How David Gilmour Uses Stacked Compression

If you’ve found compressors a little bit difficult to get into or would just like some ideas on some practical uses for compressors, what kind of playing styles they work with or how to mix them with other effects, this should be helpful.

Signal Chain:
CS-3 - Cali 76 - Dyna Comp - Big Muff - Tube Pilot - CE-2 - DD-8

The MXR Dyna Comp is probably the compressor most associated with David Gilmour. I’ve set this one to do the most extreme compression out of the three. If you ever want to test a compressor to listen exactly to what it’s doing to the signal this is a great way to do it, play soft, then play hard. Then listen to how the compressor reacts. An extremely compressed sound is nice for certain things but I’m not too keen on it through an amp set really clean, I can hear and feel the pumping effect a bit too much, it sounds unnatural and feels a bit weird.

If you turn your amp up, when you play hard, you get a bit of natural valve compression or tube compression. Combining the Dyna Comp with the natural compression of the amp makes the compression sound that is coming from the pedal a little less noticeable, it doesn’t sound or feel as weird. It’s causing signal to stay right on the cusp of sending the amp into overdrive and the compressor pedal is helping the signal stay at that level no matter whether you're playing gently or really digging in. There’s also a slight mid boost that happens with a lot of these OTR guitar pedal type compressors. Through a really clean amp that mid boost can sometimes sound a little harsh and aggressive but now it’s going through the amps natural valve compression that 2nd stage of compression helps even things out. I really like this sort of tone for the iconic solo in Another Brick In The Wall Part 2

I'm using a more subtle setting on the CS-3, bear in mind that David Gilmour is better known for using the Boss CS-2 but this is just what I have. This is the sort of sound that I think is good for evening out clean funky percussive rhythm parts like in Another Brick In The Wall Part 2 or to fatten and even out clean articulate lead lines like in the lead playing near the start of Shine On You Crazy Diamond parts 1-5.

The Origin Effects Cali76 is a bit of a more sophisticated studio style compressor. I’ve set this one for parallel compression where I’ve mixed the clean signal back in with the compressed signal. This way you can have quite a highly compressed setting that might be a bit over the top on its own, but then you can mix the clean sound back in to make it sound more natural and transparent but still adding that fat thickening sound you get from compressors.

That’s a pretty heavily compressed sound but now listen to it with the clean signal mixed back in and I hope you can hear how it’s adding a lot of the natural transients and dynamics back in but there’s this thickness to the sound. It’s a great compressor setting if you don’t like the sound of those more traditional guitar pedal compressors.

Now for stacking the compressor pedals. I’ll start with mixing the two more mild compressors the CS-3 and the Cali 76. The best way I can think to describe this sound is a heavy compression that is at the same time quite transparent. It's different to the sound of the MXR dyna comp which is a heavy compression but adds a lot more colour and pumps the volume more obviously. I like this dual compression sound for fattening the lead to solos that have a little bit of drive like the solo to Money, it evens the amount of input that’s being sent to the overdrive pedal so you have a more consistent amount of gain and notes higher up the neck never really get thin like they sometimes can on a strat.

Now I’ll include some fuzz and distortion. I think David Gilmour often uses an overdrive pedal after his fuzz to reshape the tone, a lot of fuzz pedals like this Electro Harmonix Big Muff have a mid scooped sound to them and running an overdrive pedal after them reshapes the EQ so that they’re a bit more focused and cut through a mix a little better. Notice how because we’re using compression and multiple gain stages you don’t need as much gain on the overdrive and distortion pedals which in themselves are a type of compressor as well.

Timecodes:
00:00 - Intro
00:12 - Heavy Compression (Dyna Comp)
01:40 - Tube Amp Compression
02:05 - Heavy Comp + Tube Amp Compression
03:53 - Medium Compression (Boss CS-3)
06:10 - Parallel Compression (Cali 76)
08:20 - Summary of Settings
08:50 - Stacked Compressors with Overdrive
11:15 - Stacked Compressors Clean and with Fuzz

[brianbelet]

5-star tutorial all around; probably the best, and clearest discussion of compression I have encountered. Thanks for posting this!

[jonny]

I really like that a lot of your gear can be easily found and are widely available to the general public.

[gameoftones]

I have watched countless videos about compression, including videos by mick and Dan, but you sir did the best job of explaining it and demoing it of them all!!

[josephwright]

Reverb seems to be a wonderful companion with compression, as it seems to smooth things out even more and provide a soft sonic space for notes to trail into the distance.

[timwhite]

I've had a bit of a compression obsession forever. My favorite compression to this day is still an old tried and true Dyna Comp. If you were to list out at the things people want out of a compressor: transparent; headroo; no pump; retaining picking dynamics, etc the Dyna Comp would rate dead last, it has all those things in spades. Still, single coils through a clean amp with the comp between 9:00-10:00; it's glorious. It has a percussive click that no other compressor has. I've built scores of compressors over the years, most based off Dyna Comps/Ross compressors. The only real difference between the Dyna and the Ross are two pairs of resistors. The Dyna uses a higher value than the Ross, and that's where the click is. They use different opamps too, but that doesn't really effect how they compress.
I bought a Keeley Compressor Plus several years when it came out. I had the original two knob, which I paid well over $200 back in 2005-06. The Plus was half the price and everyone raved about it, so I sold the two knob and bought one. I kept for two weeks, returned it and bought a used 4 knob, which just the two knob with the two internal knobs moved to the outside. Even with the blend on the Plus, the old circuit is far more transparent. You have to dial it in more, but when you do it's just cleaner. The Plus adds a high end that can't be dialed out, and the input gain is preset really high. Even with the blend all the way down I can still hear it.
Plus you can get them for like $80 used. I'm confident that in a few years they're going to be one of those pedals that just flies up in value. Everyone uses comp now, but there aren't as many of those floating around as other pedals, due to the price and the fact that compression just wasn't as ubiquitous as it is today.

*Try putting a tube screamer, or anything with a mid-hump in front of a Muff. Roll the gain back and the volume set for unity, or just a slight bump. It's the amazing Strat lead tone. It sounds more like running through a dimed stack. You get the sustain of the Big Muff, but with all the pick attack that you usually don't get. It makes even the thinnest bridge pickup sound HUGE.

[MrNeurotix]

compression is the most underrated, yet widely used effect. thanks for another fantastic informative video!

[albertplaysguitar]

Definitely the best video on compression I've seen. Took me forever to really get the point of having a comp pedal. This video made it easy to understand.

[davidwoods]

I always thought people would think I was crazy for stacking compressor pedals. Sometimes it's the only way I can get the note bite I need and also the correct feel through the strings. If used correctly on digital equipment, modellers, etc. you certainly can't tell the difference in feel between the digital and a really, really good tube amp.

[soundknight]

The most compression is coming out of YouTube...

[joecastro]

As a Bass player I've used stacked compression in my rig for years, it's a must for any player to be able to understand and use compression, I discovered the doubling and sometimes even trippling my compression for some great variation of Suttle to all out squash compression, especially for slapping and tapping on the bass, it can really make things pop.

[drcockles]

For a compressor with a great blend and lots of versatility the Thorpy FX Fat General is amazing

[pearsonart]

A word here for the FMR Really Nice Compressor. It has a stacked compression mode called “super nice”. Not a pedal but only a third rack space and worth adding to any studio.

[srwaite]

Single coil pickups with some compression dialed in is magic 👍🏻🎸🖖🏻

[jordynhodge]

i always wondered how David Gilmour made those amazing riffs sound the way he does.You have made it understandable so thanks! keep the cool videos coming!

[rumplebunny]

Very nice. I've stacked compression at times over the years but I've never once even thought about parallel compresion, always just ran them in series. That parallel sound is what I've been chasing. Man, it just never even occurred to me to try that with compression even though I've done parallel processing with other effects heh. Thank you!

[Jamestele]

The combination of that beautiful Strat with the compression is a perfect sound. I've tried to emulate it on my Tele, which is close, but what you get out of that Strat is music to my ears

[stratcat]

Great tutorial. I enjoyed how you took the time to and clearly showed how the pedals interact with each other.

[moustachio]

I love compressors. Especially the simple MXR.

[jfxberns]

Fantastic demonstration of the results of a properly used compression pedal. You hear the difference between how if sounds with and without compression on a well known song. Brilliant.

All the demos I've seen just noodle nothing tunes twiddle knobs which really doesn't show the reason you want a compressor.

[justinpridham]

Don't normally comment but well done. It was really worth the 14 min ride. Your presentation is working well on this video media, I hope you're doing well by this. Would recommend.