I've been gigging since 1964---not a pro, but this ain't my first rodeo. This pedal has a lot of great aspects-- but I could not get an "endless sustain" that was clean. Always just a bit of dirt. I didn't want that. And whenever I hit the "ON" button, there was a definite discernible "pop"-- and even a slight pause or delay until it kicked in. Not cool. Trialed with a Paul, SG, 339, PRS, Strat, and Nashville Tele thru Fender, Behringer, and Vox amps. Really had some super nice sounds, but the drawbacks killed me. I returned mine.

I hate guitar gimmicks, but was attracted by claims of endless sustain. While the sustain is long, there is a price to pay. As someone else noted, the picking sound/attack is affected. For me and the blues, it is worth the tradeoff. I've heard this medal works great with distortion pedals, and that may help the attack issue. If you have the extra money, and want long sustain, buy this. I'm glad I did.

This is a very unique pedal. Great compressor. Takes a while to really dial in the right tone, and you have to know a thing or two about how a compressor works. Sounds great, works great, I love mine, HOWEVER, there are only a few problems:

1) the pedal requires a 12v adapter. That's honestly really annoying. Yes, it comes with it, but I can't daisy chain it with my other pedals.

2) If you don't dial it in correctly, your attack will be completely shot. You will lose definition in your notes and things will become muddy. Another thing about this pedal is that you need to turn up your amp and your rig--you can't use it extremely quietly or it will sound squashed.

Honestly, the Boss CS3 does about the same job, and it's got the attack knob on the front, HOWEVER...this pedal has better tone, the treble knob sounds better than the tone knob on the Boss, and it's optical compression, so a little less harsh than other compressor pedals.

based on the reviews/videos i had seen, i was expecting the holy grail of compression. i was hoping for something that could provide the smooth, round compression of my Homebrew CPR, but also have endless sustain and some dirt on tap when needed. all with less noise. sounds great, right? fault me for lofty expectations, but this did not deliver.

first, the (near) endless sustain thing is legit, and I’m the first to admit that it is a really cool and impressive feature. tone-wise it is fairly transparent, but it absolutely kills your pick attack. i thought this was a fair trade off for the added sustain, but when i tried to dial in some basic compression tones, the attack was still non-existent (even on the lowest compression settings). every note blooms which, to me, sounded unnatural and non musical. i thought that the blend knob would help alleviate this problem in the same fashion as the barber tone press, but it didn't help. once you move it past 9 o'clock, the attack was gone.

the grit knob is a cool feature. not the best distortion i've heard, but not the worst. i actually thought that the tone knob was very useful and effective. i will admit that the unit does have less noise than other compressors that i've tried at the most extreme settings. at the same time, the difference was marginal at best.

to channel my inner tone-snob, the pedal sounded like an effect rather than a tone shaping device. i really did like the endless sustain, but couldn't justify keeping it for one trick.

i'm sure there are going to be plenty of people who will love this pedal, but it wasn’t for me and ended up returning it. if you’re looking for endless sustain, this is your answer. if you’re looking for a complete compress pedal that can give you endless sustain, keep looking.