Compression 101

on today's episode I'm gonna cover compression 101 and I hear a saucy rumor that JHS peddles has a new compression pedal is that true sure must be [Music] to know how to use compression we have to understand what compression is we're not talking today about the 90s app winzip we're talking about audio compression and one of the very first applications of this technique was used after we invented a device called the telephone you see when you use the telephone you sometimes talk to a guy who talked really really loud and he blew your head off or you talk to someone who is very quiet and you couldn't quite make out what they were saying so they applied this compression technique to that audio signal and they brought the quiet person up and the loud person down leveling them into the center this is what compression is often referred to as a leveling amplifier and in the 1930s we see compression into the commercial market as well as the first ever instances of electric guitar being compressed by valve amplifiers in the late 1970s we see the world's first ever guitar compression pedals hit the market let me show you a few of those classics first up is the roland a s1 sustainer this is really cool because it's pre boss look at the packaging which tells a little bit of a story here distortion free sustainer this is really significant because up until this time of the 70s you only saw sustain as a control on a fuzz like the big muff and Roland's basically saying hey no fuzz here this is clean compressed sustain they come along later with the boss line cs1 for instance cs2 and so on really great compressors next up we have the Dyna comps everyone's seen these here's a script a block logo and the newer versions as well and we have the old classic Ross compressor which is a modified Dyna compt and my personal favorite is the Dan Armstrong orange squeezer it's not a pedal you just plug it into your guitar but it's really fantastic and I based my pulping bill off of that so you're wondering how does compression work for electric guitar well it works just like the telephone example that I showed you earlier some of your guitar playing is quiet and some of it is loud so it's going to bring those parts down and the lower parts up so they can meet in the middle compressions kind of like the mom of your pedalboard let me explain little Timmy's upstairs blaring Pantera and dad's in the dark cold basement reading Mark Twain but then mock the compressor she calls them together for a beautiful dinner and all the sudden dad in the basement and Timmy upstairs come together for a harmonious evening where their lives will never be the same despite their horrific differences to help you further understand compression let me go over the five most popular controls that you're gonna see on most any compressor pedal out there on the market the number one and the most important control of any compressor is called the threshold now one confusing factor is that many manufacturers call this different things other than threshold let me show you a few examples boss uses the term sustain mxr calls it sensitivity diamond calls it compression and i also call it compression on my pulp and pill and my brand new compressor the white eat ID correct but no matter what you call it it's all the same function it is a threshold it is the control of how much guitar signal it takes to trigger the compression effect as to further demonstrate that let me show you this right here we have your guitar signal represented by the white waveform now the peak of the guitar is at 10 decibels and then we have three different control situations for the compression or threshold knob the first one sets the compression or threshold at 15 DB this means that this line right here is what it would take for the signal to get up to to trigger the compressor we notice that the 10 DB peak of your guitar signal in white isn't reaching 15 DB threshold so the compressors not turning on when we see the 9 DB setting the knobs turned up quite a bit we noticed that it cuts across the top 1 DB of your guitars 10 DB signal what happens there is that little 1 DB peak compress down underneath the 9 DB threshold now we have the most drastic setting we've turned that knob up further a 3 DB threshold is smashing way down on your 10 DB signal and only allowing 3 DB of your signal underneath the threshold and that's a lot of compressed sound [Music] [Music] the number to control you need to know about is called attack this is the moment that you hit the guitar to the point that that guitar signal hits the threshold what would the attack be like fast or slow back to that house diagram we saw attack is the same as when mom calls everyone to dinner how quickly do they get there then we have number three is release it is the exact opposite of attack it's how long does it take everyone to leave the dinner table so once we've hit the guitar it's compressed does it quickly leave compression or does it slowly slope off away from compression then we have ratio you'll see this control say things like one to one that's no compression two to ones a little bit three the ones more four to ones even more and you even have infinite ratio controls and that's just a limiter limiting is in essence just a really harsh and aggressive compressor then we have my favorite compressor control the blend or parallel compression the blend control like I use in my pulp and pill and whitey tidy essentially lets you blend in untouched clean guitar signal with the compressed signal so you always have the clarity of that original path [Music] you [Music] then you have volume or make up game when you compress a signal some times it can feel like your compressor made everything a little more quiet just turn the knob up and that fixes that on most compressors as well they make really great clean boost when you crank that volume knob you can hit over drives with them amps with them and so on the two biggest tips I can give you about integrating a compressor pedal into your guitar rig are put it before your drives I can't tell you how many emails I've gotten over the years that say this compressor pedals noisy this one's noisy this guy makes one but it's noisy or you read that on a forum and you find out that they have it after their distortion well the problem is the compressor is not noisy no compressor should be noisy within itself but compressors bring up quiet things so that means that any hiss our noise coming from an overdrive pedal gets brought up equally as loud to your guitar signal it's just a big no-no so put those before your drive pedals and the second tip I give you is to play to the compression pedal and you'll notice that you feel it more than you hear it that's where I like compression the most I'm not a big massive fan I'm always using it as a very audible effect but I do love turning on a compressor and feeling the way that my guitars pickups and my fingers respond differently through it to my aunt it's all about feeling and when you find that you'll know it one of my favorite uses of compression is to sustain my slide playing I really got turned on to this by a song called high hopes on Pink Floyd's the Division Bell David Gilmour's guitar sound is epic there and I put a compressor before an overdrive and combine that with a long quarter note delay a ton of life to my side plane [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] another way that I've always used compression is almost as an always-on leveling effect so I have a tendency to make riffs out of the notes within chords so as I'm picking through those it will be quiet and then I'll go to the same chords and strumming parts of the song the compressor really brings those quieter passages together with the harder hitting loud passages and keeps my guitar perfectly in balance with the day [Music] while compression is usually a very subtle thing it can be a very noticeable effect in genres like country with chicken Pickers or funk music where they really compress those clean guitars you could also just invent your own genre like spaghetti western surf rock music whatever I do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] today's record time is brought to you by a masterpiece for 1980 it is the talking heads remain in light and track one is the song that I most like because it's my favorite talking head song ever from the moment you play it you hear compression on the guitar the drums the bass the keys the since everything has compression and this album and that song are a clinic on how to use compression as an effect something that you definitely hear and something that definitely changes the song in the comments below I would love for you to tell me about an album artist whatever you want to talk about that has compression like I'm talking about here tell me why you love it make sure you check this out I think you're really gonna like it thanks for watching I want to lead out here with some of my own compressor suggestions for you that are out in the market number one is the boss CP 1x boss has always blazed a trail in compression and this thing is outstanding so be sure to check it out a boutique classic the diamond compressor can't recommend it enough as well my pulp and pill I have four versions this is number four it has di out for bass players in acoustic parallel dirt blend control lots of features really powerful the warden by my friends at Earthquaker you got six knobs so tons of tweak ability a couple key Lee pedals huge thanks to Keeley he sent these out for the videos I have his old one as you saw in the video but the pro is outstanding you saw it in one of those songs if you want to have all the features almost of like a computer plug-in compressor where you can tweak it to death this is the way to go the more simplified normal compressor that he's making it's outstanding the mxr Dyna comp it really doesn't get more simple than this don't get hung up on what logo what year don't be a forum person like that just buy one and play it because these are really approachable and easy to get to sound well and then my new whitey tidy small enclosure you have a clean blend three knobs not a bad sound in it so obviously I'm gonna recommend that if you liked this episode hit like subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon for notifications of future episodes and also tell me your favorite song from the day and your favorite compressor pedal and how you use it in those comments below see [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: JHS Pedals

Views: 803,708

Keywords: JHS, JHS Pedals, Guitar, Guitar Pedals, Electric Guitar, Guitar Effects, Guitar Player, Guitar Playing, Pedal Demo, Guitar Demo, New Pedals, New Guitar Pedals, Josh Scott, Guitar Gear, Music Gear, Guitar Tones, Pedal Tones, Good Guitar Tone, Best Guitar Tone, Best Electric Guitar Tone, Analog Guitar Tone, Guitar Sounds, JHS Guitar Pedals, JHS VLOG, JHS Videos, Compression 101, Compression Pedals, Compression Guitar, How to use Compression, Compressor Effects

Id: LUXR8UnYhzc

Length: 18min 11sec (1091 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 31 2019