EBS MultiComp

This is a supplement to my full review which follows directly.

I saw my review on the "recent reviews" part of the homepage, so I just had to go back and read it! In doing so I realized I may have wrote something misleading.

I wrote in one part that the EBS does not give you a pulsing "PUMPING" compression effect, and then I wrote in another part that the EBS "PUMPS out the full sound of your bass".

This second use of "pumps out" simply means "puts out". I used "pumps out" rather than "puts out" because of the way the compressor gives you the full strength and dynamic range of your bass.

I didn't want to imply that this compressor will give you a thrusting, pumping sound.

I guess I need an editor!

This review is for the most recent BLACK series.

Because my stuff is upstairs and the computer is downstairs, I always screw this part up from memory so I'll quote from the first review on this compressor:

"power on switch, gain knob and compression knob. 3 position mini-switch (normal, MB which means multiband, tubesim).
Also inside are two mini potentiometers to set up the high and low threshold. The led shows when compression happens, it helps the comp setting. You have to unscrew the bottom to change the battery."

EDUCATION: Compressors are, by nature, probably one of the most difficult effects to use. Many of them do not "effectorize" your sound, but simply keep the levels even. I think that's why so many people say that theirs isn't doing anything and they give it a 3! Of course, some do "squash", "pump", "sustain" etc, but the EBS isn't made for that.

You really have to train your ears to use compression and understand how to apply it to what you're doing. Of course, I haven't figured it all out yet. I'm not a sound engineer.

But, this compressor, being a two-knob, three switch compressor isn't necessarily any more difficult than any other compressor. It just requires time and experience--and it doesn't hurt to read up on it.

The EBS pumps out the full, complete sound of your bass.

It doesn't add grit or analog warmth or anything like that. It just produces an ultra clean and full tone. But it doesn't take away warmth either. It's just crystal clear, but this doesn't mean sterile. It sounds damn good. In fact, it really sounds like the best you can sound for less than $1000--or $3000! If you are in need of a compressor and you get this one, you will sound better than you do right now.

There is little difference between the three switch positions. Perhaps they should have added a little more variety for the mega-bucks! For that, not complete satisfaction, so a 9 for sound quality.

I had it on top of the amp, pulled the cord to its full length, and you can guess what happened--it fell about four feet to a wooden floor with a bang. But to its credit, it stayed on and I kept playing away. Seems to be up there with the best and most solid.

For the money you would think that it should last forever.

If it breaks, I'll come back with an update.

Don't know.

My experience: have been playing guitar for about 30 years and bass for four. Do original stuff at home. Have got about 10,000 dollars invested in guitars, basses, amps, keyboards, a home studio, and three shelves full of pedals. Study hard and get a good job!
So put my opinion in this perspective.

The EBS Multicomp puts out the full sound of whatever you're doing. Gets the signal up to full strength for whatever other processing you're going to put your sound through. Will compress anything: bass, keyboards, guitar...

Other pedal compressors I have are a Maxon and a Tech 21 Compactor. The EBS gives a much fuller sound from low to high frequencies than the other two. The Maxon is much thinner. The Tech 21 is much muddier. This makes the EBS the best over the complete dynamic range.

Would definitely replace it--and cuss the cost! Paying for this thing two times would start to suck!

Final thought: EBS makes great products. I've got the $500 EBS MicroBass II also. After cussing the price you really do realize EBS is worth the money. It puts you at a whole different level. All the black label line really seems to be state-of-the-art stuff. If you're willing to fork out the cash, you really can't go wrong. But the cash is the problem here. Impossible to give it a 10 for "fantastic value" in this category so it gets a 9 because it is a fantastic product.

It?s like computer operating systems nowadays; real easy to use on the surface but trickier and more annoying to make things work exactly how you want. After carefully consulting the manual, the awful truth is revealed. The comp knob is the knee (steepness) of the compression, and threshold controls (VERY important parameter for compression) are hidden inside the box behind the screwable backplate. This means you have to dedicate one evening for experimenting with the treble threshold and bass threshold with the backplate off adjusting them with a very tiny screwdriver. After you?ve found settings where the compression behaves the way you like, you screw the backplate back on and never change those settings again, except adjusting the knee and switching between active instrument and passive instrument modes. For some weird reason, EBS doesn?t seem to want you to change the threshold settings. Why? If I want a strong compression I?m entitled to have one, dammit!

Oh, and in the addition to the dual-band compression (which was the reason I bought this) there?s also regular compression and tube simulator, but these are pretty useless features.

Ok, let?s calm down, for this where things begin to look happy. As already someone explained below, the idea of multi-band compression is to prevent sharp trebly attacks from interfering with the low end, and to prevent strong low end from interfering with that sweet roundwound string growl. With MultiComp you can have a compression that lets the tone of your bass shine through in a very convincing way. Listeners won?t even notice you have compression, yet your attacks are smoother, your sustain is longer, your dynamics are under better control. In other words, you sound like a better bassist.

The only worrying thing is that when I set the comp knob to max, and start to play, I can hear a sharp pop when the sound enters from silence. As if it takes a few milliseconds for the MultiComp to kick in. But this is corrected by setting the comp to 3 o?clock or below (softer, more natural knee), which gives much more believable tone than comp to max anyway, so it?s not a biggie.

On the surface it looks good. The chassis, the footswitch, and especially the smooth-feeling knobs ? they seem professional. But on the inside it does not look that convincing. One reviewer had problems with the battery connector cables and it?s no wonder. I fear I break something every time I go there. I try to avoid hassling with batteries, and use a generic adjustable adaptor instead, but not having a separate battery compartment is not good design.

Haven?t dealt with them, but I would guess they?re helpful towards a customer that lives in a neighbouring country.

Good in what it does, but overpriced for what it does. Sadly, there aren?t many small-sized dual-band compressors out there (at least I don?t know of any), so we seem to be stuck with EBS MultiComp.

very easy to use. Maybe there could have been holes in the back to access the useful mini trims that I set differently than 50/50

I use multi for slap as my stingray is harsh, it's very efficient w/o altering the tone
Then I use tube for finger with less highs on the stingray, sounds very cool and tuba+tube like (this is the tone of the bass, too), quite vintage especially when overpowering my mixer's input on high settings: get a cool OD

very solid except the battery's cable that I had to re-solder: weak part of the design: why not an external compartiment like active basses? for the price it should not be

they were cool for question about my neo cab, but when I asked if I can power the pedal with the phantom power of my mixer, they never answered, maybe they want me to buy the fafner head, but I'm happy with my ampeg

used, it's a cool bargain, new... it's very expensive

2 knobs:Comp and gain, both of which are self- explanatory. toggle switch gives you 3 choices of "type" of compression. Tubism and normal sound awfully similar, but tubism seems a little more different when you have an ebs distortion pedal set on tubism, as well.

I play an Alembic Series 1. Other than an LA-2A, I have yet to find a better compressor. Quite simply, it makes your bass sound great. The effect is quite subtle the way I use it, but it could probably be more dramatic, were I to set it differently. I thought it was malfunctioning for a little while, but I eventually discovered the active/passive switch to be set at passive. My bass was overdriving it. It was easily cured. Also, the unit is very sensitive to changes in the basses output. In other words, don't mess around too much with the volume on your bass while you play. This is true of any compressor.

Extremely reliable, although the battery connector cable has come loose. I have 5 ebs pedals, and this has happened to all of them. Get spare 9V connectors at Radio Shack, and carry soldering gear to gigs.

NA

This is a pretty simple box to use. Only really extreme settings will rob your tone. I think it's nice that there are only two knobs and the one three position switch - it makes it much harder to screw things up.

It is a pretty neutral pedal, although some of the settings sound almost like an effect. It can be set so that it is pretty transparent and does its job well. I've used it by itself with my bass and in a long signal chain with my guitar and in both cases it works well.

So far so good, although I mail-ordered it from a store and it was disfuntional out of the box (the store hadn't opened it). I had to wait until EBS eventually sent a completely new circuit board to the retailer then bring the pedal there for them to replace it.

I sent EBS multiple emails to try to get them moving on getting this fixed, but received no replies. I expected better given that it wasn't that cheap.

For bass it's a decent pedal, but given that I've got a very even-sounding boutique bass (Ken Lawrence Associate 5) I don't really need it unless I'm trying to slap (and that's only because I stink at slapping). As for guitar, it's great for leads and to tame the full open treble sound of my crybaby.

EBS Multicomp Black label. There are 3 modes for compression type, a limit/comp and a gain control. The controls and options are simple to use, the hard part is finding the "sweet" setting that works with your equipment,playing style and desired effect. You have to open up the pedal to change the settings for the multiband mode, some patience/experimentation is needed,but this option is what separates this compressor from the others. There is also a recessed active/passive switch, this is a nice option, but if you need to change it in between basses it could be a pain. I just leave mine set to passive mode.

I use this with Fender P basses and a Modulus Genesis Jazz into Eden Highwayman with Eden/Mesa boogie cabs. The compressor built into the Eden amps IMHO is the weakest part of the amps design. The Multicomp allows me to tweak the compression/limit to my tastes. I uses the mutiband mode 100% of the time, it allows me to tighten up the bass with out over compressing the highs. I leave this pedal on all the time, you don't always "hear" the effect until you turn it off, then you realize how it's smoothing and beefing up your sound. It also works well with my EBS Octabass and modulation effects, improves the tracking and overall sound. I find this pedal to be dead quiet.

I use this pedal on every gig and it works flawlessly, I just leave it on the same settings gig after gig. However if you were constantly switching the active/passive switch and the mode switch, IMHO I don't know if they could stand up to long term heavy use. Other than that it's built like a brick.

I've never contacted EBS, but there website is informative.

There are tons of effects out there, but this is the only one I use 100%. Actually it's not an effect it's an integral part of getting a great sound out of your equipment. The dual band compression is made to order for bass. Hats off to EBS for making great products designed for bass players. It is pricey, but not anymore than the "boutique" Ross compressor clones and they are only single band ""old school" compressors.

Disclaimer up front: I use the Multi-Comp for guitar and not bass. Setting the gain and the compression is easy - season to taste. Setting the switch for active or passive pickups is easy too. There's also the 3 position selector for normal, tubism, or multi-band compression. Again - easy to set, but adjusting how you want the multi-band compression to work is a challenge cause it invovles taking off the bottom plate and using a small screwdriver to make adjustments. So you aren't tweaking this too often. As the multi-band is where this pedal REALLY shines, I'll knock the features down some. But this is sure easier than the Guyatone Tube Compressor I previously owned. And I think it's hard to get a bad sound out of it too.

Again - guitar, not bass. Through either a Victoria or Trace Elliott tube amp, and often with a handful of other pedals in-line. I often play an electric 12 string, a beast requiring judicious use of compression. Here is where the multi-band compression just shines. I can finally get the bass on the 12-string to jump out a bit while the high octave string adds some bite. What the multi-band does is allows me to compress the high end and low end at different rates. I believe technically what I'm altering is the point at which the compression starts applying, then the compress dial changes how much the signal is squashed. Whatever. It sounds great and is exactly what I'd been searching for to compress the 12 string.

I also play a good bit of lap-style guitar, and even often play my standard 6 strings fingerstyle. Again, having some compression is essential for evening out the attack and increasing sustain. I mostly use the tubism sound for these styles/instruments, and the EBS both warms up the sound and evens out the attack. Perfect. Even playing with a pick when compression isn't that necessary, that tubism mode adds just a tiny bit more warmth. I'm sure the Normal sounds fine too, but like others, I don't hear much difference. I've found the unit to be very quiet (as others point out - compression can amplify the floor noise). What's great is that this pedal doesn't seem to be what adds the noise. It comes from other places in the chain.

Had it for 7 months now, running fine off my voodoo labs pedal power. Mostly using it for a moderate strech (6-8 hours) in a studio once a week, but have also gigged, practiced, and used for home projects with no problem too. Am however stripping a few points because the dials to adjust the multi-band compression are a little flimsy feeling. I wouldn't want to change their settings often, in part for fear of damage. The rest of the unit feels real solid and is in that nice metal housing.

I haven't ever had to contact EBS. Their manual wasn't too bad though.

Playing 15-16 years now. Electric for about half that time. I'm far from a professional, but try to quality gear (Victoria amp, Voodoo labs Tremolo and Sparkle Drive, an assortment of other stuff). This is a jewel upon my pedalboard. While I would like to be able to tweak the multi-band settings more easily, I wouldn't change anything else, and forsee this one being on the pedalboard for a long, long time. I compared this to the Boss, a Guyatone Tube Compressor, a DOD, a TC Electronics, a Maxon (I think) and one or two other 'higher end' types, and this is what I kept coming back to, especially once I convinved the sales person to let me open up the box and play with the multi-band settings. While I might try one or two different ones someday should I ever have to, I suspect this is what I'd quickly come back to. It's been easier to integrate into my pedal chain than anything else I've ever owned.

Multicomp used daily for 10 months.
Can provide some istantly tighten blend for slap and finger work too.
In my opinion sound quality is good but not the ultimate.
However the first 6 months, and with my old gear I used to like a lot. It took me out of trouble in loud rehersals and pub gigs.
This box will never get fuzzy or anything, since it's of the "HIFI-sh kinda stuff for the discerned bassist" but there is a slight elusive distorsion in the original signal, the better description I can find for is "the electronic sound", but is mainly noticed your bedroom or recording. I believe that devices used with the purpose to make your sound good
are put there to counteract (counterfeit as well) on something else that is poor.

Battery was only lasting for a week, once after many battery changes the red wire came unsoldered.

Being compact and made of thick metal is very solid, sits firmly on the floor or amp top.

Because it's the only compressor that I have ever owned, I cannot compare it to other compressors. I have only evaluated for what it gave me.

They've kept the controls very simple, and except for the rather crucial setting of threshold (see below), it's totally foolproof.

I bought the MultiComp because I was interested in 2 band compression. When we do a sound check our band plays at a certain intensity; but when we're into a gig we all dig in a lot more. Not only does my bass's output go up, the tonal balance changes too. I wanted the balance between lows and highs to stay the same, and separate compression top and bottom seemed like the answer.

So far it's working great. Compared to MultiComp's 2 other options - Normal and Tubism - the middle Multiband mode stops either highs or lows from getting ahead of each other. I'm not aware of another similar solution for live playing, not without getting into rack gear with crossovers. Wait a minute: I think I tried a Digitech pedal that also had 2 bands; but I wasn't impressed with it.

This box is SMOOTH. Although at extreme settings you can choke off most of the bite of your attack, other than that you hear _your_ bass. Hi-fi, baby. I wouldn't recommend it for compression "effects" though, because it's too smooth and transparant. (Try the ElectroHarmonix BlackFinger for that.)

I've read a couple of comments suggesting that this unit can be noisy. I don't agree. The circuitry is about as quiet as you could possibly get out of a little battery-powerable box. I think what people are hearing is the inherent noise of their signal, being _amplified_ by the gain boost that the compressor is being told to give. Just about any on-bass preamp I've ever heard adds way more noise than the MultiComp; but if you set the MultiComp so there are boosts in the signal, then sure you'll hear more noise. And especially if you add highs on the bass. Even if your bass is passive, there can be R(adio)F(requency) noise in it.

I do agree with comments I've read that the Tubism mode isn't very different from Normal. I have to strain to hear a slight thickening of mids. And I sure don't detect one iota of overdrive. But then, EBS weren't suggesting it as a distortion pedal!

A few years ago, Bass Player magazine did a MultiComp review. They liked the unit, but asserted that it's compression was "subtle" at best, even with the ratio control maxed. Again, I don't agree. If they weren't hearing much compression with a ratio of 5:1, then they didn't understand how threshold works.

For those who aren't familiar, in a nutshell:
When a compressor receives a signal, it measures its strength. If the signal is less than the Threshold setting (a preset cutoff point -- usually user controlable), it leaves the signal alone. If it detects a signal that surpasses the threshold, then it goes to work to compress it.

For the MultiComp to work right, you need to be in control of your threshold:

First, A/B the Active and Passive positions of the tiny switch on the side by the input jack. It assumes that an active bass puts out more voltage, and tries to compensate by raising the compression threshold (the level where gain reduction kicks in), so compression only kicks in with a higher bass signal.
Yes, it's counter intuitive: lower threshold gives more compression.
Weird analogy: say bass signal strength = a person's height, and threshold = a ceiling height. If you want to compress an 8 foot tall person, put him in a room with a 6 foot ceiling. If you want to compress a 4 foot person in that room, you'll have to lower the ceiling to 3 feet or so.

But (back to that switch: ) some active basses don't put out any more juice than average passive pickups. Example: the EMG BT system. So how do you make sure your threshold is where your bass needs it to be?

What you need to do is this: Start with the Active/Passive switch set to match your bass's kind of electronics. With your bass's volume at full, and your tone where you usually keep it, and with the MultiComp's ratio knob set to maximum, play your bass through the pedal. Compare the sound with the footswitch on and off. Firstoff: for a medium strength string pluck, equalize the volume between On and Off with the gain kn

This unit is even more solidly built than a Boss pedal (if that's possible). But I've only had it for a couple of weeks, so I won't go above 8

Never dealt with EBS.

SUMMARY: The EBS MultiComp is a smooth sounding, capable compressor that is up to any level of compression I can imagine wanting. It's about as quiet as you'll get without going to rackmount equipment, and the Multiband mode is a rare and genuinely useful feature.

If I could change anything, I would ask EBS for a 3 position Attack switch, so that if we wanted to keep some bite even at extreme compression, we could. And maybe they could make the threshold a little easier to set -- and understand! Ok, and while I'm at it, hire me to write the next manual!
Soft Knee/program threshold would be asking just too much of a humble pedal; but I can dream, right?

It's also very expensive for a pedal. But if you know that this level of performance, quality, and flexibility is what you need, then this is what you have to pay. Frankly, I'm more aware of what I _saved_ by avoiding the rack gear. And how do you put a volume pedal after a rack compressor, without a huge cable loop that pulls in shortwave radio from Albania??