Keeley Compressor Mini

I need to squeeze a mini pedal onto a fully crowded pedal board and figured I could reclaim some space by replacing some normal pedals with mini-sized. So, this was destined to replace a Keeley Compressor Plus.

Unfortunately, even though it is clearly a more advanced circuit and can, for example, be set to exhibit absolutely no attack 'squish', thereby retaining ALL of your playing dynamics as well as retaining string attack transients, it still provides compression. Quite a remarkable feat — and something the Compressor Plus is totally incapable of.

No matter how you set it, the Compressor Plus ALWAYS 'squishes' and adds a trebly 'quack' to the attack. This one does not. You can set it so that the string attack is the same as when it is switched off, and it only bears down when you start to dig in and hit the string harder.

And here is the 'but'. It does not sit well with the overdrive pedals I have (Mad Professor Simble, MP Sweet Honey Overdrives and Maxon OD808).

The Compressor Plus sits well, irrespective of whether it is in front or behind the OD pedals, and makes them all fatter and creamier. But this little fella just makes them all sound gritty and harsh — both before and after in the chain.

Sorry. It is a really promising mini-sized pedal and I tried really hard to like it, but it is not for me.

It took no time at all for me to realise this was a classic compressor, easy to use but with a serious boost of mid frequencies that muffles and muddles your sound. Easy controls and good gain, not noisy, nice and small on your board - and if you really want compression and gain together it could work for you - but if you were looking for a transparent sounding pedal to clean up the balance in your input chain then you need to cough up extra €€€€s for the GC-2... be aware, this is in no way a smaller, reduced-feature version of that much more elegant pedal.