Keeley Electronics Compressor Plus
The Keeley Electronics Compressor Plus is a compressor with an expander/sustainer.
Not only does it act as a regular compressor, limiting the peaks in your playing, it adds more and more gain as notes fade out. Now you have sustain.
Nothing worse than a note or a bend that has died before its time. The Keeley Compressor Plus adds just the right amount of sustain and expressive bloom to your notes.
The Keeley Compressor is the most popular boutique compressor in the world.
With well over 80,000 compressors built in our shop, we have an expert understanding of compression, limiting, and sustain.
We know what it takes to make an instrument sound like it’s been professionally recorded and how to make your guitar jump from the mix.
We know how to make it fun and easy to play because Keeley Compression is how.
The Keeley Compressor Plus was Reverb.com’s Best Overall Selling Pedal of 2021. Just for context, that’s not a category win but best seller across all pedal types! That tells you something about how widely it’s trusted and how consistently it delivers
The Compressor Plus – advanced design
The Keeley Electronics Compressor Plus is the first true advancement in our 2 and 4 knob compressor line.
The new features are simple and straightforward.
Now there is a simple Release Switch that is tuned for single coils or humbuckers.
No more wondering if you have the attack or release set right. Your humbuckers will have all the attack and punch that they should. Our team designed a gorgeous sounding Tone Control that emphasizes the most sensitive harmonics that can be lost in compression.
Design
The new Keeley Compressor Plus is the result of us specializing in compressors for over 15 years.
Chief Engineer and founder Robert Keeley said, “Compression was the first effect I found that was hard to make sound good off the shelf, so I set out to create the best sounding compression effect possible.”
We have it down to a science but still treat it like art.
Since it is at the core of what we do, we can offer it for an incredible price now. The Keeley Compressor Plus is completely made in the United States.
We didn’t just start making compressors to look good alongside co-branded coffee mugs and shirts and hats.
We’ve worked with and listened to the pros who have had the original compressor on their boards for 10 to 15 years and found out what it would take to keep it on their boards for another 10, 20, or 30 years…. Add the Compressor Plus to your rig, and you and your guitar will be singing for days
In Use
This compressor isn’t just for heavy funk or chicken pickin’ anymore. The new Compressor Plus is for players wanting a smooth, subtle wash from their guitar.
Remove just the right amount of peaks for an ambient layer and then blend in the right amount of treble for a nice shimmer to your guitar. Use with your favorite fuzz to create a wall of tone like you’ve only heard on records.
Looping has never been easier than with this compressor. Consider it an essential tool when creating loops that sound well-balanced. Forget it all and use the Compressor Plus for the best amp boost you’ve heard. Nothing pushes an amp better than the Keeley Compressor Plus.
Controls:
- Sustain
- Tone
- Blend
- Attack / Release
- Level
Sustain
Adjusts compression ratio and increases sustain. Note: higher sustain settings will create noise when not playing.
Tone
The Tone Control is our own design taken from analog delays and other vintage effects.
Those effects used an emphasis circuit to recover treble and highs after they went through the BBD or other analog delay lines.
We took that circuit and made it into a fully fledged tone control! We have found that it is the perfect way to gently add back in those highs lost in the compression process.
Blend
Adjusts the mix of compressed and uncompressed signals. Full left for clean, full right for full compression.
The Compressor Plus now sports a Blend Control that retains the peaks in your playing and, more importantly, the proper phasing of your guitar signal.
The Keeley Compressor Plus offers the same gorgeous push of frequencies and sweetening of tone that the old comps gave you, now with the flexibility to easily handle any instrument.
The Blend Control is a way of getting the peaks to come through while having sustain at the same time. So if you want sustain more than peak-limiting, this style of Manhattan Compression is for you!
Keep all the peaks and transients with the Blend and Tone Controls while adding sustain on the back end. Heaven!
Attack / release
Adjusts the attack and release for single coils or humbuckers.
The new Release Switch on the Keeley Compressor Plus is designed to make it very easy to transition between single-coil and humbucker guitars.
Humbuckers have more average energy than single coils which can cause compressors to stay in “compression mode” for a lot longer. When this happens, any series of notes you play will sound dull.
With the quick release of the new Compressor Plus, your humbuckers remain true sounding, and each note retains dynamic attack and definition.
Level
Adjusts for gain lost to compression or blend. Set to unity or turn it up for a boost.
Adjusts the brightness of output. Turn right for a brighter tone.
Footswitch
Turns the effect on or off.
Watch The Compressor Plus In Action
Key Features
- Sustain, Tone, Blend, Level controls plus Attack/Release switch
- Blend control for parallel compression — retains pick attack alongside sustain
- Tone control derived from vintage BBD emphasis circuit — recovers highs lost in compression
- Attack/Release switch voiced for single coils or humbuckers
- True Bypass
- 100% analogue
- 9V DC centre-negative, 10mA — extremely light current drawBattery operation supported
- Made in the USA
FAQs
Sustain sets the compression ratio, so turn it up and the compressor works harder. Blend mixes your dry signal alongside the compressed signal.
It sets the release time of the compressor. This is importatant because humbuckers have more average energy than single coils. This can cause a compressor to stay in compression mode for longer than it should and makes the sound dull and undefined. So it aligns the pedal to the pickup type.
It’s not a standard tone control. It is based on those in vintage BBD analogue delay lines . It gently adds back highs that compression tends to soften. Turn it up for shimmer and clarity, leave it for a warmer, smoother sound.
Yes.
Yes. Just turn the Blend off to remove the compression, and use the Level control to push the signal.
9V DC centre-negative at only 10mA. It can also runs on a 9V battery.
Yes. The Blend control and the humbucker/single coil switch make it very flexible.
No more than any other! The manual notes that higher Sustain settings will create noise when not playing. This isn’t a design fault, just an inherent feature of high gain compression.
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