Everyone knows a compressor’s your friend. But how about hearing one in action? (IMPORTANT: Listen with quality headphones or speakers!)
Show notes
You may have already heard our previous episode from Season 1 on getting to know your compressor.
In that episode we talked about the various uses for all the controls you can find on a fully featured unit:
- Input gain/level
- Threshold
- Ratio
- Attack
- Release
- Output volume/gain
That was one of our most popular episodes — probably because this one type of effect is the most universally popular for getting the most from your bass.
But we thought, wouldn’t it be great if you could hear one in action? And that spurred us on to do this episode.
We employed a Lakland 55-02, set basically flat, and a Markbass Compressore pedal to demonstrate some of the ways you can squash your sound using a compressor.
Some of the changes are subtle. Others are downright crazy (or even awful). That’s purposeful, so you can hear the differences and understand how a compressor can be used — or abused.
We highly recommend that you listen on high quality headphones or speakers, even studio monitors, to get the full effect of this podcast. That way you can hear the nuances of the examples.
Enjoy!
Photo courtesy of Kurt Kurasaki via Flickr. Music: Jahzzar, Please Listen Carefully; spinningmerkaba, Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix).