EMMA TM-1 TransMORGrifier

4 knobs, easy enough? Solid metal box for angry feet

Clean and loud, harmonics exalted, three or four kinds of different settings can change your use of it. Brilliant

Trustable

Never dealed with'em ( a small danish company I believe...)

Indie rock booster, not cruncher or noiser, or any other feedback meltinpot.

4 knobs; they do what they say. It's easy to get a good sound, though in my case this ended up being a single "best" setting for my amp and sound chain. Thus, the 4 knob versatility ended up as relatively unimportant. Dialed it in and left it there. Nice feature is the control that lets you blend compressed and un-effected tone -- lets you keep a little edge and snap that other compressors squish.

Used with PRS and Fenders into Vox. As with any compressor, combined with OD and/or distortion, there's appreciable magnified noise (regardless of the order of the pedals) if you use anything other than minimal compression. This is no worse, and no better with the EMMA compared with, say, my Dyna-Comp. At middling setting I found this to be a very transparent compressor that contributed good sustain while retaining a higher-then-usual component of transients and attack. At extreme setting, I found that it became a generic honker, resembling any basic compressor maxed out.

Quite well-made. Have had this for 2 years -- it's early production -- and it looks new, works like new.

Beats me. Doubt if I'll need it. Who knows?

Fiddling with classic crunch, Santana-eque "singing" tone, or snappy clean stuff, the EMMA always performed quite well. Its subltle adjustability within even "normal" (non-extreme) settings -- the ones that really get used, after all -- is a very welcome feature, allowing you to pinpoint desired tone characteristics pretty precisely. At the end of the day, it's just a compressor, so it's not going to have a major in-your-face presence. I found it to interact nicely with the more up-front elements of my rig: guitar, the occasional extreme effect, Klon and Aqua-Puss (both always on), and amp.

It has 4 knobs: Level (volume), Release (controls the amount of time the compressor takes to stop compressing), Attack (controls the amount of time before compression starts) and Ratio (controls the amount of compression).
The 4 knobs makes it harder to use than for example a DynaComp which only have 1 knob. They do make the TM-4 very versatile though!!
Comes with a one page manual which says it all and gives 4 setting examples.

I play a US 62 Reissue Jazzmaster and a DeArmond Starfire through a homemade Matchless DC-30 clone.
Like all compressors the TM-1 is quite noisy on extreme compression settings, but at normal settings it is just fine...
At high gain and with a high compression level it might increase feedback, but at normal settings i adds a very nice sustain..
It is really perfect for percussive compression. I just love it :o)

It has never let me down :o)

The EMMA pedals are handmade in Denmark where I live and I bought it from the guy who makes it. He was very helpful and he shure knows a lot about effects :o) (personal help = 10)
The company do not have a homepage though, which might be a little crappy for people who live outside Denmark.. (no help at all = 0)

(10+0)/2 = 5

The TransMORGrifier is almost always on when I use clean sounds! I really love it!
I've only compared it to the Boss CS-3, MXR DynaComp, some KORG compressor and the T-Rex CompNova, but out of tose the TransMORGrifier definitely is a winner!!!!