I've gone through the bunch of them over the last year.
The CS-3, I found to be noisy and seemed to leech treble from signal.
The MXR, I actually quite liked (Supercomp). I think the only difference is the attack control. Though it was very limited.
I ended up buying a Keeley based on word of mouth reviews and my like of the MXR. I found it to be a little to squishy sounding, more of blues/country sounds within it. Dead quiet though.
I'm finally settled with the Carl Martin. I love it. It's the best one I've tried. I'm using it as more of a limiter I guess... but it has everything I could want in compressor, and it's totally transparent and quiet.
I suspect the MXR would do nicely for what you're going for. The Keeley would be even better.
with as much money as I've pumped into keeley effects over the last 2 years, I hate to say that when I use a compressor, I really like the Aphex optical compressor.
you can comfortably make it very "squishy" or quite crisp.
I've been a fan of the Barber Tone Press. There are two parallel signal paths, dry and wet combined at the output. I like the fact that you can control how much of your wet compressed signal gets added to the dry signal and vice versa. That gives you a lot of flexibility in creating the type of output you're looking for.
I have a MXR super comp, it gives nice sustain without killing the dynamic sound too much. It's easy to use/adjust, but if I turn the action level too high it distorts the sound. If you want overcompressed shredding sound (to compensate for being sloppy ), this is not the pedal you want. I tried a Marshall ED-1 once, but I didn't like it, it had this annoying clicking sound everytime I picked a string. Maybe it was just this one pedal, but the difference in quality to the MXR was obvious.
Have a few. The only one that really stands out is the Tech21 NYC "Bass Compactor". Sometimes I use a tube head [Bassman etc] with a converter [Gibson Power Stealth] on the speaker output that turns speaker current into a line out, which then feeds into a clean solid state amp to actually drive the cab. Now *that* is my ideal compressor, except for bulk, weight, and clutter. The Tech21 Bass Compactor comes extremely close to that effect.
BTW, if you have a primarily piezo ax, a good compressor will take it to nirvana.
I use a Maxxon compressor & love it. I leave it on all the time. Not so squashy sounding as other compressors & not expensive. Also true bypass if I'm thinking right.
the mxr ain't bad......i hear alot of good thangs 'bout the analogman. but in front of a blues driver.?................never liked the blues driver.............y'oughtta just git a fulltone fulldrive 2 and be done withit.
you don't need a comp.........you need to git ridda that nasty ol' BD.
I use the MiC Marshall ED-1, and it's fine on my live pedal board - sounds really good, highly tweakable, really cheap... I only use it on three or four songs, so I'm not interested in investing in a boutique pedal for that, and this one meets all my requirements...
Since 1999 I purchased a TECH 21 COMPTORTION for a mere $50. That pedal is still with me and I still like it. It's similar to a VS route 66 pedal, but has a noise gate built in, which is very handy. I only own 2 pedals, that is one.
If you've never used a compressor, this is an inexpensive way to see if you like them. Has a distortion (tube screamerish) you can dial in also.