Compression for many guitarists is seen a black magic, a mystical misunderstood voodoo or sorts. It doesn’t help that the name of the effect itself is misleading. the word compression makes us things of squeezing or squishing which i suppose technically it does but the outcome, the sound is not one of the music being compacted or smashed. It actually sounds expanded and often the term “thicker” is applied to that effect. In our guitar podcast “Compression 101” we had our resident compression expert Chris Graham drop some knowledge. Yes, I said expert on compression. Chris is a music mastering engineer and compression is is tool of choice.
For guitarists, a compression pedal is something that we often end up buying because people who’s playing we admire use them but once we get ahold of it, it ends up unused or off the pedalboard completely. (yes I am speaking from experience). Well we are here to help. We have touched on just about every possible factoid, scenario, and use of compressors. We walk through the function of the controls that are typically found on compression pedals such as ATTACK, RELEASE, THRESHOLD, RATIO & GAIN. “Wait, so what’s the difference between a noise gate and a compressor”? Say no more! we cover that in our podcast too.
There are loads of resources on the internet to aid in your understanding of compression. The Guitar Knobs can vouch for That Pedal Show on YouTube. They are the kings of pedal education in our humble opinion and we salute them. They have two episodes that cover compressors. We are also really big fans of JustNick on YouTube as well and he has several videos on compressors so check him out. For a list of some of the best compressors out there at the moment check out this article by Best Guitar Effects – Top 15 Best Guitar Compressor Pedals of 2016. And of course you can get a great deal on killer used compressors by a huge array of builders at Reverb.
Another place compression shows up besides the pedalboard is in recording process, specifically and most in mastering. If you are using Logic, Ableton, or Garageband then you have the opportunity to get your own mastering on and use compression to make your music sound infinitely better. Chris would like the opportunity to do that for you though (shameless plug!)
Head over to our website or your podcasting app of choice, strap on your headphones, and take in the not so smooth sounds of The Guitar Knob’s episode “Compression 101” to answer all of your comprestions (see what I did there). And……SUBSCRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIBE!