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Post subject: Mustang Compressor
Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 7:11 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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is there any need for compressors in metal i have a mustang3 and have no idea how to really use the compressor if there good for metal would someone be able to recommend a setting or explain what the knobs do on the mustangs compressor so i could attempted to set it my self

iv heard they were good
and i also heard there was no need for one cause higher gain gives natural compression

can someone please help me out with the compressor im so confused :? :? :? :? :? :? :?

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Post subject: Re: Mustang Compressor
Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 9:24 pm
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The only amp presets I use the compressor on is the Fender Twin Reverb and the VOX AC30 [British '60s]. When I use it, it gives my guitar tone a certain chime that isn't otherwise there. I don't know why, but it works.

I never use it anywhere else.

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Post subject: Re: Mustang Compressor
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:09 am
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To understand WHEN to use a compressor, one needs to understand exactly WHAT it is doing, and whether what it does is something one wants/needs in the sound.

If you want some interesting background reading, typing "what does a guitar compressor do" into your favourite internet search engine will give lots of useful info. I'll try and summarise my understanding of compressors here - this is in simple, conceptual terms rather than trying to be 100% technically accurate.

A guitar note (or any musical note) isn't the same volume all the time. There's an initial, usually fast, "attack" - when the note builds to peak volume. Then the note "decays" to a quieter level, which it "sustains" for some time before fading away. OK, during the "sustain" the note is still decaying, but at a slower rate than during the earlier "decay" phase.

So there's quite a large volume change over the life of a single note. A compressor reduces that volume change (ie "compresses" it), to give a smoother, more constant volume for the note. It does this by one or both of: attenuating (ie reducing) the louder parts of the note, and/or boosting the quieter parts of the note.

There are two main reasons for wanting to do this. The first is to limit (attenuate) the peak volume of the note to prevent distortion occurring in an amplifier, and thus preserve a clean sound. Also softening the attack can make notes sound "smoother" and less harsh. The second is to increase the sustain of a note, by boosting the later, quieter parts of the note up to the volume of the earlier parts. This allows you to hold notes for longer.

Compression is also used in performance / recording simply to even-out the overall volume, so that at no point is the sound too quiet to be clearly heard, or too loud. This is both for listener comfort and to keep the sound in a 'mid range' that is more likely to sound ok on a wider selection of hi-fi (and lo-fi!) equipment. There's actually very little difference between "loud" and "quiet" in recorded pop/rock music - the ear and brain do a good job of creating the illusion of big volume changes from a relatively small real change.

Obviously this has to be done smoothly: one could easily limit the peak volume of a note by clipping it, but that would create distortion! A compressor is more complex/subtle: in essence it's a variable-gain pre-amp: the louder the input signal, the less gain (or more attenuation); the quieter the signal, the more gain (or less attenuation). A compressor typically has a number of settings to control all this: the volumes at which the compression is activated, how quickly it responds to the changing volume of the guitar note, what its overall output level should be, etc.

The Mustang has two compressor effects. One is very simple: it has pre-programmed settings intended just to do the job without the user having to worry about the details. The other has controls (labelled level, threshold, ratio, attack, release) as per paragraph above. I'll have to leave others to explain in detail how to use those.

As for whether a compressor is needed for higher-gain sounds: A high-gain sound will be clipping the signal most of the time, so will already be limiting the peak volume. Also, the sound will still be in the clipping region even as it decays in volume, so will appear to be at a more constant amplitude anyway. Thus there is less need (but not no need - see *) for a compressor to shape the desired tone.

Where a compressor might be useful in this case is as an overall volume normaliser. You might want one at the start of your signal chain, so that there's a more consistent volume going into your overdrive/distortion in the first place, and thus you'll get a more consistent distorted tone*. Or have one at the end of your effects chain to ensure the output signal is kept in the right volume range for whatever equipment comes next - eg input to a recording device etc.

As usual, the possibilities are endless and it's a case of experimenting, with a little knowledge of what's likely to happen, until you get the sound you want. If a compressor improves your sound, then great it's the thing for you. If it doesn't, then there's no need to have one, whatever anyone else says.

*This is because the perceived volume of a note depends as much on the 'shape' of the waveform as on its amplitude. A louder input note will still sound louder than a quiet input note, even if they're both being clipped at the same peak amplitude. That's because perceived volume depends on the 'power' in the waveform - a whole extra topic I won't go into here. Suffice to say, using a compressor to smooth out volume changes at the input to your fuzz/distortion can still help give a consistent high-gain sound, even if you have all the knobs turned up to 11 and are clipping/distorting the sound to within an inch of its life.


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Post subject: Re: Mustang Compressor
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:21 am
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Further thoughts / hints on this:

With the Mustang (at least, current firmware) you can't have both compressor and distortion (overdrive or fuzz) effects. There are a couple of workarounds you can try if you want both:

- If you want to use a compressor effect, use the amp model's gain control to obtain the overdrive distortion. The different amps will give different amounts and types of distortion, hopefully one will provide what you need.

- If you want to use a distortion effect, use the amp model's sag control to obtain (a limited amount of) compression. (sag is explained in other posts so I won't repeat here)

Note also that if you enable the compressor or distortion effects using the on-amp controls, the effect will be before the amp model in the signal chain. Using FUSE, you can put the effect after the amp model, if that's what you want.


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Post subject: Re: Mustang Compressor
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2012 10:41 am
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thanks for the replys

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Post subject: Re: Mustang Compressor
Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 4:22 am
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well composed post Scott.

Compressors are one of those things were too much of a good thing is well,, to much. so it's really the sort of thing where each amp preset you have, may need a slight different setting.

Also, does anyone else find the Mustangs compressor settings aren't quite as effective as a dedicated compressor is? I seem to get more "squish" out of my Route 66 compressor than I do the ones in the MIII.


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