Tech 21 CompTortion Guitar Effects Pedal Review
November 20, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
Distortion and compression are twin faces of the same personality. Compression can give a guitar the violin like sustain many players seeks in a good distortion pedal, while distortion can iron out transients in a way similar to a compressor. The marriage of both effects in one pedal would seem a foregone conclusion, but a noise gate would be required to eliminate the resulting noise, and the interaction of all three items adds up to a rather dysfunctional family.
You can thank Tech 21 for organizing everything into one stomp box sized pedal without sacrificing a drop of professional sound quality. The CompTortion features controls for level, tone, compression, and distortion. Each effect can be dialed up independently or mixed together in whatever ratio you need. The noise gate is hardwired into the circuit and requires no controls. As an added testament to the lack of coloration in the CompTortion’s signal chain, both the compression and distortion can be dialed down, leaving a clean signal which can be boosted 12db via the level control.
The pedal’s compression circuit is powerful, providing a range from 1:1 to a totally squashed 15:1. Lovers of country rock and power pop will embrace the clean compression settings. If you crave the long, vocal sustain of Robert Fripp or Tom Sholz, simply back off the compression and add more overdrive. Lose the compression altogether and dial up the tortion to find out why Kurt Cobain was so fond of the Tech 21 pedals.
The End Line – For those who crave effects of a more schizoid mature, the CompTortion is the Swiss Army knife of pedals, with noise suppression circuitry and an analog signal path… Just fantastico!
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No Guitar Effects Fix Bad Sound
June 25, 2008 by Chazders · Leave a Comment
Even the best signal processor can’t make up for a bad guitar sound.
Too often engineers and producers tell worried guitar players, “We’ll fix it in the mix,” or, “I know it sounds a little funny now, but we’ll sprinkle some fairy dust on it and it’ll sound killer.” Statements such as these are, in my humble opinion, a crock. There are many things you can do to a bad guitar sound—you can flange it, eq it, play backwards or bury it in reverb—but 99 percent of the time you’ll just end up with a bad guitar sound that’s been flanged, eqed, played backwards and buried in reverb.
What you need to do, in the studio or on stage, make sure you can hear the sound you want coming out of the speakers. After that, the engineer can add effects to his heart’s content. Remember: effects devices are only enhancements—they don’t create any sound by themselves. They can only with the sound that already exists in the program material (your guitar sound). For example, if your sound is too dull or dark-sounding, you might want to add some top-end eq to it. The way eq works is to find selected frequencies (in this case, treble), and boost or cut them relative to the rest of your sound. But if your original signal doesn’t contain any of the high frequencies you’re trying to boost, all the eq will do is boost the hiss and noise at your selected eq point.
Plan ahead and have a clear idea of what you want your end product to be, then set up your equipment to produce that sound. This is part of what the great producers and engineers do. If you find that you’re spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get a part to sound right with effects, you may save time by going back and rerecording it. You can’t make a Strat from an accordion.
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