The Vintage Opto Compressor is an old-school compressor from the days where coloring was an important factor to the sound! This Carl Martin guitar effects pedal provides four controls; Gain, Level, Compression, and Attack. Only a short time with this Carl Martin Opto Compressor and you to find some of those classic guitar sounds which may have somehow escaped you before. This vintage Carl Martin Opto Compressor guitar effects pedal comes in a solid die-cast housing with cool CM color and graphics and a 9v battery compartment.
Carl Martin Classic Opto Compressor Guitar Effects Pedal Features:
- Durable solid die-cast housing
- 9v battery compartment
- Chicken head knobs
- Bypass footswitch engages or bypasses the pedal
- Red LED turns on when the pedal is engaged
- Gain controls the pre-glow of the optical circuit (the more you turn this up, the fatter the sound)
- Level controls the overall volume of the compressor
- Compression controls how hard or soft the compression is
- Attack control takes the signal from transparent to outright total squeeze
Welcome the Opto Compressor!
One day while Carl was adding some compression to a guitar track in his studio, he thought, why hasn’t anyone built a small opto compressor for guitarists? An optical compressor performs gain reduction control via a light source into a photo sensitive cell. As the light source gets brighter, the photo sensitive cell sends a signal to reduce dynamic range, or what becomes a compressed signal. From this idea, the innovative Classic Opto Compressor guitar effects pedal was born.
Gain Control
On the Gain knob you adjust how much of the guitar signal you would load the circuitry with, if you set the knob at left the compressor will not be very effective, the more you turn right the more effective the compressor get.
It can go from a very mild soft compression to really hard beefed up compression at full right.
The gain knob will be interactive with the rest of the knobs, so i.e. the harder you load the circuitry, the more effective the comp knob get.
Level Control
The Level knob you use the adjust the output level from the pedal to match you clean sound when you finished setting the gain,-comp & attack knobs, for the comp effect you want.
The level knob can go from below unity level to several dB boost, so you can actually use the Classic Opto Compressor as a boost sustain pedal, to make your singing lead cut through to the audience.
Compressor Control
When you have set the gain knob to the right amount of signal you want to be compressed, you set the amount or degree of compression on the Comp knob, going from nearly nothing at full left, to extreme hard compression at full right, again here note that the efficiency of the knob depends on how the gain and attack knobs are set. The more gain and attack the more compression you get.
Attack Control
The Attack knob what is that? It's to adjust/set how fast attack/release time shall be, at full left the attack is fast, in this mode the compression is more neutral limiter like. While at full right the compression is much more effective and effect like, the effect will then be more suitable for finger picking style. Again here note that the attack setting will be interactive with the other knobs.