Ugly Truth: Electro Harmonix Bass Preacher

This year at NAMM we saw a lot of new products. One standout pedal came from Electro Harmonix. They've taken their regular Soul Preacher compressor/sustainer and tweaked it to work with a bass rig. Hearing the samples form EHX, this pedal seems to help quite a bit. Being a part-time bass play, I see the need to have some compression in your rig. Sometimes a 'guitar' compressor doesn't compliment your tone. This pedal seems to well though out. At least it seems that way.

It's Simple

Two knobs and a switch. It borrows a lot from the Soul Preacher in this respect. This is one of those pedals that you use like a tool. It doesn't make a flashy difference that you use to make yourself standout. It just help reign in those frequencies that either get lost or overpower others. It may be a little too simple though. The Attack switch could have been a knob. This would allow for a varying degree of attack rather than the three presets that EHX have elected to include.

It's A Bit Of A Yawn

Compressors are not as sexy as your dirt or other effects. This is why many people don't start with or even get around to buying one until they play in a context (a band) where one can be extremely helpful. I'm not saying that you don't need a comp, I'm just saying that you might not notice everything one does until you start mixing it up with a group. Ever start playing with your friends and you can hear yourself, but if you turn up, then you're 'too loud'. A comp can be your friend, but it's your studious non-partying friend.

It Might Just Be A Re-Vamp Of The Soul Preacher

We've seen this before with the Soul Food. (lots of soul in these pedals...) The Soul Food is the very popular 'Klon' clone. EHX brought out the Bass Soul Food after selling tons of the standard Soul Food. There is a good bit of difference in the Bass Soul Food and the original, but not enough to warrant everyone dropping the original for the Bass Soul Food. This might be the case with the Bass Soul Preacher. Then again it might not. The Bass SF didn't have as much gain on tap and includes a -10db cut for active pickups. This is pretty useless for guitar (unless you run active pickups, I guess...) The Mix knob isn't 'the bee's knees' either. So unless you just get too much gain out of your SF and like the idea of a blending option, or you run active pickups, then just stick the the standard issue SF. Likewise, if you have a Soul Preacher and dig it, maybe you don't need to run out and replace it with the Bass Soul Preacher just yet.

Conclusion 

So if you are a bass player in need of a Comp, then you should check this one out. Everything I've heard from this pedal has been good stuff. Even if you are a guitar player checking out a Compressor Sustainer, then you should put this one in your 'maybe' pile. Of course this one isn't the only Bass Compressor to come out at NAMM this year.

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Ugly Truth: Boss CS-3

In an attempt to be a well rounded guitarist, I picked up a compressor. Many respected player have this tool in there effect chains. I've ran comps before, but I've never liked what they did. I've used Visual Sound, Boss, Joyo, and more. I've never really liked what they did. Most the time my sound got completely covered up. If I ran more gain on the pedal they became noisy and If I turned up the amp then the levels with the effect off were too mismatched. As far as I can tell these things are a "darned if you do, darned if you don't" kinda deal. They level out your highs and lows and make you single notes sound fuller. On the other side, they squash your signal and can effect your tone in a unfavorable way.

It's The Standard

If someone runs a compressor, chances are they at least tried a boss comp. I picked one up to get my bearings on what comps can do. Single notes are great but the pedal falls flat with using chords. Too much input into this and you can hear your signal get squashed. Even running this pedal first in your chain with hot pickups can cause some unwanted effects to you level. If you adjust the level on the pedal you can minimize this effect but it will still be present. Not to mention that your level is probably going to be one of those things that you'll want to balance out without having to worry about hearing a pedal chomp down on your tone.

It's Not Very Subtle

I did a review of the Joyo PipeBomb Compressor. It was a good comp, but the effect was very subtle. I found myself cranking it up just to notice the effect. That's not the case with this effect. Setting the levels very conservatively will still yield very noticeable compression. I don't like a lot of compression, but I do like the benefits from using one. The problem is that you can't switch the effect on and off without adjusting other setting greatly. If it could just jump in when playing single notes to make a fuller sound then that would be great. The effect can weaken big chords. The CS-3 is a pretty big offender.

In Short

Compression can be a great thing. It may be something you have to experiment with before you really settle on whether or not you like/need it. Some find the Boss CS-3 to be a great tool. These people may be able to better tame this pedal better than I, or need a big squeeze for their sound. There is a trade off when using compression. You might get better sustain, but you will lose some touch sensitivity. When using a wide range of dynamics, you might not want to use anything more than very subtle comp. As for the Boss CS-3 I can't find a place for it. Boss has done a great job of revamping some of there more iconic pedals (DD-500, RV-6, TU-3). Maybe they could put a little work into the CS-3.