was used on the mics used on Bonham's drums and Jones' bass.

It is this studio form of "compression" that guitar pedal manufacturers have put into those compression/sustain pedals you've heard about. In essence, these pedals take the sound of your guitar and, depending on how much of the effect you use, "squashes" it. When used in conjunction with a distortion pedal, you will find that your notes ring out longer, and the overall tone of your sound is tighter. However, with this tweaking, you lose most of the dynamics of your sound, as well as most of the cut.

To put it another way, imagine that you are playing your guitar, and looking at a meter that is measuring the volume of your playing, which goes from 1 to 10. 1 is the quietest sound you can produce, 10 is the loudest. When you add compression, you can close the gap of what the quietest sound you make is, as well as what the loudest would be. Think of it as a squeeze. So, if you go light on the compression, that meter might show a new range of 2-9. If you go heavy on the compression, you can tweak it all the way up so that no matter what you are playing, the meter is always at 9 or always at 10.

Overall, this effect was huge with 80's guitar players who were able to tweak their sound by increasing the gain (distortion) and then adding some compression on there to level it off. Which is why they were able to go on and on and on with all of those finger-tapping solos. With so much compression on there, they didn't have to worry about the light sound of the tapping not being able to come through loud.

But compression is an often unnecessary effect. I'd guess that 99.9% of all players don't need it. Unless you are deliberately trying to get an exagerrated compressed sound, of course. But, the reality is that you can "cheat" a good compressed sound just by rolling off the tone knob on your pickup, or the high-end and some of the midrange knob on your amp.

[danelectro]

Ideally a compressor pedal is transparent, meaning it doesn't change your sound at all. It's purpose is to take a wide range of input levels into a lower range of input levels. The end result is level consistancy, sounds that were higher in volume are lower in volume and vice versa. The sustain is because the compressor keeps raising the level automatically until it runs out of gain. Every time you hit a chord or note, the compressor recognizes the signal and reduces its volume, then the volume bounces back up as the signal fades. It's used in the studio the same way, Basically it takes the peaks and valleys out of the levels resulting in a "squashed" sound.

I have one on my board and I leave it on most of the time, it makes for a more consistant signal to my amp and smoothes out slight volume inconsistancies from pedals that introduce more gain that usual. I have a chorus with no volume know that boosts my signal slightly. It's annoying as hell but that pedal has the best chorus effect I've ever heard so I deal with it. I also use compression all time for stuff I record, usually once the track is nearly completed to even it out. Sometimes I'll use effects after compression, I use some weird plug ins like vinyl simulation that need to be exaggerated.

[BonzoLikeDrumer]

Nice try guys but, a compressor dose nothing but raise the noise floor to an incoming signal. You see in the real world of audio amplification you have something called dynamic range witch has a low noise floor and a peak level. The best (cleaner) sound is at "0" or nominal gain, some frequencies have much more movement thru the spectrum and you can push them more towards the peak of the amplifiers capabilities. Like was stated above low frequencies can do just that so you want to push the heck out of them, this is one of the reasons why a bass amp sounds like crap unless it has a lot of watts behind it.

If you want a bigger sound try piggy backing multiple amps (like low cost combos), run a cable from the line out of one 25 or 50 watt amp to the instrument input of another one. You can even use a super small practice amp like a 10 watter as a pre-amp to a bigger one, they all have headphone out's so, you go down to Radio Shack and buy a $3.00 TRS 1/4" stereo adapter with a mono TS 1/4" plug, or just make one, the soldering iron is not that hard to master.

If you feel uneasy about this type of thing do a search online for making your own guitar cables, there's lot's of free info out there.

Bonzolikedrumer

[spookytooth]

A compressor / sustainer pedal for an electric guitar limits the volume of the guitar and allows a "clean" tone to have sustain. Think of Robbie Blunt's work with Robert Plant back in the eighties (Big Log, Ship of Fools, Lay Down Your Arms); that's what a compressed electric guitar sounds like. I am unaware of Page ever using compression in his signal path...

[ghost]

The most obviously compressed guitar sound I've heard is on Under The Bridge by the Chili Peppers. That should give you a good idea.

[BonzoLikeDrumer]

The most obviously compressed guitar sound I've heard is on Under The Bridge by the Chili Peppers. That should give you a good idea.

That's a good example of a highly compressed guitar sound, in fact most all of the Alternative bands like the Comp/Sustain boxes. If your lucky (and rich) enough to have a nice high end unit it will take a lot more push to get those nasty sound's and if your not to careful you may damage the tube(s) in the circuitry. The high end boxes are really designed to just give some warmth but I did read an article about Page pushing the heck out of one when they recorded the 4th album in 1971, I'll see if I can dig it up and post it here.

I don't like to push signal on delicate and expensive gear to much as it would be bad if any thing was to happen.

Bonzolikedrumer

I spell it that way because I like it that way.