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Hatsubai « Very solid compressor »
Published on 11/22/11 at 17:46The MXR Dyna-Comp is probably one of the more famous compressors out there. It's been around for who knows how long, and it's been part of rigs since before I was born. The ability to squish the notes works awesome for clean tones, and it can actually be used as a bit of a solo aid as well, assuming you don't plan on squishing the piss out of your tone. There are very few compressors out there as readily available as this, as well as being as musical sounding as this one.
UTILIZATION
MXR pedals are put into very strong housings. You could jump on this from the balcony, and I bet it would still survive. The only real issues I ever see with these are that the switches will sometimes go, but that's after years and years of hard touring abuse. I've seen people spill beers on these without any issues at all. Using it is very easy as there are only two knobs. You simply adjust the two knobs to the amount of compression you're looking for, and you're good to go. There are a few sample settings in the manual, and if you want more info, you can look in there, but considering how easy this pedal is to use, it's really not needed.
SOUND QUALITY
The sound is great. For clean tones, if you ever wanted that spanky kind of clean sound, this is the pedal you're looking for. You can squish the clean tone enough to where it sounds a lot more even and not nearly as "peaky" as clean tones tend to be. Country cleans are pretty much always heavily compressed, and this can do that kind of tone in spades. I don't really recommend using this on rhythms too much as it tends to be a bit too compressed, but on leads, it can be a pretty sweet lead boost that helps give you some extra sustain without harming the original tone too much.
OVERALL OPINION
If you're looking for a solid compressor for the price, this is probably the one you want to get. There are better ones out there such as the famous Keeley Compressor, but that's very expensive, and it's not exactly necessary for everyone. While that happens to be my main compressor, this one is great in a pinch, and I find myself using it whenever I go to a store to test out clean tones.
UTILIZATION
MXR pedals are put into very strong housings. You could jump on this from the balcony, and I bet it would still survive. The only real issues I ever see with these are that the switches will sometimes go, but that's after years and years of hard touring abuse. I've seen people spill beers on these without any issues at all. Using it is very easy as there are only two knobs. You simply adjust the two knobs to the amount of compression you're looking for, and you're good to go. There are a few sample settings in the manual, and if you want more info, you can look in there, but considering how easy this pedal is to use, it's really not needed.
SOUND QUALITY
The sound is great. For clean tones, if you ever wanted that spanky kind of clean sound, this is the pedal you're looking for. You can squish the clean tone enough to where it sounds a lot more even and not nearly as "peaky" as clean tones tend to be. Country cleans are pretty much always heavily compressed, and this can do that kind of tone in spades. I don't really recommend using this on rhythms too much as it tends to be a bit too compressed, but on leads, it can be a pretty sweet lead boost that helps give you some extra sustain without harming the original tone too much.
OVERALL OPINION
If you're looking for a solid compressor for the price, this is probably the one you want to get. There are better ones out there such as the famous Keeley Compressor, but that's very expensive, and it's not exactly necessary for everyone. While that happens to be my main compressor, this one is great in a pinch, and I find myself using it whenever I go to a store to test out clean tones.