Guitar Compression was :Re: ...reflections...

[andy butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk>]

André Donawa wrote:
 
> A question for you guitar players. Do you use a compressor when you are
> live looping and do you have any recommendations?

Looking forward to different answers on this one.

Here's mine:
Never use them. 

In ensemble playing, and also in live looping the most
important thing about the sound is how loud is it.
If the different elements in the mix aren't at levels
which make the music gel together then overall it sounds *bad*.

If you use a compressor, you loose control of the dynamics.
If you use a compressor all the time you never develop the 
skill to control dynamics with your fingers.

When live looping I use a lot of different sounds, and 
need to mix them simply by playing at the right level.
That's even true of the ebow, I don't (generally) use any "safety net*
of distortion with it, so the only way to avoid those ultra-loud
ebow clunkers is to learn the technique to avoid them...
...and once that's learned it's really easy to make an ebow
solo stand out from the mix without being over-loud.



Part b of the answer is that I'm somewhat ignorant about guitar
tone in general, so wouldn't know what compressor to use anyway.

andy butler