Extensive compressor reviews and FAQ

Guyatone TC-X: This pedal contains a 12AX7 tube as a gain stage. Guyatone discontinued these a few years ago; they made a bass version as well, called the BC-X, but I rarely see those for sale, so when one of the TC ones showed up I snagged it. Out of the box it did indeed lack a little bit in the low end, but I fixed that by changing the input and EQ capacitors. This pedal is another one for the knob twiddlers, with many controls. It requires some patience and experimentation to find the right settings, particularly because a couple of the controls are not self-explanatory and the instruction sheet doesn't help any. I actually had to email Godlyke (the US distributor) to find out exactly what the "shape" knob does. The controls include: "Comp" which is the amount of compression; "Shape" which blends the compressed signal with the uncompressed original signal (to retain more of your natural note envelope); "Attack" which controls the attack of the compression; "Level" which controls the output volume; and a stacked pot labeled "Level" and "Freq" which is a sweepable-frequency active mid boost. The tube in this pedal does not provide any grit or overdrive on its own. The overall tone is thick, warm, and dark. There is some treble rolloff. There is also a noticeable noise floor, which increases as you turn up the Comp knob. This is another pedal which would be awesome except for the noise. But as with the JangleBox, you may find the fat tone to be worth it anyway. Especially because of the active mid-shift EQ, which is a potent tone-shaping tool much like an active bass preamp. The footswitch is not true bypass, but the bypassed tone is quite clear and uncolored.
 

 
 
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