Compressor after or before OD/distortion

[dr_iggi]

I am just curious about what people prefer... compressor after or before OD/distortion in the effects path? Why?

[Stratin2traynor]

I'd be interested in this answer as well. I have a GoudieFX compressor which is first in line for me based solely on what I've seen on other boards.

[iaresee]

Depends on my mood. If I'm doing something rock/country like or funk I'll run it right after my wah, before any dirt. But if it's Phish-soaring-solo-like I'll drop it at the end of my chain.

[Mooh]

I always have it right after my tuner and before the first fx box (usually a Guv'nor). I don't always have it on and that's where I like it when I do. Sometimes there's some kind of line boost (either an EQ or MXR line booster) after the compressor, but I don't often have them both on at the same time.

Peace, Mooh.

[zontar]

Or double up on your effects and put them before & after.

But basically the correct answer is-try both and see what YOU like.

Just be prepared for people to disagree, and even think you're crazy--no matter which way you do it.

[devil6]

I have it in between my fuzz and my overdrive(and a whole bunch of other effects). That being said it might be different tomorrow cause i'm about due for one of my bi-monthly pedalboard adjustments.

[mhammer]

1) By their nature, distortion pedals reduce the dynamic range of the signal. Designs vary with respect to how much they do this, but they all do it. Sticking a dynamics-restricting device (compressor) after a distortion gives that device less to work with. Not nothing to work with, but certainly less.

2) Compressors, by their nature, boost the daylights out of whatever reaches their input point, unless the signal is hot enough to tell it to turn things down. Once you stop playing, whatever hiss there is riding the cable along with your guitar signal will be boosted by the compressor as it strives to achieve some preordained "average level". This is a principal reason why so many people tend to post questions wondering if there is "something wrong" with either the compressor they bought or built because it's so noisy. The noise is not from the compressor, but from the poor S/N ratio of the input signal. Once you start playing, the gain in the compressor gets turned down and a) the noise is not quite so boosted and b) whatever boost is applied to the input noise gets "masked" by the actual music signal.

3) Distortions,again by their nature, apply copious amounts of gain to the input signal. While many manufacturers pay attention to it, the noise that is added to the signal by virtue of this massive boost is often not well filtered. This means that if you stop playing, your distortion pedal will goose the noise level substantially. Indeed, distortion pedals and the noise-boost they provide are likely one of the principal reasons why so many players feel the need to have a noise gate.

4) Gain, by its nature, is multiplicative. So, if I have one stage with a gain of 10x, and follow that with a gain of 20x, I have a cumulative gain of 200x.

5) If you take the boosted hiss from a distortion pedal and feed that into a compressor (which will boost it even more, you are essentially on your knees, begging and pleading to have maximum attainable hiss levels produced.

Does this mean you should never, under any circumstances, place a compressor after a distortion? Certainly not. Ultimately, you may be aiming for very consistent signal level any way you can get it, but compressors have a way of eliminating the effects of pick attack on distortion tone if you stick them before the compressor. In a way, if used in a heavy handed manner, they make the distortion sound the same way no matter how you play or pick. Some like that consistency (for instance, light distortion for rhythm work that won't interfere with a singer), but if you want to retain the tonal expressiveness that comes with varying your pick attack, sticking too much compression before your distortion will get in the way.

However, as noted above, distortions tend to compress anyways, so there often (notice I did not say "never" or "always") isn't much point in sticking them after the distortion.

Fundamentally, when deciding where to stick either pedal in the sequence, the questions to ask yourself are:
a) how much do you want the effects of pick attack on distortion tone to be heard (which factors in how responsive the pedal in question is to pick attack)?
b) how much natural compression does the distortion pedal in question actually provide when set to your preferred settings (e.g., a Tube Screamer provides a LOT of compression)?
c) how noisy is the distortion pedal in question, and how noisy is your guitar?

Answering, or at least considering, those questions will allow you to select a position in your pedalboard that is suitable to your goals, and tolerable for those listening or recording.

As an aside, I suggested in a recent thread in the diystompbox forum that, since there are so many questions of a similar nature concerning whether one ought to stick this or that before a distortion or after it, perhaps more boutique-makers ought to consider making their pedals with pre-installed loops and order-flipper switches that would let you plug your compressor, wah, phaser, autowah, Uni-Vibe, etc., into a loop in the distortion pedal, attach it securely to your pedalboard, and then switch-select whether you wanted it before or after that distortion pedal, without having to monkey around with unplugging and/or repositioning the pedal on your board. A real useful feature, if you ask me.

[iaresee]

Fundamentally, when deciding where to stick either pedal in the sequence, the questions to ask yourself are:
When it comes to compression before or after overdrive I usually simplify down to one:
1) How much do I want to sound like Trey tonight? :smile:

As an aside, I suggested in a recent thread in the diystompbox forum that, since there are so many questions of a similar nature concerning whether one ought to stick this or that before a distortion or after it, perhaps more boutique-makers ought to consider making their pedals with pre-installed loops and order-flipper switches that would let you plug your compressor, wah, phaser, autowah, Uni-Vibe, etc., into a loop in the distortion pedal, attach it securely to your pedalboard, and then switch-select whether you wanted it before or after that distortion pedal, without having to monkey around with unplugging and/or repositioning the pedal on your board. A real useful feature, if you ask me.
A great idea. I do believe Loop-Master.com has a swap-the-order box that lets you swap the order of two boxes with a foot switch. Handy indeed. You could call the "Trey" button. Man...I crack myself up some times! :smile:

[mhammer]

I actually made myself a Ross compressor clone and gave the pedal the name "Trey Chic". Being in a bilingual part of the country, and a fan of Nile Rogers, the number of levels on which that works is considerable. Still gives me the giggles.

You are correct that there ARE order-switcher boxes. The thing is that, while its nice to have a generic order-switcher box that can be applied to anything, they will generally take up a spot on one's pedalboard that could more profitably be used for something else. And as I noted, since the lion's share of queries concerning "which order is better?" seem to revolve around where a distortion pedal should be situated, it makes sense to stick the order flipping a part of the very pedal most likely to be involved. So many boutique-makers tend to stick their effect in Hammond 1590BB boxes anyways, you can easily stick a bypass stompswitch in one corner and an order-flipper switch in the other, with a pair of extra jacks on on side of the pedal. That will stick some 75% of any order-flipping you want to do in a box that likely won't be any bigger than it was going to be in the first place, and you've not only saved a spot but you've given beginners a reason to want to think a little more creatively and deeply about how their entire signal path works.

[Hamm Guitars]

...Compressors, by their nature, boost the daylights out of whatever reaches their input point, unless the signal is hot enough to tell it to turn things down. Once you stop playing, whatever hiss there is riding the cable along with your guitar signal will be boosted by the compressor as it strives to achieve some preordained "average level"...

Hey Hammer,

We have to have a beer over a scope or PA and a few compressors someday.
:food-smiley-004:

I agree with 99% of the facts that you post, and since you are such a good source of info I feel the need to hash this thing out.

Maybe it's becasue you are refering to pedals, or it's a single ended supply thing or you are addressing the issue that most people squeeze the snot out of things with their compressor.

I hope you don't find it offensive that I question your view of compressors, It's just that it doesn't agree with what my experience is.

Andy

[Paul]

I have my compressor after the TS10, but immediately before the OC2 octave pedal. I get the best performance from the OC2 if I have a compressed signal immediately prior to the pedal.

IOW, I alway use the compressor with the OC2.

YMMV

[mhammer]

Hey Hammer,

We have to have a beer over a scope or PA and a few compressors someday.
:food-smiley-004:

I agree with 99% of the facts that you post, and since you are such a good source of info I feel the need to hash this thing out.

Maybe it's becasue you are refering to pedals, or it's a single ended supply thing or you are addressing the issue that most people squeeze the snot out of things with their compressor.

I hope you don't find it offensive that I question your view of compressors, It's just that it doesn't agree with what my experience is.

Andy
No offense taken whatsoever.:smile: And one of these days, on one of the regular pilgrimages we do to Hamilton to see the in-laws, you, Wild Bill and myself will definitely have to get together.

DO make a point of distinguishing between how compressors work and how people set them up. I would agree with you that many folks don't seem to know any other position for the compression control other than the 5:00 position. I suspect, many of these are the same folks that mistakenly believe that compressors "add sustain". Of course, whether you set the Compression control to max, min or somewhere in between, is immaterial. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of stompbox compressors work by subtracting or reducing gain from some default maximum. The intensity of the compression effect is dictated by how much you allow the input signal to reduce that default gain (more compression = more gain reduction). The hiss will become more noticeable in some respects at max compression largely because when you stop playing, the gain will slowly increase again from minimum, and with nothing else in the signal, what you'll hear most is the gradual boosting of whatever input hiss was there. With more modest compression, you won't hear the contrast from less to more hiss; you'll just hear the same hiss level constantly. Ironically, it is the momentary silence that makes the restoration of the same absolute hiss level so irritating. Few, if any, other pedals produce a perceptible increase in hiss, so a lot of folks mistakenly think the compressor is functioning "wrong" in some manner.

I strongly doubt that it has anything to do with single-vs-doubled-ended power supply or supply voltage level, except by mere coincidence (i.e., rackmount units that involve a more sophisticated circuitry to achieve compression also use bipolar power supplies....because they can). The core factor in noisy compressors is that a great many designs don't use separate gain stages in the sidechain. The gain required to feed the envelope detector a hefty enough signal to control the gain cell is often provided by the gain cell itself, rather than hived off outside the audio path where it belongs. The trick to lower-noise compression is that as little gain as necessary should be applied in the audio path (see the Joe Cheep compressor for a design that has absolutely NO gain in the audio path: http://www.geocities.com/m_natsume/what_compressor.html ). If you have to apply gain, and the gain cell is low noise, and you feed it a comparatively hiss-free signal, you can squeeze it til it bleeds. It has only been in the past 5 years or so that we've seen the use of high quality gain cells in stompbox compressors. More often than not they will still use the same CA3080 that the Dynacomp did 30 years ago. "Authentic-sounding", I suppose, but at a price....noise.

Paul: Absolutely the right thing to do by sticking your compressor before the OC-2. They need as steady an input signal as you can provide in order to yield good tracking. Compression helps a lot. One of the reasons why the PAiA Rocktave works so well.

[iaresee]

I have my compressor after the TS10, but immediately before the OC2 octave pedal. I get the best performance from the OC2 if I have a compressed signal immediately prior to the pedal.
It doesn't surprise me that the OC-2 works best after the compressor but it does surprise that you can get the OC-2 to work with a distorted signal feeding it. I always had to run the one I used first, before anything but the tuner, or it did very strange and random things.

[iaresee]

I suspect, many of these are the same folks that mistakenly believe that compressors "add sustain".
A compressor alone won't, but the boxes they're used to seeing labeled as compressors generally come with an output boost and a level knob they can fiddle with, so the user don't see the gain reduction post-compression as their signal passes through an amplifier before leaving the black box.

[mhammer]

Not a complete surprise to me, Ian. Keep in mind that the TS5/9/10/808 works by trimming the bass before clipping so as to generate less harmonic content added to lower notes, and then follows the clipping with some serious lowpass filtering to attempt to restore some tonal order. While you do get added lower-order harmonic content that might bugger up your pitch tracking, one can always trim back the brightness with the tone control. Keep in mind as well that the TS provides its own form of compression, and that no one at this point has said word one about where the controls are set and where on the fingerboard Paul strives to optimize tracking.

Would I stick Fab Metal or Boss HM-2 or Tonebender pedal before an OC-2? Nah.

[iaresee]

Not a complete surprise to me, Ian...Keep in mind as well that the TS provides its own form of compression, and that no one at this point has said word one about where the controls are set and where on the fingerboard Paul strives to optimize tracking.

Would I stick Fab Metal or Boss HM-2 or Tonebender pedal before an OC-2? Nah.
Good point. Could be he's going for random tracking as well. I was running OC-2 -> SD-9, the other way round was chaos. I ditched the OC-2 because I wasn't using it. Now that I'm more into controlled chaotic noise I've been toying picking one up again. Or perhaps the new XO POG from EHX.

[Paul]

Actually, I rarely use the TS-10 with the OC2. The most common combination is BassBalls->compressor->OC2.

I use that to double the bass in tune like "Brick House".