When assembling an acoustic pedalboard, one often-overlooked impact is compression. Whereas not as apparent as reverb or refrain, compression is a great tool employed on most recordings that can be efficient for reside efficiency if used fastidiously. The dramatic 12-string sound on the classics by the Byrds and the Beatles was made attainable by compression. Whereas compression pedals for electrical guitar are pretty widespread, they don’t seem to be at all times excellent for an acoustic guitar. Accordingly, the boutique pedal firm JangleBox has launched the Acousticomp ($265), a compressor/sustainer voiced particularly for acoustic guitar.

The Acousticomp is comparatively easy to make use of, though dialing in a sound includes a number of interacting controls. The maintain knob determines how onerous the unit drives the soft-knee compression. At excessive settings, you may simply hear the compression kicking in, lowering the amount of the preliminary assault and growing obvious maintain because the guitar decays. An assault management determines how rapidly the compression kicks in. The combo management helps a way often known as parallel compression, providing a technique to get each compression and a pure sound by mixing the processed and unprocessed alerts.

The tone management is flat when totally counterclockwise, however when totally clockwise, it combines a big treble increase with a slight lower to decrease mids. Lastly, there’s a quantity management that can be utilized to regulate the general quantity of the impact when it’s engaged, and, after all, the unit has a footswitch to activate or bypass the impact.

I discovered the Acousticomp pleasing to play by way of. It’s simple to overdo the impact—heavy compression can sound synthetic on an acoustic guitar—however with extra refined settings, together with leveraging the combination management to retain a portion of the pure sound, guitars sounded fatter and fuller with elevated maintain. Even with very refined settings, you may really feel the impact of the compression when taking part in. The machine was helpful for smoothing out strumming, and the treble increase—utilized in moderation—provides presence to duller-sounding pickups. 

I particularly appreciated the best way the mixture of compression and treble increase sounded on a 12-string Taylor, however even when fingerpicking a six-string, the pedal added a bit additional pizzazz, making notes leap out with much less effort and including presence. With its means to spice up quantity and treble, and supply elevated maintain, the Acousticomp may be an efficient increase pedal for solos when taking part in with a band. janglebox.com