Well I had a chance to do some compressor comparisons the other night with Henry Kaiser after I had been ogling his pedal board and spying a rather beautiful (as in clean and simple not gaudy) looking pedal, called a 1960, which he described as being the absolute best floor compressor on the market. That got my attention, as the verdict for me was still out on the floor compressor sweepstakes. Over the next few days of e-mail exchange I asked him why, and he said that it is the only attempt he is aware of by a small pedal builder to recreate the vaunted vintage LA-2 rack mount studio compressor limiter in a compact pedal. Why is that so cool? Well for one thing its a two stage compressor like the original and it is virtually free of the types of compression characteristics that detractors of compression don't like, particularly the pumping and spongy dynamics. It does have magnificent sustain though, and responds well when you turn down your instrument's volume or switch between instruments with different pickups and outputs. The other thing about this compressor that i really like is it is chimp simple to use, two knobs like a Keeley. So a couple nights ago I had a opportunity to hang out again with Henry and do some a/b comparisons between a number of high quality pedal compressors and the 1960 blew them all away, not even close, no pumping artifacts even at high settings and very quiet.
This is a hand made pedal made by a very small operation in SoCal that specializes in rebuilds and mods of pultec eq's and other classic analog studio gear, They aren't cheap at $250 bucks, but in comparison with everything else I have tried in that price range it had the most transparent sound and and best dynamic characteristics even at extreme settings.
I have one on order and will post a youtube vid when I have a chance.
Bill
