Demeter Compulator Optical Compressor Review

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(More customer reviews)I searched a lot before settling on this compressor and I'm glad I found it -- it's worth every cent. Demeter is absolutely right: performing compression via an optical circuit is super super clean. The Compulator fully achieves its design goal of compressing the initial attack of your notes to fatten things up without messing with your tone in any other way. Clean signal in? Clean signal out. Turn its output volume up high if you wish, and it still hardly colors your tone at all (although the side effects of running a hotter signal out of the compressor and into your next effect or your amp very well might). Though usually you'll set the output volume at exactly the level that makes up for the compression.
I'm a bass player; my current set up:
Music Man Sting Ray 4 > Demeter Compulator > SansAmp Bass DI > MXR M288 Octave Deluxe > BBE Sonic Stomp > Mesa/Boogie Basis M-2000 > Ampeg SVT50DL "Isovent" cab.
Starting this chain with the Compulator is one of the most crucial improvements I ever made. The sweet sound of the SansAmp is worth twice as much when driven by a signal that is already compressed juuuuust enough. I don't usually go for heavy compression, but I almost always want a touch of it *before* I modify my signal in any other way, before any other gain or effect. But being at the start of the chain, the compressor has to be dead quiet & clean. The Compulator absolutely fills that need and its effect on the dynamics of my signal is simply perfect.
In case you find yourself comparing this unit to competing pedals which have additional attack and decay controls, think how often you will ever need to or want to adjust those knobs, versus the value of this simple unit sounding infinitely cleaner (and being built to last in an indestructible box with the highest quality parts).

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The Compulator was born after I solved an engineering problem of biasing an optical unit with only a single 9V battery. I had always loved the sound of optical compressors and designed and manufactured tube units in the pro audio market for a number of years. I wanted to make a pedal, but it took years to come up with a method to do it the right way. The result is the Compulator, winner of Guitar Player Editor's Pick Award and the only compressor that does not suck away your tone." - JamesThe sound of classic studio optical compression of the 60's and 70's at your feet! The first compressor pedal not to suck the life out of your tone.Operation is fairly straightforward. There are two inputs on the front side of the unit: a 1/4" input jack on the right and a 1/4" output jack on the left with a battery-ground switch on the input jack.There are two controls on the unit: Compress and Volume, plus a foot switch to bypass the effect, and an LED to indicate effect operation. On the side there is a trim pot to set the overall gain of the unit.Compress affects the amount of Gain reduction (compression) of the input signal. Turning this clock wise will give you up to 30dB of gain reduction (depending on input gain). Please note that the Compulators max gain is 26dB (see Trim Pot) so in some circumstances if your instrument is very hot you could achieve less than unity gain if you turn up the compress knob too much.Volume increases and decreases the output volume of the Compulator. Use this for level matching between the effected and unaffected signal.Trim Pot sets the gain of the compressor's pre-amplifier. If distortion occurs turn this down until the signal is clean. The unit is set at the factory at 20dB of gain which is perfect for most instruments. If you have weaker pickups or want to push the envelope turn it up to its max gain 26dB.

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