Guyatone BC-X Tube Bass Compressor

First of all, I like many dials on my pedals as it normally means you can tweak many parameters to get a specific sound. So I'm not afraid of may dials...But even with manual I never really figured out what the shape dial really does?! Not what it says, at least not like I understand it. Supposed to mix dry and compressed signal, but why is there no signal at all when I put it on 8, but having the level up at 12?! I don`t know, but doesn`t really matter. :-)

You have to use this pedal on a quite narrow field of settings as it gets noisy otherwise, like with many other pedals.(Maybe change the tube like "Anonymous" mentioned in the previous review) I think that`s why it has got a parametric eq based around upper kHz frequencies to dial out the hiss you get when you turn comp and level controls past 12. You get a bit of tube warmness in your sound which is quite nice, compression is better kept on the low side. I never actually got a high compression out of it.(At least not a non noisy) But I like more a subtle compression anyway, as I have it on all the time. It doesn`t eat up the low end (shape on 1) as much as other comp pedals. I suspect the tube is just for the level output not for the compression.
One thing I just disovered, lately. If you have a pedal in front of it which boosts the signal quite a bit the BC-X acts as a tube overdrive! That`s were the fun really starts! All in all I prefered it to the Boss CS-3 I had before, which is crap for bass i.m.o.(unless you want an effect for the odd part of the song) and not a standard to measure it to, but hey you`ll be surprised how many people give it good notes for bass usage!

I had it for 5 years but only 12 times on stage on my pedal board. Never had any problem, but avoid pouring beer into the tube grid! ;-)

Never dealt with them.

I wouldn`t spend that much money on it anymore. Quite expensive for what it does. Only because it`s got a tube in it doesn`t justify the high retail price of EURO 170.- !!! But thats probably about 8 years ago now and they don`t do this pedal anymore...

This is an update to my previous review. I was the last one to review this pedal. I just wanted to add that I replaced the stock tube with a brand new US-made GrooveTube 12AX7 and it improved the tone very much (Guyatone puts a cheap-ass Chinese tube stock in their FLIP series, that's really a POS tube. Was'up with that?). Didn't help the noise much, but that doesn't bother me enough to discount the awesome tone that this thing gets. I still liken it to having a vintage tube-bass-amp in a pedal. Great tone yet kinda noisey, like most vintage tube amps. Don't get me wrong, the noise is not bad, I'm just picky about noise.

Still going strong with constant use.

I still give it a 10 and you should snap one up if you can.

Fairly dificult to use for a pedal compressor considering it has 6 knobs in all(counting the 2-level knob as 2 knobs) and most pedal comps only have four knobs at the most . Knobs: COMP, FREQ/LEVEL, ATTACK, SHAPE, and LEVEL. No manual. It's pretty easy to learn the ways this compressor sounds best after tweaking it an hour or so but, it's definitelty not a "set it and forget it" type of compressor, especially if you use a lot of other effects and change your rig all the time like I do. I find that I have to set it all sorts of different ways in relation to whatever else pedal I might be running before or after the BC-X. This works well for me because I'm always twiddling knobs toward the best tone anyway and it's helped me to improve the sounds of some of my long-time staple effects patches by putting it in certain places in the chain.

Wellllllllll.....Here's the thing....it's a little difficult to rate the tone/performance of this category for the BC-X so I'll try my best to explain....It's not the greatest as far as being a compressor or limiter. It won't take out extreme spikes and/or smooth out extreme wahs or envelope filters like the DODFX25 nearly as good as a rack unit. It even kind of unpleaseantly overloads when I've tried to use it in this way unless you set everything a little on the low side. Good thing I didn't get it for that and I've got rack units for that. It does do what I wanted it to do very nicely, which is to add a bit of a warm tube sound and vintagey type vibe to whatever rig I happen to be using. I play in a lot of different type of live/recording situations with a lot of different effects and different rigs. I realised that 80% of the time I was getting suck with an all soid-state rig. I'm very happy in all situations now. I'm actually not too big on tube-amps but, I do like a "tube sound" sometimes and the BC-X is good enough for me. I like it because even though it doesn't compress the greatest, it gets a sound that I can't get out of most higher end compressors. I liken it to what I imagine some of the old-scool early tube compressors might have sounded. It can be a little noisey if you crank the compression all the way up but, it's not really a bad kind of noise and seldom bothers me.

Well, the FLIP series are not the most rugged. I would buy a back-up if I could afford and/or find one but it will probably last for years.

I've heard really great things about Guyatone customer support but have not had to use them.

Even though none of my other scores were 10, I'd give it a 10 over all for it's usefulness and low price. Good sound, good price, good product. I've been told that the BC-X has been discontinued and was never officially realeased in the US and was for Japan only and the only reason you can get them in the US is because they are on clesrance. So I don't know about the future availability.

Real easy to get a good tone and snap out of. I noticed that some settings seemed to thin out the sound and make it really bite, almost like an overdrive. This was cool for the recording I was doing at the time.

I'm using it with an Ibanez SGR 5 string, and it just seems to tighten my sound up in a cool sort of way. It's pretty quiet so that's no problem. I just love the tube sound you can get out of it.

I've had no problems

never dealt with them

I play mostly heavy rock in 2 different bands. This little sucker seemed to even out my tone and makes the sound overall more "pro".

I like it. If it got stolen I'd go out and get another tomorrow.

Piece of cake. The manual had a few sample settings to start with and I just fiddled a bit from there.

I use a Fender Precision Lyte thru an Ampeg B2 combo. This sounds pretty cool as it is, but adding the tube warmth of this little pedal was just awesome. Some settings just seemed to make the attack as punchy as hell, without losing "guts" like some other compressors I've used. It didn't add extra noise either, which is pretty cool.

Reliability has been fine. I been using it twice a week for about a year with 0 problems.

Never had to talk to them

This is one of the best FX pedals I've used for bass. Fattness and punch in a little purple box!