Keeley Compressor Plus Pedal, Black (KCompPlus)

Great guitar pedal. Delivered right on time.

Incredible performance and sound. No tone colouring is perceived, despite how flexible it is. It's a safe option for any type of rig/sound.

Keeley's compressor pedals have been an industry favorite for many years, and the Compressor Plus is a compact and relatively affordable example of why. Keeley certainly didn't "invent" the compressor, and I've used pedals like the BOSS CS-3, MXR Dyna Comp, and Ross Compressor that have done the job well for several decades. However, this particular pedal from Keeley merges the best attributes of all of those pedals into a single, easy-to-use box. I find that the BLEND control is a important addition that you see in more and more compressors nowadays. (Wampler's excellent Ego Compressor also features this control). Basically, it's a "mix" control so that you blend in and amount of dry signal along with the compressed signal. This is important because in many cases, you want the note sustain and volume limiting qualities of a compressor, but don't want to lose that initial "punch" of the note. The BLEND knob allows you to adjust for both, and there's a toggle switch that further adjusts for the difference in attack between single-coil and humbucker pickups. (Coincidentally, my Reverend guitar features P-90's and I found that those worked better on the humbucker setting, despite them being technically a variant of a single coil pickup). The Compressor Plus is capable of adding tons of rich sustain, similar to that first time I plugged into a BOSS CS-3 and was amazed that an electric guitar could sound like that! It also can do the "chicken picking", "squished" type of compression prevalent in country or other music with quick, clean note passes. Thanks to the interplay between BLEND, LEVEL, and SUSTAIN, it's possible to also make it quite transparent for a more subtle effect. A few notes/caveats... The TONE knob works well, but it is not really meant to be an "EQ shaper" for your overall tone. It is more subtle than that, and basically just enhances or subdues the upper end dynamics through compression. Also, this pedal (as with many compressors) is susceptible to noise issues if you have problems with your power supply. I initially plugged it in with a separate power supply than my pedalboard. I must have been getting some type of ground loop or something because it resulted in terrible noise to the point of being virtually unusable. However, when I attached it to my board and used the same isolated power supply as the other pedals (Voodoo Labs Pedal Power Mini x4), the noise was almost completely gone. Just something to be aware of if you encounter that issue.

Yes, you could pay double the price for a high end boutique compressor pedal, but out of all the big pedal brand's compression offerings out there, I found this one to be the most versatile and transparent. It it based on a modified vintage Ross compressor circuit. I replaced an MXR Dyna-Comp with this. The Dyna-Comp, while it has a long vintage history, is *very* noisy, and squashes and colors your tone with a very specific sound that you can't dial out. The Keeley Compressor Plus lets your natural tone shine through while still providing great dynamics control. You can also dial in that squishy squashed tone if you need to, but with way less noise! The Sustain and Blend controls allow you to dial in as pronounced or subtle an amount of compression you want, while the tone knob allows you to do any EQ compensation if needed. This is definitely the best bang for your buck in a compressor pedal, just buy it, you won't regret it!

SUMMARY An excellent, easy to use full frequency range compressor. It passes the low frequencies that most guitar compressor pedals filter out and it's quite transparent. That makes it suitable for bass, keyboards, or any instrument. The only other Keeley compressor that does that is the PRO at $250-$300. The LED design is troublesome and irritating to me. I repeatedly have thought it was on when it was off during gigs and practices. The value isn't great even at the new discounted $169 price when compared to guitar compressors (including keeley). And now they appear to be trying to sell it at $199. At equal price points, I'd recommend the MXR over the Keeley. But both are excellent, just slightly different. The LED thing is annoying as hell on the Keeley, at least to me. -1 star for the LED design. PROS - full frequency range enables use on bass without loss of low end - simple effective knob controls, and mostly intuitive - Red/Green LED indicates when compression is occurring. - 9V power input is located where it should be...on the rear facing panel - Form factor is the "best" size CONS - Red/Green is ALWAYS ON when plugged into power, including when pedal is disengaged. - Blue LED is quite bright, and it indicates whent the pedal is engaged. It's view is obstructed by the center knob in some positions because of the upside down V shape of the knob placement. - Indication pedal is engaged/disengaged is confusing - Value isn't great. It's overpriced for what it is. And now it appears they are raising it higher. DETAILS Red/Green LED ALWAYS ON - This is distracting, confusing and annoying to me. It's just not intuitive. I look down and think the pedal is engaged when it isn't, it just has power to it. Yet there's that damn green light suggesting it's engaged. It makes the pedal less intuitive. The Blue LED is very bright - almost bright enough to make me want to tape over it as some players I've seen have done. Perhaps it can be modded to add a resistor and reduce the current flow to this LED to dim it. A better design would have been to lose the blue LED altogether, and have the red/green turn on when the pedal is engaged, and change color when the compression is occurring. This would be intuitive. And, not burn power on a board that's plugged in and not being used. Or use the Blue LED to indicated there is power applyied, green for "on" and red for "compressing". Because of the "always on" LED I have to unplug my pedalboard when not in use, or unplug this pedal's power. It's ok, but a little annoying. The value at $200 MSRP is poor, at $169 is still overpriced, and should cost the same as a Keeley Plus guitar compressor which is $129, in my opinion. They priced it to compete with the "defacto standard" MXR Bass Compressor at $200 which is also VERY overpriced for what it is. I bought it at $169, mostly because it was $30 cheapers and I expected it would work well. In my opinion, this is just gouging bass players, who do need the full range of frequencies to pass through (which means they need LESS frequency filtering circuit components, hence should cost manufacturer less to build it.) Overall I reduced 1 star for the value and the LED design. But I like the product, I bought it and I'll probably keep it. Someone needs to bring out a cost effective full frequency range compressor for bass (and other non-guitar instruments). COMPETITIVE COMPARISON First, if you think you're just going to use your guitar compressor pedal with your bass, think again. It's going to chop the low frequencies off and you don't want that when playing bass. The only guitar compressor I thought came close was a Truetone Route 66 pedal that has a bass boost switch, that brought some of that low end back (and the overdrive sounded great too). But even that paled when put side by side with the bass compressors which just had more low end girth. The MXR bass compressor is the top competitor. I bought one on sale for $174, mostly because the LED's of the Keeley were really annoying me. The MXR does a much better job of indicating it is engaged, as well as showing how much compression is occurring. The LEDs are more visible and the knobs don’t get in the way of that because their layout leaves room around the LED's for good line of sight in any position. I really prefer the MXR on those points. But I found its control settings less intuitive in part because it has two controls (attack/release) and a 4-choice compression ratio plus input and output levels. I had to go read the manual to really understand how to set it initially. By comparison, the Keeley has a sweepable compression ratio knob (vs 4 fixed options), then a threshold and a level. I dialed up an acceptable sound rapidly and intuitively on the Keeley but struggled to find it on the MXR until I read the manual. After a few sessions of comparison, I decided I liked the sound of the Keeley slightly better, as the MXR has a little bit softer, duller sort of compression sound. Even with the attack turned to full, I felt like the attack lost it's "cut". I also liked a compression ratio that falls in between the preset options offered on the MXR. (about 6:1, vs 4:1 or 8:1) I was truly torn on which compressor to keep. I hate the LEDs on the Keeley and I keep thinking it is on and engaged when it’s not despite being fully aware of that issue. It even happened to me in practice on the same day I initially wrote this review...when it's functionality was most fresh in my mind. But it sounds good and it is intuitive to set. The MXR is also very good, but I wish the compression ratio was continuously adjustable vs 4 set points, and the soft edge on the compression was just a little less preferable for my use. In the end, I returned the MXR even though I really wanted to keep it as nearly everything else on my bass board is MXR. I had to acknowlege my cost was sunk on the Keeley (meaning I'd have had to sell it used at some level of loss) but I could still return the MXR for a refund. Plus the MXR even on sale was $5 more, but most importantly, I preferred the overall sound of the Keeley and the ease of dialing it in. At the same price point, I'd still recommend the MXR. In my instance, I kept the Keeley, but I might regret that down the road. If I didn't already own the Keeley, I probably would have kept the MXR and adjusted for a bit more brightness at my preamp. They are both really nice bass compressors. But man I wish the Keeley didn't have the weird LED design. It drives me nuts.

Works quite well. Broad range of adjustability. In particular mixing wet and dry signal.

Keeley quality and reputation are great.

As good as you’ve heard. I was a skeptic. Already had a much loved comp/limiter. For guitar, this is the one.

Love it.

E' uno dei migliori compressori a pedale che si possono trovare in giro, E' silenziosissimo a prescindere dal livello impostato e se non viene spinto eccessivamente è di una trasparenza esemplare. (rispetta molto il suono dello strumento), sembra veramente un compressore a rack ficcato dentro ad un pedale. Le regolazioni però permettono di passare da una compressione blanda, fino alla limitazione vera e propria e fino allo squish (se si alza molto il livello di compressione e si abbassa quello della sogli di livello a cui il pedale interviene. Pedali praticamente boutique come il compressore di Nemphasis sono forse ancora più trasparenti, (la tecnologia ottica sembra sempre leggermente più trasparente del VCA), ma a scapito delle estreme possibilità di intervento che questo pedale permette. Consigliatissimo.

Excellent quality. The ability to switch between single coil and humbuckers is especially useful.

Ce compressor c'est l'outil en tête de liste que tout bassiste a besoin. Il est simple efficace. Parfait mes 4,5 et 6 cordes. Just woww

Tolles Effektgerät. Klingt genauso wie ich es wollte. Ich habe jetzt nicht alle handelsverfügbaren Compressor-Pedale miteinander verglichen, aber ich bin zufrieden. Macht sich gut auf dem Pedal-Board.