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.