I think BBE needs to point out more clearly that this is more of a bass than guitar pedal. For guitar it sucked tone, offered little sustain, had to be cranked to 3 o'clock on both knobs to even get the effect to come through. For bass it did a fairly nice job of compressing the tone. Since I play both in the studio, I may keep it, but initially I felt ripped-off and wanted to return immediately after hearing it through my guitar rig.

I bought it because I wanted a very transparent compressor to make my pickups sound a little more balanced and reactive. On the plus side, this pedal is extremely transparent in that it doesn't color the sound at all. You can still tell the compressor is on even at moderate levels(you don't need to crank the comp knob like other reviewers have said...cranking it too much will totally kill your signal). It is also very quiet. I have it plugged into my BBE Supa Charger and there is no noise whatsoever. The down side is that it's really on suitable for clean playing. It tends to take the life out of mid to high gain overdrive, though I have only tried it in front of my amp so far and not in the effects loop. Also, when using this I suggest to set the volume knob at about 3 o'clock. That position seems to be the closest to the bypassed volume. The comp knob set anywhere past noon was too much for me. I found a good spot around 9:30...fattened the high strings without squishing the dynamics all that much, but again that was only when playing clean. I couldn't find a setting I liked to go with distortion. Overall, this is great if you play jazz or blues...anything heavier, look elsewhere.

Great pedal. Strong as a tank. Quiet as a mouse. Gives you a perfect compressed sound. If I lost this pedal, I'd replace it.

Let me say that I have owned over 35 pedals (3 compressors so far) and I am really good at picking the winners and losers quite often. For example Boss CS-3, a loser overall or BBE Opto Stomp, an all around winner. And I love Boss pedals by the way but the CS-3 is a noise maker and needs a mod to be usable professionally

Some folks have complained about it being subtle to the point of absent. It is very subtle but it still has that Dyna Comp flavor to it. The main things to know and love about this compressor are that it is not a boost type of compressor, so if you are the guy that likes to boost on and off with a compressor instead of a boost pedal, keep looking. If you are the guy that leaves it on all the time or runs it at the end of your chain like BBE recommends then release your $ asap.

The bottom line on this thing is that it is dead silent, real true bypass(for those that can notice?) and has the awesome Boss/BBE 5 year warranty. Well done boys and girls at BBE!!

I compared this to my EH Blackfinger and to my surprise I kept the BBE. The finger is an excellent pedal for my bass playing but it had 2 drawbacks (studio noise and coloration). Most guys like the tube coloration of their bass sound but I love my bass sound as is (Ibanez srX 700). The BBE is crappy for heavy compression but for my hard rock finger style I got it dialed in just right. The BBE is quiet and smoooth.