Extensive compressor reviews and FAQ

Digitech Bass Squeeze: Don't bother. First, the signal has a noise gate on it which cannot be disengaged, and it sucks. It chops on and off, and sounds like someone spitting a hair off their tongue, or turning a faucet on and off randomly. There is no knob or switch for this, it's just how the software was written. Which brings me to another point: Digitech makes a big deal about how they designed this pedal in conjunction with dbx, meaning to give you the idea that it will perform just like a professional dbx unit--but it does not. It is digital, while the classic dbx units are analog, and at most settings the sound and function are pretty disappointing.
 
It is a dual-band comp, meaning it processes the high and low frequencies independantly. There are four controls: output Level, "X-over" (crossover frequency dividing highs from lows), Lo band, and Hi band. Lo band sets the amount of compression below the x-over point, Hi band sets the amount above that point. This "amount of compression" is a preset combination of ratio, threshold, and make-up gain adjustment for each band; the amount that each of those parameters changes as you turn the knob is preset in the software. The automatic make-up gain is what makes this control notably different from dbx's "Over Easy" comp knob.
 
If you set the Lo and Hi knobs very differently from each other, the midrange frequencies where they overlap have a crappy artificial sound to them. I wasn't able to get the tone overall to have a decent sound quality unless both bands were set to similar amounts; and in fact the only setting that actually sounded good to me was with the Lo and Hi knobs at about 10:00. At that one setting it plausibly reminded me of a dbx 163X, and was not too noisy. The more you turn up each band, the noisier it gets, and at high settings the noise is insanely bad. At light settings there is no rolloff of the highs or lows, but if either knob is turned up then it creates a very imbalanced sound where the amount of processing makes it sound like highs or lows may be lost.
 
The construction quality is about what you'd expect for the price, and the footswitch is not "true bypass" but it sounds decent enough. There is a secondary output jack that includes emulation of a 4x10 speaker cab, for recording directly. I have no opinion about the quality or usefulness of the speaker emulation, since I don't like the pedal overall. If you need a cheap bass pedal, get the Boss LMB-3 instead.
 

 
 
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