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So I have been playing through a tiny bass practice amp alot recently. I enjoy it alot. It has this crappy limiter that kicks in as soon as you play with any distortion and i like the vibe of it for guitar. Wondering if it's worth getting like a dedicated limiter pedal (i only know boss made a few models) or just a nice compressor that lets you control the ratio and envelope. I know most compressor pedals are trying to be all warm and squishy squashy like some old tube thing which I dont like, I just want it to be fast and sound well like a tiny bass amp choking out to save the speaker from some 14 year old kid playing master of puppets too loud.

Kinda dont wanna go rack since I am planning on putting it 2nd last in the chain before hitting revebs and the amp input and dont wanna bother with guitar level vs line compatibility.

Keeley makes a compressor that I've heard is great as a limiter at the end of the chain. Pretty sure it can be had for $100 bucks used. I use compression at the front of my chain and had considered a limiter at the end for some of my noisier effect boxes (to save my speakers) but I gave up on that idea a while back.

I'm pretty satisfied with the BOSS LMB-3. The Enhancer of this unit is a bit noisy, but useful here and then. Overall it's a fantastic limiter that does exactly what you expect from it.

cosmicevan wrote:Keeley makes a compressor

They sure do! Is it one of the newer ones? I dont want the Ross thing I know they made one more like an 1176 is it that one you mean or one of the tinier ones?

Pepe wrote:I'm pretty satisfied with the BOSS LMB-3. The Enhancer of this unit is a bit noisy, but useful here and then. Overall it's a fantastic limiter that does exactly what you expect from it.

Yeah boss seem just do limiting and thats it plus they are pretty cheap. have you tried the old one without the enhance? i dont care for that function really cause afaik its just a mid scooper-outer

I haven't had the LM-2B, only the LMB-3. I have heard good things about the old model.

Since we’re all friends here I’m going to chime in and say I don’t really have any idea what the Boss limiter actually does - I don’t need it explained to me! But I think those Boss pedals with the three black lines on them (like the bass overdrive) are so sick. I saw one for sale and I was like “this is a great looking pedal!!”. And then I didn’t do any research on what it is.

I've never thought about the lines. are they supposed to be bass strings?

Yes. Have a look at my avatar.

Holy shit! I never put that together.... (I play a six string bass so really.... how could I?!?!)

syb3 is classy as heck! isnt it like the only pedal you can get with a waveshaper?

That's quite right. The discontinued Ibanez Bass Synthesizer SB7 of the Tone Lok series is also a waveshaper - and not bad at all! The SYB-5 has a more pleasing waveshaper sound than the predecessor.

And then there's a pure waveshaper that was made by KORG for the PME-40X system. Very rare, totally badass. Here's my exemplar alongside with a few other effect cartridges (I almost have all of them):

oh i remember that korg waveshaper when you show it! totally geeky and totally awesome format! Is it all analouge? I also remember the octaver semed cool but i never found clips of it. the number of controls are impressive for an analog octaver from the 80s

All the PME-40X effects are analog apart from the Digital Delay and the Digital Chorus. I hope that I can do some demos this year. The Octave V is one of my all-time favourite effects.

oh let me know if you do! Having both control for dirty and clean octave seems really cool

The MXR M87 bass compressor will do what you want.
You can set it for varying degrees of compression, or just use it like a limiter.