Re: Compressors?

[Dave Stagner <dstagner@icarus.net>]

I don't think it's off-topic at all.  When I switched from primarily
electric to primarily acoustic looping, I suddenly had a severe
problem with overloading the front end of my digital effects.  I've
tried putting the TC in the path of my piezo pickup, but so far not so
good.  I'll probably build myself a tube compressor, more because I'm
currently into homemade tube stuff than because I think it'll be
great (actually, it'll probably be a combination compressor/preamp,
because I'm less than thrilled with my noisy Fisher preamp).  

Personally, I'd say avoid guitar-oriented compressors completely and
look for a brand-name studio compressor.  Excellent rackmount models
from dbx, Rane, and others are easy enough to find.  Make it the very
first thing in your signal chain, unless you need a preamp/buffer
first.  In particular, compressors work lots better BEFORE your
distortion device rather than after, where they amplify all that noise
along with the signal.   

Studio compressors are smoother, quieter, and more flexible than
guitar compressors.  The only guitar compressor I've ever really liked
is the TC.  All the rest are hissy, pumping tone-squashers.  

-dave

By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete.
Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. 
Venus De Milo.
To a child she is ugly.       /* dstagner@icarus.net */
   -Charles Fort