Extensive compressor reviews and FAQ

DDyna Bass^10: DDyna is a fairly new boutique maker, using some very interesting and novel circuit ideas. I originally bought one of his "Thinman" overdrives, because it uses a peak-limiter circuit for part of its clipping (distortion). It turns out that the limiter there is just for clipping, not for clean peak limiting, so I have not reviewed it on this site. However it's an excellent overdrive pedal, for both bass and guitar. Here I'm reviewing his new Bass^10 pedal, which combines a true compressor, an overdrive, and an EQ.
 
The compressor is designed for gentle, smooth squeezing. It has a fast compression attack, like the Demeter, which means a softer note attack. At a high ratio setting the note attack is almost violin-like. Although it does have a ratio control with a decently wide range, it doesn't really limit strong peaks that well, and at a high setting it mashes your tone a bit too much. But at medium to low ratios it has nice full, rich tone, and very natural smoothing action. The "Sust" knob is a threshold control, with a decently-useful range: it will work well with medium-to-low output instruments, but it might overcompress a high-output instrument. At moderate compression settings the tone is fairly clear and neutral, with no loss of highs or lows, and the noise level is low (from this part of the pedal).
 
The overdrive section has a smooth, warm quality and a rich texture, with no loss of low end. That's at medium to low "Drive" settings, though--at high Drive settings it turns raspy and nasal, and cuts the lows. The Drive knob controls the amount of pre-gain fed into the overdrive circuit. For bigger signal peaks it has a fixed clipping threshold with a wide touch-sensitive range (dependent on the output of your instrument, and the Drive knob setting). For signals below that threshold, there is a separate clipping circuit, with its own variable threshold control labeled "Depth". With Depth fully to the left you have the most range of touch-sensitivity, and fully to the right you get the most consistent drive across your dynamics. The OD effect is somewhat dependent on your compression settings. It has its own volume knob and footswitch separate from the compressor, but the comp footswitch bypasses both of them. So the only way to use the OD by itself is to turn the comp's knobs all the way down.
 
The EQ is a four-band set of cut-only filters. So the EQ is effectively "off" (flat) when the knobs are fully to the right. Turning each knob fully to the left will cut that band out completely. Each band has 18 dB of cut, so you can sculpt your signal in a wide range of voicings. Although a cut-only design lends itself to mid-scooping, you can boost the mids by turning down the high and low knobs and boosting the overall volume. The EQ affects both the comp and the OD. It's a smooth and good-sounding EQ.
 
This pedal does have one huge flaw: it has a noticeable hiss noise no matter how you set any of the knobs, even if you turn them all completely off. This is separate from any noise from the compressor or OD sections. Neither I nor Dan at DDyna have been able to identify or solve this hiss. It may even be something specific to my room/environment, since he doesn't hear it as much as I do. I ruled out specific equipment incompatibilities though, by using three different amps, different isolated power supplies, different instruments, and different cables. But just because I know what isn't the cause doesn't mean we know what is. The hiss noise is a deal-breaker for me, but you should really try it yourself to see if it's even an issue in your rig and environment.
 
One other thing that will be a problem for some people is it takes a 12 to 18V center-positive power supply (included with the pedal), and does not take batteries. So it won't be compatible with most daisy-chain power supplies. The housing is the "medium" size (like Barber, BBE, Aphex) and the construction is pretty good. The footswitch is true bypass.
 

 
 
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