Compression question

Looks to me like Empress "translated" the controls so us numbskull guitar players could understand them
but Bob Keeley took a full featured studio compressor and crammed it into a guitar pedal for engineers.
I find this odd because the two Keeley pedals that I own make perfect "guitar sense" (oxymoron?).
 
Tony M. said:
Looks to me like Empress "translated" the controls so us numbskull guitar players could understand them
but Bob Keeley took a full featured studio compressor and crammed it into a guitar pedal for engineers.
I find this odd because the two Keeley pedals that I own make perfect "guitar sense" (oxymoron?).
Click to expand...
Now you’ve confused ME....
But yes, Keekey knows his stuff....and his stuff is damn good.
 
Tony M. said:
Yes it is.
I have a 30MS and a Caverns.
Both are wonderful pedals.
Click to expand...
I think the only reason I do not own a Keely is because I opted for the Empress on a number of occasions. They are often the top 2 for me. The Keely workstation series really raised the bar. Along side of it, Empress has the Echosystem. And on it goes, and there goes my money!
 
Fortunately the size of my pedal boards is limited by my
"in and out in 1 trip" rule. My big board is 20" X 7" and
has everything I want to do a job. I don't drag along any
pedals that would only be used for 1 verse in 1 song.
That verse will be gone before anyone notices.
I usually take an even smaller no Wah board.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RVA
Tony M. said:
Fortunately the size of my pedal boards is limited by my
"in and out in 1 trip" rule. My big board is 20" X 7" and
has everything I want to do a job. I don't drag along any
pedals that would only be used for 1 verse in 1 song.
That verse will be gone before anyone notices.
I usually take an even smaller no Wah board.
Click to expand...
And therein lies a major difference in approach. Your board is designed to do a job (ie - entertain others), whereas mine is designed to keep me entertained!
 
I received a reply to my inquiry to empress by email today.
---------------------------------------
The mix knob lets you blend the totally dry, uncompressed signal together with your signal that's had compression applied, whereas the input knob controls how much signal is being fed into the compression circuit.



So the input knob isn't really how much of the signal is being compressed, but rather how much signal is being seen by the compressor circuit. The ratio is what determines how much of that signal, above the set threshold, will be compressed.



As an extreme example, if you set your input to max and the ratio to 10:1 and mix to 100%, you're going to hear an extremely compressed and probably very distorted sound. Now if you take the mix control and dial it down to 50%, you're going to be hearing that same extremely compressed sound, but now it'll be blended with the completely dry uncompressed sound. You're adding in a parallel signal path.



Hope that clears it up! Please let me know if you have any other questions.
 
That is a weird, and vaguely suspect answer.
RVA said:
I received a reply to my inquiry to empress by email today.
---------------------------------------
...whereas the input knob controls how much signal is being fed into the compression circuit.



So the input knob isn't really how much of the signal is being compressed, but rather how much signal is being seen by the compressor circuit. The ratio is what determines how much of that signal, above the set threshold, will be compressed...
Click to expand...
The rest sounds fine to me.
 
Wow. That confused me. I use a compressor at line-level - no boost - and it really just shapes the sound...

IMG_20180405_58712.jpg
IMG_20180405_48931.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: RVA
It would seem that the person in the e-mail answering department and the
person in the engineering department at Empress have never crossed paths...
:facepalm:

Either that or they designed a pedal with both input mix and output mix controls.
That seems redundant to me. I feel that threshold and output level would have
been far more useful. They could have...no, should have, used a dial for ratio
rather than limit (see what I did there...) the user to a 3 position switch.

Despite all that, the pedal sounds pretty darn good.
:)
 
Tony M. said:
It would seem that the person in the e-mail answering department and the
person in the engineering department at Empress have never crossed paths...
:facepalm:

Either that or they designed a pedal with both input mix and output mix controls.
That seems redundant to me. I feel that threshold and output level would have
been far more useful. They could have...no, should have, used a dial for ratio
rather than limit (see what I did there...) the user to a 3 position switch.

Despite all that, the pedal sounds pretty darn good.
:)
Click to expand...
An analog ratio pedal is an interesting idea. However, I do not think many pedals even have a ratio selection
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top