I am on the hunt for compressors lately and I was recently fortunate enough to get my hands on an Ovni FX Smoothie compressor ( http://www.ovnifx.com/ ).
I've tried a few pedal compressors in the past and was never impressed by any of them (Analogman Comprossor, Analogman and Phoenix Custom Electronics Orange Squeezers, Demeter Compulator are the ones that spring to mind). I do have a couple of rack units (DBX 160 and 160A, way old Demeter H series) which are in the P.A. rack and work well but they are reserved for vocals and other duties [dammit!].
All I can say is WOW, the Smoothie is one awesome pedal. I messed around with it for a day or two at home before using it on this weekend's gigs.
Friday's gig was an acoustic trio w/o drums. Signal chain was Rob Allen Mouse 30 -> tuner -> A-man Chorus -> El Cap delay -> Smoothie - > F-deck HPF 3 -> Puma 900 -> Fearless F210.
Attack and sustain were set at 10 o'clock, Tone varied between 10 and 2 o'clock depending on the tune, Comp Vol and Direct were set at noon for the night.
It did a marvelous job of bringing out the fretboard slap on my RA Mouse 30 during rockabilly type tunes with the Tone set at 2 o'clock. It also gave the Mouse a little more mwah factor, but not by a huge amount. It did make a noticeable difference on note bloom and sustain of the bloom, as one would hope for. It does a great job of tracking upwards and downwards slides regardless of the speed of the slide. On the down side it brought out the worst on my intonation skills
. It took some getting used to figuring out when the comp would kick in and grab a note, and if I wasn't spot on it was really noticeable to me and my guitarist.Saturday's gig was using slightly different gear. We were outdoors as opposed to the postage stamp we played on Friday. Brought the Sonus 519 and used my old trusty Berg HT/EX 112 cabs. Settings on the Smoothie were roughly the same, but for experimental purposes I dialed back the Sustain a hair and boosted the Direct and Comp Vol settings a hair. The pedal did a great job of taming snaps and pops and let tons of harmonic sustain shine through. I found myself not having to force out the few pops that I do. They just rang out. It kept the overall volume levels of the bass quite consistent throughout the evening which also made playing more enjoyable. The only downside to the evening was during one tune where I crank the amp and do some old-style 60's feedback stuff. The Smoothie was just doing it's job and taming levels as it should, but for me it got in the way. Oh well, lesson learned, I'll just turn it off next time.
So as you can tell I'm really digging this pedal and highly recommend it if you can get your hands on one. It's a great set and forget and leave it on all the time device.
