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Country
Compressor Pedal Shootout
By: Jim
Moulton, CSO Staff Journalist
4/24/08
Greetings
Friends, well I guess you wonder where I disappeared to, but I
have been up to something different. After almost seven years
of doing CD reviews, I decided to review another type of
musical product that involves country music, guitar pedals,
specifically, compressor pedals. I have played guitar most of
my life except for a couple of breaks, I am a bit limited now
due to chronic pain, but that condition has become better of
late so I have been playing more and playing with a worship
team at my Church every other Monday night, playing
country-style worship songs.
Let me tell you
the ground rules of the Shootout, and how I have tested the
pedals and with what. This kind of put me out on a limb,
because it is the first time that I ever had to buy stuff to
review stuff. I used my 20 year old Fisher Stereo that I
review CDs with, plus the same Sennheiser HD485 headphones
that I use for reviewing music. I used my Alvarez Dreadnought
with a Fishman NeoD soundhole pickup ,so I could basically
make it sound acoustic or electric. I picked up a small Kustom
KGA10FX Amp thru Amazon, that has been great to check out the
pedals in my apartment., sure couldn't use a big Fender amp,
also, a Fishman Platinum EQ DI, which I have been playing thru
at Church, I got one to use at home thru the Kustom to make it
tonally a lot better, a great piece of equipment, I had been
using a LR Baggs Para DI at church, but one broke and they
picked up one of these, I just love the tones it adds.
Finally, playing the pedals thru the great sound system we
have at church, our auditorium seats 2000 folk, so we have a
very hi end system, in fact, I heard that the same sound
system company that did the Grand Old Opry did our Church.
So here is what
I would do with each pedal, basically the Stereo headphones
first, because it would give me a very defined mental picture
of what the pedal was doing then the hifi speakers because it
would give a different musical spectrum than the guitar amp
which is made specifically to amp a guitar. Then, I would move
on to the guitar amp and finally play the pedal live at
Church. There are three pedals that I am going to get into,
The HomeBrew Electronics Retro Compressor, The Keeley
Two Knob Compressor and the Eden Analog Nashville Hot
Boost. I want to thank Joel at HomeBrew, Nathan at Keeley
Electronics and Robert at Eden Analog all for sending me these
pedals to review. And also thanks to Theo Hartman of Hartman
Electronics for being my electronic resource, thanks for
answering my dumb questions. I also would like to give Donner
Rusk credit for making me a compressor geek, by reading his
twenty seven page treatise on compressors.
HomeBrew
Electronics is a small Arizona based company dedicated to hi
quality custom hand crafted guitar effects. They have a
respectable catalog of about fourteen effects with the
"Power Screamer Overdrive" being their flagship
Product.
I checked out
the CPR Compressor modeled after a vintage "Ross
Comp" like the Keeley comp. It is more of an over-easy
compressor than a hi squash unit like the Keeley. Quality
wise, it does a good job. All HBE pedals
are cased in a heavy metal powder coated box, (you can get the
compressor in different colors), the standard color is a turquoise
color white sparkle in it and an innocuous yellow LED. It
comes with a true bypass foot switch, like all three pedals
that I am reviewing here. This is very good to have in a chain
of pedals, because this type of switch really turns the unit
all of the way off, you would be surprised at the tone sucking
that occurs with pedals that do not have true bypass and are
partially on. In fact, most products, including televisions
are not really all of the way off when you hit the switch.
Each pedal is
made one at a time, and it is extremely neat inside. I like
the battery clip on the lid, most boutique pedals do not have
this, the battery just lays there in the empty space.
The CPR is
extremely quiet, it is a compressor that you can put in the
chain and leave on. You are not going to have enough
compression to be imitating Brent Mason's chickin' pickin',
with both knobs maxed out, It is still relatively quiet, but
not giving a good squash like a hot comp. Mix this with an
overdrive pedal and you will be able to pull up those country/rock sounds. All in all, a very good product, very hi
quality, just not enough compression for me.
Now to the main
attraction, The Keeley 2 knob Compressor, I had to check out
this pedal right away when it came in, I hooked it up to my
stereo, and was playing a Grateful Dead toned jam on it with
it's super squash powers. The Keeley is a much smaller pedal,
like a mxr size box. It is a beautiful powder coated metallic
chrome with black knobs. What will tell you this is a popular
compressor? Just look on the website and check out the
users, that tells the story. The list starts with Dan Huff,
Brent Mason, Brent Rowan, Sonny Landreth, Buddy Miller, and
many more. Included in that list are some of the top Nashville sessions players
right there.
This pedal is
all about sound quality, period. All parts are new except the
nos (new old stock) CA3080 chip which powers the pedal.
Keeley's Catalog only has about five original pedals, the
Compressor being his flagship pedal, which comes in two knob
or four knob. The other 2 knobs on the four knob pedal can be
adjusted inside the two knob Keeley comp. One is for attack,
classic Keeley is attack on full, and the other adjustment is
for a line in, so you can adjust for different inputs and
instruments. Keeley does a ton of mods ,which is a smart idea,
take a pedal with a good metal case , change out a diode and a
couple of transistors, add a switch and you have a different
sounding pedal.
Back to the
comp, in a much smaller enclosure, he puts a lot more parts
than the Homebrew. Both use the nos CA3080 chip (typical for
Ross comps and the popular dynacomp). The MXR dynacomp came
first, then the Ross was the first boutique of the dynacomp.
There is another descendent of the dynacomp called the Saffron
Squeeze, which is out of make now. Analog Mike Piera makes a
pedal that emulates the Saffron Squeeze for those interested.
Keeley's sound
clips are very accurate, not all pedal clips are, they have
been doctored with other pedals and amps and you name it. I
have used Keeley's comp in many situations and it always
sounds great, very quiet noise floor, I was talking to two
owners of local stores asking about OD pedals they had, told
them what I was doing and they start telling me about their
Keeley Comps.
The basic job
of a compressor is to make the loud parts quieter and the
quiet parts louder , giving you a more uniform signal and one
that will stand out in a mix more without the need for more
volume. Now, in country music, we like to turn them up so the
sustain is high and you can get some neat percussive clicks
and makes chickin' pickin' easier. If you don't know what that
is, think of Vince Gill's solo on his older song "Liza
Jane". Toy Caldwell was a great chickin' picker, he would
even talk about it in his songs. There are various ways of
doing this, most of it has to do with your fingering, but
extra sustain and grit help.
Playing the
Keeley at Church thru that system is a great experience, using
the Fishman, EQ, DI, the Keeley makes my Dread sound like it
cost a thousand dollars more, more than a compressor, I would
put under the category of sound improvement also. So, my pick
for the Shootout is obviously the Keeley , in it's category,
it's the best.
The final pedal
I would like to briefly mention is Eden Analog's Nashville Hot
Boost, I'm giving it The Horizon award for new pedals
for great country picking. This pedal blew me away, the clips
blew me away first, the fellows at Eden Analog were happy to
send me one to try out. And it greatly lived up to what I had
heard, plug your guitar thru it, and it sounded like you were
getting country tones , don't know how they did all of it, but
figured out a little bit. I use a Hartman "Orange
Squeezer" Compressor sometimes and it uses a 4558 opamp.
This opamp is used in Overdrives too, So I asked them if there
was a jrc4558 in the pedal and they did admit there was a form
of a 4558 in the pedal, so that explains part of the puzzle.
Using this with my country worship team at church was fun, it
has a drive knob, level knob and a tone knob, I couldn't get a
bad sound out of it. This is just a great hot boost, that does
not fuzz out, just gives great tone.
So, that's all
folk, back to the world of CDs, if you are a player, try these
pedals out, they will help your craft.
Jim Moulton
www.robertkeeley.com
www.HomeBrewelectronics.com
www.edenanalog.com
To
visit Jim Moulton's website click
here.
Real
People Reviews
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Click on the photos to view
larger versions.
Keeley Two Knob
Compressor
HomeBrew Electronics
ComPressor Retro (CPR)
Eden Analog Nashville
Hot Boost
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