Compressor

I have a love hate relationship with compressors. I love the polish that they lend. I love using them as an overdrive. They sound super great with sparkly things like Strats and 12 strings, lively, "stringy". I like the soft squish of a jazzy solo, the audible pump of Roger McGuinn's Byrds work.

However, I hate digging into a chord and getting muh instead of krang! I hate my hot bridge pickup being quieter than my uninteresting middle pickup. Here is what I use and how I get around my limitations.

I have never really been a guitar knob tweaker but with a compressor I kind of have to be. In order to back off on the input of an Orange Squeezer, for example, you have to pick softer or closer to the bridge or back off on your guitar's volume. Differences in attack and volume of each pickup will necessitate adjusting one or more of these parameters after switching pickups. Consequently, I live in the middle position for a lot of my clean stuff. When I really want to dig in or hit a full cowboy chord, I pick almost right at the bridge to lower output and bass frequencies.

See? Simple.

My favorite compressor from a build perspective is the Orange Squeezer. It is the simplest of the schematics out there and it sounds great! Squishy and sweet. It makes a great overdrive and with the bias mounted externally gives you some control over the amount of squish. Mr. Squishy incorporates this and an input volume control for a very versatile Squeezer.

In a Box.