Amazon Basics Compressor Guitar Pedal, Fully Analog Circuit

I use a rather precious Daion acoustic guitar to which I have fitted a Fishman Neo-D single wound pickup. That pickup produces a truly pathetically weak signal that Fishman ought to be ashamed of. Others have made the same observation.

I have been looking for some years now for an affordable preamplifier to use with this guitar. Most preamplifiers sold today are made for fitting into the guitar (and usually for awful piezo pickups). There is no way I am cutting up this guitar to fit a pre-amp. I have therefore been looking for an affordable in-line or “stomp-box” type of pre-amplifier for a while now. Suitable in-line pre-amplifiers I have seen to date are simply too expensive for my appetite at far in excess of $130 and often much much more. Some less expensive ones are unacceptably noisy, producing irritating hiss that destroys an acoustic session.

I saw this rather odd little device from AmazonBasics and thought it worth a try at the price point. I can report that, with the “Drive” (Gain) knob turned to maximum, the “Treble” turned to maximum and the “Bass” turned to 3/4 the device operates as a superb little pre-amplifier with high enough gain and low enough noise to do “quiet acoustic” music. I was even able to remove the equaliser from the train of devices.

At this point, I am playing the guitar via this box straight into a Mackie 1202-VLZPRO mixer and I’m very happy with what I am getting. I was not anticipating a good result at this price, but I am suitably surprised.

All in all, this was a very good purchase for me. I would imagine that it will develop distortion if used with more powerful pickups, such as double-wound humbucker pickups. It is sold for that “boosting” role, but it is fundamentally just a little amplifier with significant gain and some very limited tone controls.

Its “stomp button” is seriously suspect though and clicks loudly like metal-on-metal. I do not aim to use that button much. It can stay permanently “on” for my use. Amazon should tell the manufacturer to fix that up, though.

I had a bit of hesitation buying this mini compressor but for the little bit of $ it cost vs a boss or comparable unit it was worth a gamble. Happy to report this little unit does pretty much what any compressor does to your guitar tone. I use it with a drive pedal to add more punch and clarity to solos. You can dial in a perfect setting by just experimenting with the mix of level, attack, and sustain controls. The tiny footprint on my crowded pedalboard is also a big plus! Is it as good as a Keeley? Would I use it for recording? No. Does it do the job for rehearsals or a club gig? Absolutely!

Compré el afinador y el precio está excelente, se siente de buena calidad y es suficientemente pequeño como para caber en una pedalera compacta. La luz es lo suficientemente brillante y silencia la señal cuando lo estás usando. Lo único que no me gustó es que no es muy preciso, en especial con la tercera cuerda, cuesta trabajo que la detecte y el afinador salta mucho, por lo cual no se sabe si debes de apretar o soltar la cuerda. Funciona bastante bien para afinación E estándar (la normal), pero con algo más grave como Drop D empieza a ser ya bastante impreciso y realmente no llegas a afinar bien la guitarra, llega al punto al que es mejor afinar la sexta cuerda a oído. Así que para otro tipo de afinaciones buscaría otro afinador con más precisión.

I replaced a noisy cheap tuner with this one, when bypassed it’s silent and in use no problem reading it in daylight or dark room settings.

Good price. Nice body. Stopped working after some time, but I believe that to be a one-off issue, as the overall construction was stellar for the price. Pots feel nice.

This is by far the best distortion pedal you will find in the price range and in my opinion it can even outperform some pedals that ask for a higher price. If you’re just starting to put together a pedal effects array on a limited budget it’s the way to go because it does it’s job very well and saves you money for other pedals to round out the effects chain and those other pedals, like a compressor and a 3 notch EQ, will further enhance this pedal’s quality. Is this a great pedal? No… after having the budget to afford S tier equipment you won’t be using it because it simply doesn’t have the frequency response, contouring, and propogation that hits the ultimate sweet spot when you’re playing with distortion… but then again do any solid state products really hit the spot? The debate continues I guess. I also find that getting the sound you like the best from this pedal has a lot to do with where you use it in your effects chain, but this also varies. With certain riffs, it sounds better to me before a compressor and for others it’s better after compression, so if you’ve got at least one pedal already or are buying a starter set of pedals, make sure to test this out at every stage of the effect chain. Also, this pedal has a true pass-through bypass that goes directly from input to output, so your clean sound will be pristine and unaffected by the impedance and high-pass or low-pass filtering caused by being coupled to capacitive and inductive passive components. If you’re broke and the built in boost on your amp is a disappointment, and lets be honest… they’re all disappointing if they’re affordable, BUY THIS PEDAL because it plays like a pedal in the $100 tier.