GUITAR COMPRESSORS EXPLAINED! Tone Secrets #5

[Music] so I figured since I have a nice adjustable compressor here in the 2026 I would just do a short segment in this video on a kind of a lesson on what the controls on an adjustable compressor actually do so this will apply to this pedal as well as any other pedal that has you know adjustable attack release time adjustable hardening your soft knee you know ratio threshold I think sometimes these controls they confuse people you know musicians in general not just guitar players so you know you can take this away and apply it to any compressor that you try essentially this information so here's the tone without the pedal yeah okay just a straight up clean found when I turn on the pedal I've got the output a little above half and I've got the ratio all the way down listen to the tone okay so I'm driving the amplifier sound into Distortion a little bit and that's because I've got the output cranked up a little bit ratios all the way off when the ratio is all the way down that means no compression is being applied and because I got the output cranked a little bit it means now I'm basically using the pedal like a clean boost so that's something you can do with an oppressor is actually drive the front end of your amp and if the you know if you've got a justa beware you turn it all the way off you're not getting any compression you're just going to hit the front end of the amplifier harder [Applause] okay so you can hear that sound get quite a bit louder now let's slowly raise the ratio control [Applause] [Music] now you can hear as I turned it up a bit and played you can hear the attenuation start to kick in as I turn it up more and more you can hear more compression happening so basically the ratio is the control that decides how much compression is going to get applied when a signal crosses the threshold okay so that brings us to the next thing threshold control the threshold is essentially just setting when compression kicks in okay so if you if you set for a kind of a light amount of sort of a high threshold setting and then you pick light you maybe not going to cross the compressor over into compression okay so like turn this threshold control up now we're not hearing any compression happening I turn it down now you can hear the compressor kicking in so that's essentially what the threshold does set the level at which compression kicked in ratio is the control that controls how much compression is actually going to occur when a signal crosses the threshold okay let's talk about the attack and release controls now so the attack control basically is the setting that will determine how soon compression kicks in after signal crosses the threshold okay so if I play a chord right now I've got the attack set all the way down that's its fastest setting okay as soon as the compressor senses the signal its clamping down at the fastest attack setting and you can hear it in the front end of the amp isn't getting distorted or anything like that because you know that signals getting compressed so low that it's not punching through and able to clip the front end of the amp now if I turn up the attack control all the way now it's going to be at its slowest setting okay and you heard it click the front end of the amp a little bit and then you heard the signal slowly die down okay that's what happens when you've got a slow attack takes a little while for the compression to kick in and so it just depends how you want to set it maybe you want to completely smooth out pick attack sometimes that can sound really good on an acoustic guitar if you wanted to really sit in a track and be very smooth but if you want some dynamics in there you want some of that pick to punch through sometimes it's better to set the attack setting you know at least a medium attack if not out now slow attack just depends on what what you want to hear so if I set the attack as fast as possible now let's talk about the release control this is the easiest to kind of demonstrate with the attack super fast so a really fast attack and a really fast release would sound like this [Music] okay so there's initial spica compression and now the compression turned off relatively quickly and here the sounds sort of fade away naturally but if I set for fast attack and really slow release okay that just grabs the signal and holds on to it way longer and doesn't let it go so that's going to be the most dramatic compression that you can get essentially as a fast attack really slow release and that's going to be like the least dynamic sound that you can possibly have it's basically squishing everything and sticking it kind of into one sort of dynamic range it's very limited okay so let's set it up for a medium fast release and a medium attack and now I want to show you what the knee control does last but not least so the knee control hardening or soft knee is basically how the compression sort of the character of it as it transitions into compressing okay a soft knee is going to have a much sort of more natural sound hard knee is a much harder sound that's soft knee this is hardening you can hear it's just way more aggressive it's grab the signal and then drops it's not very natural sound the way I have the compressor set right now but it's actually to kind of illustrate this hardening and soft knee compression once more here's the soft knee okay you can hear the compressor kind of start to do its job and then you know slowly but it's a little bit more natural sounding here's the hardening kicks down like that so it's it's you know much more natural to me most of the time using a soft knee but sometimes if you want really aggressive compression which that hard knee setting could be the right thing [Music] you you you [Music] Oh [Music]

Channel: Pete Thorn

Views: 221,378

Keywords: compressor, comp, bondi, mxr, boss, ehx, electro, harmonix, dyna comp, dynacomp, ross, fulltone, ibanez, roland, urei, UA, 1176, la2a, optical, vca, fet, guitar, pedal, pedalboard, pete, thorn, pete thorn, tone, sectrets, tone secrets, #5, fender, gibson, suhr, koji

Id: 0RAzXYBg6q0

Length: 6min 38sec (398 seconds)

Published: Tue May 02 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/juan_erection]

If you enjoyed this video I highly recommend checking out the videos below for more info on when/if you need a compressor on your pedal board.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMSCKz4GRZY&t=42s - demo for IF you need to use a compressor (Just Nick - mostly for funk, rock, and R&B compression sounds)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4wBy4RQcx8 - Common misuses of compressors and different styles of compression (That Pedal Show)

[u/ckalinec]

Here's another great video on compression. This isn't really geared toward guitar players but will give you a great example of what compression is doing. Will give you a better understanding of what you're compressor is doing. And if you're a visual learner this a great video as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaIv3rC1nxA

[u/frdhm]

This video was really helpful!

[u/[deleted]]

The truth: Compressors explained; Get. A. Deep. Six.