Extensive compressor reviews and FAQ

JangleBox: This is a neat unit, not actually intended for bass- it was designed specifically to give guitars the bright jangley tone and shimmery sustain heard in tunes by the Beatles, the Byrds, Tom Petty, the Pretenders, etc. I liked the idea of bright shimmery upper harmonics on bass tones (especially fretless), so I had to try it. The good news is that the tone really is killer, and very full-range. It seems to add rich fullness and shine to the tone evenly from the highest notes to the lowest. It is capable of both subtle and extreme compression (high Gain settings squish a lot like an Orange Squeezer), and it retains the note attack nicely. It also provides a terrific amount of added sustain.
 
The bad news, once again, is the noise. The Janglebox and the Black/White Fingers just slay me, because they would be the most awesome-sounding compressors ever if it weren't for all the noise. After a couple hours of experimenting, I found the setting that gave me the best signal-to-noise ratio (gain 1:00, attack 9:00); if on a loud stage, or using a cab with no tweeter, that would have been an incredibly nice tone. But with a tweeter, or through headphones, the noise level was still way too high. And the very long sustain is accompanied by a serious incoming swell of hiss. The pedal has a switch for Dark, Normal, and Bright tones; the Dark setting does roll off most of the noise, but it also rolls off enough of the highs to essentially cancel the whole point of this pedal. For comparison, the Humphrey CS3 gives just as much of a chimey bright tone, with noticeably lower noise, and it was half the price. The only things the Janglebox does better than the Humphrey are longer sustain and fuller/warmer low end. I guess it's up to the user to decide if they can work with the noise to achieve these tones (it might really be worth it depending on your setup). I was able to improve the s/n ratio somewhat by turning down the gain knob on the pedal and turning up the input gain of the amp after it. The footswitch is true bypass. The construction quality overall is really quite good, but there's one thing to note: the DC power jack is center positive (the reverse of most Boss-type jacks), so any ground noise from other center-negative pedals (like tremolo clock noise) may be audible through this pedal.
 

 
 
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