It didn’t take that long for new pedal to get into board. Next new pedal is already ordered. I hope to get it later this week or early next week. Plan was to have pedal board staying the same but I have had problems with couple pedals. Compressor was one and Fuzz is another. I will talk about problems with fuzz after I get new one. There will be at least two more changes coming later this year. Don’t want to spend all my money into board so those have to wait for a while.
I had couple problems with EHX Tone Corset. First was it turned sound bit darker when turned on. Second was I wasn’t exactly sure what it was doing. I am used to use compressors in DAW. Those have visual feedback and you know what they do. Compressor pedals have one knob for compression but I am not sure what it does. Does it change threshold or change ratio or something else. Manuals say knob adds more compression what ever it means. Problem is not only with Tone Corset. Other pedals have same problem.
I checked manuals of several compressors but none of them explained what compressor actually did. Until I read Empress Compressor’s manual. It wasn’t my first choice. I wanted something cheaper. Something with tone and true bypass. I am not sure if Tone Corset had that because some places said it had and others say it didn’t. I got Empress Compressor because it was only one explaining what it actually did in a way guy who has used compressors in DAW understood. I thought if this can be last compressor pedal I need I could pay more than other compressor pedals cost.
I have had pedal for over a week now. I am happy I got it. First of all it is much brighter than Tone Corset was. Even with tone at noon. It just makes guitar sound better. It reminded like by passing and turning on iZotope’s mixing plugin with correct settings. I didn’t expect that kind of difference. It made me consider placement of compressor. Now it is before dirt pedals because I used Tone Corset for sustain. Empress Compressor works as such but it doesn’t give “mastering” sound quality improvement before dirt pedals.
I am not biggest fan of having compressed sound going in to dirt pedals. I hate EMG 81s because they compress sound so much. In my opinion compression before dirt is only good for crazy long sustain. I can get crazy long sustain with high gain on dirt pedal. Not as much as with compressor. I will be testing different pedal order when I get new fuzz. After that compressor might be after dirt pedals.
Not gonna talk about side chaining because I probably won’t be using that any time soon if ever. Lights on right side have been useful for someone who is used to visual feedback on compressors. I know I should adjust everything by ear because we are talking about audio. But I find visual feedback useful when I want to understand what is happening. The understanding separates this compressor pedal from other compressor pedals. Understanding how it works makes me use it more. Tone Corset was good for long sustain but I wasn’t sure how to use it for anything else.