Acoustic Tone Hack: Unlock Your Guitar’s Hidden Potential With an Acoustic Compressor Pedal
While compression isn’t the most exciting or animated guitar effect compared things like delay, chorus, and reverb, it’s the not-so-hidden secret to achieving studio-quality acoustic guitar tone on stage. An acoustic compressor pedal will fatten up your tone, prevents unwanted volume spikes, and makes it easier to hear the nuances of your technique. But what does an acoustic compressor pedal do, and how do you set up a compressor pedal for your acoustic guitar? Let’s dig in.
What Does a Compressor Pedal for Acoustic Guitar Do?
Put simply, compression reduces the level of signal peaks coming from your acoustic-electric guitar. Once your guitar signal reaches a certain threshold the compressor reduces volume, and it lets up when your signal falls below the threshold. By reducing your dynamic range (the difference between the quietest and loudest sounds your guitar makes) you have a well-balanced guitar signal that holds its place in the mix well.
How Does Compression Help Your Acoustic Guitar Tone?
Your acoustic guitar has an extremely wide dynamic range, closer to that of a piano than an electric guitar. Compression is the secret to making the softer nuances of your technique more audible, as well as controlling peaks for more consistent and controlled volume. Let’s look at how compression can enhance your acoustic guitar tone whether you’re strumming, flatpicking, or playing fingerstyle.
Compression for Playing and Strumming with a Pick
Whether you’re strumming or playing lead lines with a guitar pick, the pick itself enhances attack and presence, and can easily generate higher volume compared to playing with your fingers. Compression helps by making the peaks more consistent in volume, creating a strummed rhythm sound that holds its place in the mix better. The compression will also enhance your perception of bass and midrange frequencies, making your overall acoustic tone sound bigger and fatter.
Compression for Fingerstyle Players
If you’re fingerpicking, a huge part of your sound is based on subtle nuances, the interaction between flesh and steel. Compression again helps you achieve a consistent volume when fingerpicking, helping softer passages maintain listeners’ interest without sounding like you’re fading away. And because your fingers will naturally have a softer attack compared to a pick, compression can be used to add a bit of punch to your fingerstyle tone.
How to Improve Your Acoustic Tone with a Compressor Pedal
The Fishman AFX AcoustiComp offers a dead-simple control set with just two knobs for Level and Compression, making it a great example to demonstrate how to use a compressor pedal to enhance your acoustic guitar tone. While studio compressors can have a multitude of controls and settings to calibrate, you want straightforward simplicity when it comes to live performance. Here’s how you can use the AFX AcoustiComp (or any 2-knob compressor pedal) to quickly achieve a full-sounding guitar tone with controlled dynamics.
With the Comp knob turned all the way off (fully counter-clockwise), start by adjusting the Level control so that your signal level is consistent whether the pedal is on or off. This is your baseline setting: no compression is occurring, and your volume isn’t being increased or reduced. Now with the pedal on, you can use the pedal’s LED indicator to see how much compression you’re applying.
With our baseline setting, the LED indicator will be lit red. The LED will change to yellow when compression is occurring. For a good starting point, you want to adjust the Comp knob until the LED dances between red and yellow: yellow when you’re strumming or picking hard, and red at all other times. Compression really needs to be dialed in for your individual playing style: determine what playing “loudly” and “softly” means for you, and apply compression until you’re taming the peaks but not compressing your entire performance non-stop.
When you’ve found an appropriate setting for the Comp knob, toggle the pedal on and off while playing and listen for a change in overall volume. Because compression tames volume peaks, you’re actually reducing your overall signal level (even though your tone now sounds beefier) — use the Level control to compensate for this. Toggle the pedal on and off while playing, and adjust the Level control so that your volume is consistent again.
There’s nothing wrong with using the Level control as a bit of a boost too if you want, just know that the purpose of the Level control on the AFX AcoustiComp (or any compressor, really) is to compensate for the volume loss that compression creates.
Fishman AFX AcoustiComp: A Simple 2-Knob Compressor for Epic Acoustic Tone
Compression is one of the most impactful tools you have as an acoustic guitarist, and the Fishman AFX AcoustiComp is a great example of how easy it can be to use an acoustic compressor pedal. Compressing your acoustic guitar helps the nuances of your technique be heard, while controlling your volume level for acoustic tone that holds its place in the mix. And because the Fishman AFX AcoustiComp is designed specifically for the extended frequency range of acoustic guitar, it gives you dynamic control without degrading your core acoustic tone. If you want to perform with studio-quality acoustic tone, you should definitely check out the Fishman AFX AcoustiComp compressor pedal.
| Voltage | 9 volts |
|---|---|
| Amperage | 50 milliamps |
| Audio Output Effects | Compression |
| Controls Type | Knob |
| Power Source | USB Powered |
| Hardware Interface | USB 3.1 Type C |
| Signal Format | Analog |
- Introduction
- What Does a Compressor Pedal for Acoustic Guitar Do?
- How Does Compression Help Your Acoustic Guitar Tone?
- Compression for Playing and Strumming with a Pick
- Compression for Fingerstyle Players
- How to Improve Your Acoustic Tone with a Compressor Pedal
- Fishman AFX AcoustiComp: A Simple 2-Knob Compressor for Epic Acoustic Tone
