One day while Carl was adding some compression to a guitar track in his studio, he thought, why hasn't anyone built a small opto-compressor for guitarists?
An optical compressor performs gain reduction control via a light source into a photo sensitive cell... as the light source gets brighter, the photo sensitive cell sends a signal to reduce dynamic range, or what becomes a compressed signal. Welcome to the Vintage Opto-Compressor....an old-school compressor from the days where colouring was an important factor to the sound. The four controls (from left to right) are the Gain, which controls the 'pre-glow' of the optical circuit (the more you turn this up, the fatter the sound); Level, which controls the overall volume of the compressor; Compression, which controls how hard or soft the compression is, and the Attack control which takes the signal from transparent to outright total squeeze. A short time with this compressor will allow you to find some of those classic guitar sounds which may somehow have escaped you before.
Features
- The Opto-Compressor comes in a solid diecast housing with cool chicken-head knobs
- CM colour and graphics
- 9v battery compartment.
- The Carl Martin Classic Opto-Compressor brings you studio quality compression at the stomp of a footswitch.
- The Classic Opto-Compressor offers control over gain, level, compression, and attack, allowing for a wide range of compression and leveling effects.
- The Carl Martin Classic Opto-Compressor can do it all, from transparent compression to vintage squash.
Due to the nature of compressors, we highly recommend a regulated power supply (like the CM Big John) or a large stock of batteries.....