Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer

Buy this item from Musician's Friend through Rocket Sounds! Boss CS-3 Compression Sustainer

General

Why add a compressor to your effects chain? 'Cause you probably need to and just don't know it!

Most guitar signals benefit from compression and for those of you who have never tried, or never tried it correctly, think about this: If you look at pro artist rigs or go visit a studio, you will be hard pressed to find a guitar, bass or drum signal that is not being compressed. It's just that the pros know how to do it so you don't really recognize that compression is part of the signal.

Use

The Boss CS-3 is really just a compressor with a built-in EQ knob for additional tone tweak. Like all Boss products, it is built sturdy and road worthy. Hard to break, and nice and quiet. It accepts either a 9v battery or an AC adaptor.

Any compressor by definition is going to give you more sustain by boosting the lower signals and compressing the higher signals. This translates into a smoother, narrower band of sound that does not have high transient peaks or super quiet valleys. How narrow this band is depends on how much compression you dial in.

But here is the crucial point - as guitar players, we seek long sustaining notes, no matter what kind of music we play. To get that long sustain, we usually dial in more and more distortion, when what we really want is less distortion and MORE SUSTAIN. By using a compressor to generate sustain, you can use less distortion, which will yield more clarity in-between notes but still have the long, dreamy sustain.

Enter the Boss CS-3. It does a great job as a simple compressor, is very quiet, and very simple to use. Simply dial in the signal level, use the tone knob to adjust your EQ, and then set how fast you want the compressor to kick in (Attack) and how fast you want the signal to degrade (Release). Now go play and adjust as necessary.

A word of caution! People complain about how noisy compressors are, and that's usually because they don't know how to use them. You need to do this:

• Adjust the compressor to the point where it does what you want, but people don't know it's there.



• Recognize that by definition, a compressor is going to increase quieter notes which increases the overall noise signal.

Turn the compressor to full and you will see what I mean. There is a trade-off between using a compressor and the resulting noise. Pros do it well, hacks are just noisy!

Two last tips:

1. Slide players almost always use a compressor to generate that wonderful creamy sustain that sounds so awesome.



2. If you do a lot of clean, single note phrasing, a compressor will make you sound like you are playing cleaner and faster. And it will make you sound totally pro!

Final Take

Want to sound instantly more pro?

Want to increase your overall sustain without increasing distortion?

Want to add a ton of flexibility to your signal and your playing?

The CS-3 does all that in a simple to use, hard-to-break package at a cost that is ridiculously low for what you get. Put it in your signal chain and I almost guarantee that you will NEVER, EVER play without a compressor again!