Analog Man Comprossor

This is a review for the large box, 3-knob, one switch CompROSSor. Very easy to use, as a stomp box should be. Pay attention to the Attack knob: up for humbuckers, down for single coils.

So, one afternoon I decided to try out some compressors at my local den of guitar sin. I plugged a tele with P-90's through a variety of compressors, into a 1965 Fender Twin. The Boss CS-3 sounded horrible - just absolutely awful. The Toadworks Mr. Squishy was much better, and I almost bought it. The TC Electronics unit was about the same as the Toadworks, but cost far more. They did not have a Keeley in stock. Just for giggles - no intent whatsoever to buy - I tried this like-new-but-used Analogman. Unbelievable! I had no choice but to buy it. So superior to everything else. It made the guitar come alive.

I run it near the beginning of my effects chain: Teese Wizard Wah > Boss Tuner > Analogman Comprosser > Zinky True Grit > Nick Greer Royal Fromage > Greer Claymore > MXR 6-band EQ > HBE Mock Mimic delay > Sovtek Mig-60 amp > Mesa halfback 4 X 12. Yeesh.

Obviously, I play icky loud seething rock/punk music (see my space Primasonic for reference), but the Comprosser can also make chickin' pickin' country licks and big, swoopy jazz chords sound great. I only play this kind of thing when alone, of course.

The Comprossor does wonderful things for my dirt boxes, and adds an extra dose of endless sustain to the whole deal. I can turn down a little, but still jump out of the noisy band mix with articulate clarity - bonus!

It's only been a month, but I can't imagine much going wrong with this beautifully crafted unit. Still, I will reserve judgement.

No contact, so far.

Mostly covered above. I have been playing for many, many years - going on 40, with many breaks. I can't beleive I used to be happy with a Boss compressor back in 1985; my young ears weren't very educated, I guess.

I now consider this to be an essential piece of gear, and it stays on all the time. I try turning it off, and everything sounds worse. I will spare you the details of what I would do to a thief.

Expensive, and worth every single penny.

Three knobs.
Turn and burn.
Find what suits you best.
How can it be simpler.

hagstrom deluxe 2f-->sun face-->ibanez tube screamer-->COMPROSSOR
-->vox v847-->fender blackface deluxe reverb-->NICE SOUND.

I can get a strong amount of compression and still no noise.
Sounds great to me.

Indeed, good customer support.

I play Funk/soul/jazz.
Been playing for 15 years.
I'd buy it again.
I compared it to the dunlop supercomp.
My choice was the comprossor.

Analog man makes the meanest friggin guitar pedals under the sun.

As easy as can be to get great clean compression. Just set the level you want and amount of sustain and then play with the attack knob untill you have tonal nirvana to your liking.Manual is self explanatory and easy to understand.

The sound quality is great.....any compressor will give some amount of noise...this one is very quiet. I had bought a Keeley compressor and had it on my pedal board for 2 weeks and then sold it and bought Analogman Mike's Comprossor.....so glad I did. The Keeley is a great product,but for me was way too noisy and not as transparent as the Analogman's. I run Strats and a 335 through a blackface deluxe reverb and a Holland Lil Jimi. This compressor does what a compressor was meant to do...makes the notes pop and at an even level with no notes louder than others.... and just sweetens everything nicely.

Only had it a few weeks but seems very solid. Im sure if any problem arose Mike would step up and take care of the problem. He seems like a good dude and would stand behind his product.

I wrote Mike an email and he responded quickly...seemed very friendly and helpful.

I have been playing for 35 years and have owned every vintage and many newer pedals out there. This is the real deal....better than my old Ross and MXR compressors...and in my opinon...better than my Keeley. I would definately ask for another if something happened to mine. I gig almost every weekend and always have other players compliment me on my great tone...thanks MIke. On my board I have a RMC Wah to my Analogman Comprossor to a Fulltone Fulldrive 2 to a Maxon chorus to a Petterson Stobostomp tuner.

This is the best compressor ever. I've tried many, and I use it in conjuntion with the Juicer sometimes. But this compressor never goes off on my board, it sounds amazing. Tweaking the settings slightly makes the sound that much more perfect for what you're playing. What a pedal.

See my review on the Beano Boost for my rig. This is an extremely quiet compressor as far as compressors go. This is obivously a pedal that shapes one's tone like that of TREY ANASTASIO of Phish. Though he has rarely used this pedal, he used a ROSS Compressor for years, and the Comprossor is a clone of it. He has one on his board, but he rarely uses his compressors from 12/31-/02 to the present (today is 4/3/06).

IT'S A TANK! Analogman's pedals could last a war. Zakk Wylde needs this stuff.

Mike is often gone but very nice.

Phish. See my Beano Boost review for the other crap. This is my go to compressor, nothing comes close. I love it. Plus it's TRUE BYPASS. Great unit, and it weighs absolutely nothing.

Very easy to get a great sound. Simply balance the output of the effected to match the volume of the uneffected amp (or add a little boost if you like) and jig the sustain level until you are happy. The attack knob is useful and I just tweaked it until I was happy with it - fully clockwise in my case. There's plenty of flexibility here which adds a very useful extra dimension to the pedal - it's not just a one sound wonder. Hardly any effect on the tone - but there is just a slight difference, barely noticeable. Manual is informative and well written.

THis box of delights replaced my MXR JD Dynacomp. Now I was more or less happy with the DYnacomp - great value and it works, albeit with a little pumping and some colouration of the tone, which I could live with, but having got sucked into this quest for my ultimate tone I found myself on the Analogman web site. I'll try not to gush but this is a terrific smoooth compressor with no uneven pumping. Awesome and I am over the moon with it.
Gear: American series Strat and Tele, MXR Stereo CHorus, flanger, Boss GE7 EQ, Noise suppressor NS2, tuner TU2, Gigadelay, wah-wah, EHX Holygrail (upgrading to holiest grail), TAkkydrive 2, Pete COrnish SS/P2 duplex, fulltone minidejavibe, Hiwatt Custom 20 head and 2x12 cab loaded with Celestions.

Although I have been influenced by the styles/sounds of other artists - in particular Gilmour, Trower - I have been driven to seek my own tone rather than obsess (and ultimately fail) to emulate precisely someone else. I've only recently ugraded to the awesome new Hiwatt set up (from Music Ground Leeds - awesome shop that!!) - hand built in England and at the same time taken time out to review and upgrade my pedals. spent quite a bit of time on Ebay buying/selling/swapping.

The Comprosser is quite simply a superb compressor in a little box and I love it to bits. It even looks ubercool. A quality item from a quality outfit.

Only just got it.

Superb communications. It's great to deal with people who have a passion for their products.

Terrific for a variety of classic sustaining clean sounds and it works superbly in combination with the other effects in my rig - and of course the amp n speakers.

Its easy to use in the fact that its a good compressor and unlike other comps, you can tell its ON, and you can tell what its doing. Sustain and Vol work as you think they should be the attack knob deffinately takes some tweaking to understand what its doing. It basically gives you a more/less percussive sound. Thats the best explanation i can order. It seems to matter more if your going into a distorted amp or pedal to me.

Alot of comps out there will give you the added sustain and such but at the expense of your tone. It will be muffled, or to thin and bright sounding. The CompROSSor makes my clean tone better, if you can beleive that. The way it colors your notes s just to die for and it works really well with dist/overdrive pedals too!

All the best parts inside, tough sturdy case, clean wiring inside. ITs not breaking anytime in the near future.

Mike is just the best. He answers my questions in a timely manner. He offers the kind of service you just can't get out of large companies.

For amps i use a Fender 57 Twin Reissue, 65 Super Reverb Reissue, 73 Fender Champ, and Mesa Dual Rectifier with an Avatar cab loaded with Private Jack speakers. I play clean, blues, and metal of course. The CompROSSor made me love playing with my amp set clean. It sounds silly to say a pedal helped my style evolve and improve but its true because i think if you love your clean tone, you'll play more clean, and thats what happen to me.

Though it is a simple pedal to use, reading the one page manual for this pedal is advised. The manual explains that this pedal use a linear pot for the sustain knob which has a different taper than the original Ross and Dynacomp pedals. This is why setting the knobs exactly the same on this pedal as you may be used to will yeild somewhat different sounds. The attack knob takes some trial and error time (mine is the two knob version), but now that I've played through the pedal a bit and understand how the knobs interact, I've set it and don't imagine messing with it much again.

I tend to play humbucker guitars the majority of the time, but I do have a strat as well. Both kinds of pickups like this compressor, which surprised me.
I do place my fulldrive before the compressor, which is a different sound than putting compression first in line.
I play predominantly jazz-influenced music (not a purist), jazz rock, blues, jammy stuff, and all sorts of other sounds. Some of my favorite guitar sounds are Grant Green [Live at the Lighthouse], Eric Johnson, Scofield, Trey Anastasio, BB King, Santana...

Set correctly, this really enhances my single note clean playing. It certainly enhances a bluesy rock lead tone as well. To the ears it seems to make the note more present in the mix-- it's full, clear, lively and blooms more. It seems to me a different boat than the 'water-in-the-ears' kind of clean jazz tone, at least for what I'm going for. Think Grant Green and Kenny Burrell rather than Jim Hall. It's the kind of thing you would have to hear.
It really works in the mix I think. I tend to enjoy a warm but somewhat clear fendery clean sound with plenty of midrange, through an amp that sounds pushed to right before the point of warm break up, where all the meat of the sound is there due to gain levels, but no grit. If that is your kind of warm 'clean' tone, this would certainly enhance it all the more. If you like a wailing bluesy tone, much like the above, I find this pedal fits that really well too.

I was in the market for a compressor because I was using the Route 66, and then the DOD milkbox for a while. I got the milbox cheap and it sounded better than the Route 66 to me at the time, so I used that for a good while due to monetary constraints. When I got some money, I realized that with the amount of times I had compression on and how much it was influencing my tone, I should purchase a higher quality compressor.
So I went shopping, tried out the Teese, the Keeley, and the Homebrew. The Teese I remember being wicked sensative wit the sustain knob, and the attack was rather pop-y. The Homebrew Compressor Retro was really nice, but didn't squish quite enough to my liking, though it was a good alternative. I tried the Keeley, and felt it was in the right ballpark, but surprisingly, the sustain knob (like the Teese) was also dramtically sensative and hard to set in the range area I liked it best (10:30-11:30 o'clock). I could hear the lack of the attack knob--I kept wanting to turn it. I came to accept that a rather sensative sustain knob was part of this whole Ross thing, and that I'd probably have to live with it...

So I ordered the Compressor, having never heard it and taking a chance, assuming it couldn't that much different than the Keeley (which I could definately survive with, worst comes to worse), and thinking maybe the attack knob would help.

I took the chance and was pleasantly surprised, not only because I found the attack knob did make a difference, but the sustain knob didn't seem as finickey as on the others. I found myself setting the sustain knob anywhere before the 2:00 territory without feeling like it was getting dramatic and sensitive. I was very pleased, though wondering why it seemed so different than the other ross/dynacomp pedals. Only later did I read the manual which explained that it uses a linear pot on the sustain knob. I like the sustain knob on this pedal somewhere around 12:30. Great engineering Mike!

Cons: Too high a sustain setting may sound unnatural. Those going for ultra sustain should not necessarily crank it full up, as it can sound unnatural, espcially with chords. I tend to set a 'boost' in volume control with the pedal, so that the typical loss in dynamics with a compressor is accounted for. I tend to set the volume by banging around on the guitar with the pedal off, and then setting the volume on the pedal to match that, this way quieter sounds are boosted and loud sounds stay about the same. Your 'moderate' picki

I've had it for three months now. It seems real sturdy, and when you open it up inside, it seems to hold together quite well. I have no fears with this pedal, unlike other's I have owned. Don't abuse your gear, but this thing could be dropped and I don't think it would notice. It's basically MXR kind of bulletproof.

Mike is great.

This matches my playing quite well. Jazz purists would scoff at a compressor pedal in I imagine, but I am not a jazz purist, I just happen to love and play jazz-influenced music. I play other music as well...
I'd buy this very pedal over again if it were lost and stolen.
And I've yet to find a time where I think things would sound better if the comprosser pedal were off, so long as it is set correctly (moderately). I miss it when it's off, particularly in the mix. I love it's simplicity. I'm a tweaker, but this pedal would not be improved by more knobs.
For me, the compressor doesn't get in the way, and it helps me dig my tone and then forget about it (in a good way), enabling me to better listen to the other players and focus on the music.

This thing is easy to get a GREAT sound out of. I set the Sustain all the way up, Attack at 12 o clock, and for my small room, the Volume is at about 8 oclock.

Manual is very easy to understand. Top notch stuff.

My setup:
Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Amp -> TS9 -> CompROSSor -> Wah -> Whammy -> Schecter C/SH1 Guitar.

Pre-Comprossor, it wasn't so much noisy as just too "hot"...the TS9's power is a lot to deal with on a big amp.

Effects always sound top notch, and now they sound even better.
The CompROSSor goes a long way towards getting a Trey Anastasio sound...
So far, everything sounds improved over my pre-Comprossor rig.

VERY dependable. It's like a brick...and it came with a battery!

I'd use it at a gig w/o a backup any day. Mainly because I have to, being a poor college student.

I've never dealt with Analogman.com, but Mike, the main guy, was very helpful. They were very busy last week, so it took a while to get the pedal. But now that it's here, I'm very happy. He replies to EVERY email too (like every other reviewer has stated).

I play a mix of straight forward rock and roll, funk, jazz, blues, you name it, I'm up for it.

I've been playing about 2.5 years. Besides the CompROSSor, I own a TS9 Tubescreamer, Dunlop Crybaby, and a Digitech Whammy IV pedal.

If it were stolen, I'd hunt down the guy/girl who stole it and take it back with a vengeance unmatched by any human. It's that good.

My fave thing about it is that it makes those high E and B string notes not so bright that they hurt your ears in a small room. Best feature is the Sustain. I held a note for a good minute.

Compared to every other compressor out there, this thing shines. I've tried the Keely Comp, MXR Dyna-Comp, and the Boss Comp/Sustainer...meh meh meh. Nothing compares.

Helps me make music definitely. It's a solid investment for anyone.

Like Nigel Tufnel of the great band Spinal Tap once said:

Nigel Tufnel: The sustain, listen to it.
Marty DiBergi: I don't hear anything.
Nigel Tufnel: Well you would though, if it were playing.

I bought it used, but it came with the paper work and it was made this year. I have the three-knob version with 'attack control.' Get the Attack knob, it is definitely worth the money - I change the setting all the time! After about 30 seconds of knob-fiddlin' I'm already sounding better.

I'm using an early '90's Fender HM Strat... don't laugh, it's a sleeping gem! It's got a hummer in the bridge so I tested the Comprosser with both singles and humbucking p.ups.

The sound quality is very good. No 'pumping' or 'breathing' and very little noise (unless you really crank the sustain - but this is the case with all compressors, and it is still pretty quiet.) The compression or 'Sustain' can go from airy to strangled in a turn of the dial. One of the nicest things about this pedal is the volume boost that you get out of it. With volume at 12-o-clock it is substantially louder than dry.

I am continually glad that I have the three-knob version with attack control. If you have humbucker you are going to need it. It really opened up the sound and lets your dynamics (and pick attack) come through. It almost works like a dry/wet blend control. Adds to the transparency.

I never have the sustain past 12-o-clock...it's just too smashed for me, but I guess it's nice to have the option. With Sustain @ 12:00, Volume @ 12:00, and Attack @ 3 or 4:00, I get very nice even tone, lasting sustain, and the sound is slightly colored (it seems to cut the mids out a bit) but enhanced in my opinion.

They talk about compression and chickin' pickin' - now I'm no cowboy - but this same effect comes through on palm mutes and light pick work. Really sweetly balances your dynamics! (and I guess you know your chords are going to come through at the same level as a single string riff.)

My rig: guitar> teese RMC-1> analogman ts-9/808/silver> analogman sd-1/808/silver> analogman Comprossor> EB volume pedal> boomerang> THD univalve.

I know it looks like an Analogman catalog, but I've been extremely happy with his products and service and the Comprosser is no different. I've tried the Comprosser before and after distortion. I like it after... more tonal variety from your distortion because you can put the volume anywhere from 1-10 and the Comprosser compensates!

*For some incredible sweet lead tones, try a TS-9/808 before the Comprosser and use a LIGHT touch!!! This is where the comprosser's magic really comes through - when you play lightly it forces the compressor to compensate and you really get into that endless silky sustain! (anastasio's trick)

Seems like a tough pedal... quality construction/knobs/etc... Very clean inside. I would gig w/o backup.

Answered all of my e-mails within an hour, one in 15 min's. They reply to ALL e-mails. They are friendly, willing to talk to you and work with you to suit your needs. I've never needed a pedal serviced, but apparently they are top notch. They were great about getting my mods back to me.

A compression pedal is one of those effects that you never think you need until you try one, and once you've used one, you can't imagine playing without it. Another thing about compressors, is that it's one of those pedals you can't skimp on. (Read the H.C. reviews for the cheap comp's and you'll see what I am talking about.)

I considered Keeley, Carl Martin, E~H Blackfinger (<= I like this one too, tube powered!) I did not consider any of the tone suckers.

I almost went for the Guyatone ST-2 with the blend switch, which is apparently pretty good for the $$$... but then again it's the blend switch that lets the pedal shine, not the compression itself.

I went with the Comprosser on three terms: 1) the glowing reviews, 2) the attack knob feature [it really opens up your sound] and 3) the customer service from Analogman. I mean the pro's deal with this guy and I get an e-mail back in 15 min? It makes you feel good.

I've really been happy with my decision and have found the Comprosser to be an indispensable part of my setup.

Two knobs. Simple. The reason I gave it a 9 instead of a 10 is that I chose to save a bit of money by not getting the external attack trim pot, so in order to adjust it, I had to open up the pedal. But once you get the setting you're looking for, you just leave it, so it's still super easy. Plus, to my knowledge, the original Ross pedals don't even have this option. The sustain and volume knobs provide more than enough sound variety.

This pedal is just incredible. My simple rig is as follows: Washburn HB-35 (semi-hollow body), into a TS-9/808 (Tube Screamer Analog Man mod), into the Comprossor, into a Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue. I really like the TS-9/808 before the Comprossor in the pedal chain, but it sounds great reversed too.

There aren't enough "O's" in the word "smooth" to describe this pedal. 100% Ross Clone with an attack knob that allows you to tweak to perfection. I took Analog Mike's advice and tried turning the attack knob up for use with my humbuckers, and it works incredibly. After many hours of playing with this pedal, I have come to the realization that I'm going to leave it on all the time, and just adjust the knobs accordingly. The Comprossor sounds great at all levels, and adds an incredible fullness and evenness to my tone. During a solo, my notes snap off the guitar with a beautiful crispness. You can definitely get a very Trey Anastasio tone with the TS-9/808 combo, but the versitality is amazing.

I've only had the pedal for a little while, but it's built like a rock. I don't anticipate any problems.

No one here has exaggerated about Analog Mike. He answers all e-mail questions (I had quite a few) within a few hours, and is super helpful and friendly. The pedal traveled from Analog Man in CT to me in CA in just a few days.

As I wrote to Mike, I'll never buy another effects pedal without first checking in with him. I'm really glad I stumbled across his website, although it's packed with so much incredible info that's now keeping me up too late at night. Definitely addicting.

My 2 favorite things about this pedal are its sound, and its simplicity. Definitely a vintage tone.