When did Compression become such a big part of the country guitar sound?

[Jazzcaster21]

Whenever I listen to country music from the 70s-80s I hear the compression on most ALL of the guitar fills and solos. So I am curious, what led to this development?

I am not against compression. I love my Keeley compressor and have it on most of the time when I am playing. However I keep my settings pretty low so you can't hear the squelch like you can of the "typical Nashville country guitar sound" of the above mentioned era.

 

[JustABluesGuy]

My guess is the confluence of chickin’ pickin’ combined with Nashville’s period of totally “overproducing” recordings?

 

[Thoughtfree]

I googled that the MXR Dyna Comp pedal was introduced in 1972, so maybe that's the answer. I bought one around '77 or so, and I thought it was the greatest thing I ever heard. A lotta guys I knew had them.

I used the Dyna Comp all I could, as much as I could... to the point that I wanted it inside my Fender Stratocaster. I blocked the trem, drilled holes in its pickguard for two control knobs and a switch, took out the Dyna Comp's circuit board and laid it into the tremelo cavity, and attempted to wire it up. Since my soldering skills equaled those of a chimpanzee, I was unsuccessful... now I had a busted pedal and a '73 Strat with holes in the pickguard. (I realize that this narrative is OT.)

 

[twangjeff]

It is all about the ability to cut through the mix with a clean sound. Compression is sort of a necessary evil. Don Rich didn't need compression to cut through the mix, because he had a Dual Showman with a 2x15 cab. Once it became an option to use a pedal compressor though, you could cut through with a lot less volume, and so the mainstay country amps went from Dual Showmans and Twin Reverbs to Deluxe Reverbs and Vibroluxes.

Then in the 90s, pedal compressors got a little bit better (Boss CS-2) and you could use them without lopping off all of your high end (Cough Dyna Comp Cough), and they became even more prevalent.

Now, you can walk into just about any guitar store and buy a better quality guitar compressor pedal than existed anywhere in the world a decade or so ago (Xotic, Wampler, Cali76, Diamond, the list goes on...). So with a huge amount of incredibly good pedals for not much money, it's kind of a no-brainer to have one on the board.

That's my perception anyway, the better the pedal gets the less of a reason not to use one.

 

[loopfinding]

It is all about the ability to cut through the mix with a clean sound. Compression is sort of a necessary evil. Don Rich didn't need compression to cut through the mix, because he had a Dual Showman with a 2x15 cab. Once it became an option to use a pedal compressor though, you could cut through with a lot less volume, and so the mainstay country amps went from Dual Showmans and Twin Reverbs to Deluxe Reverbs and Vibroluxes.

Then in the 90s, pedal compressors got a little bit better (Boss CS-2) and you could use them without lopping off all of your high end (Cough Dyna Comp Cough), and they became even more prevalent.

Now, you can walk into just about any guitar store and buy a better quality guitar compressor pedal than existed anywhere in the world a decade or so ago (Xotic, Wampler, Cali76, Diamond, the list goes on...). So with a huge amount of incredibly good pedals for not much money, it's kind of a no-brainer to have one on the board.

That's my perception anyway, the better the pedal gets the less of a reason not to use one.

i'm not really sure that's the case. killing the attack transients and rolling highs off/smearing them (as a cheapo extreme comp would do) on something in a mix generally makes it harder for it to poke out. i think it was just a combination of style and also making runs more even as the guitar playing got flashier.

it's peculiar to guitar land that comps had to get "better" - we had fantastic fet, opto and vca comps in the 60s/70s that were totally doable in guitar pedal form in the late 70s and early 80s. they didn't really get better, there was just not a lot of demand for the sound yet, and so not a lot of options. funny you mention the cali 76, because that's basically a streamlined 1176, which came out in 1967.

 

[Edgar Allan Presley]

In the '70s, wasn't Ray Flacke using Lab Series amps that had a built-in compressor circuit? That could be were it started?

It is all about the ability to cut through the mix with a clean sound. Compression is sort of a necessary evil. Don Rich didn't need compression to cut through the mix, because he had a Dual Showman with a 2x15 cab. Once it became an option to use a pedal compressor though, you could cut through with a lot less volume, and so the mainstay country amps went from Dual Showmans and Twin Reverbs to Deluxe Reverbs and Vibroluxes.

Then in the 90s, pedal compressors got a little bit better (Boss CS-2) and you could use them without lopping off all of your high end (Cough Dyna Comp Cough), and they became even more prevalent.

Now, you can walk into just about any guitar store and buy a better quality guitar compressor pedal than existed anywhere in the world a decade or so ago (Xotic, Wampler, Cali76, Diamond, the list goes on...). So with a huge amount of incredibly good pedals for not much money, it's kind of a no-brainer to have one on the board.

That's my perception anyway, the better the pedal gets the less of a reason not to use one.

No, the compressor in country guitar isn't about standing out--it's for sustain and evening out lines that have notes both open and fretted, finger-picked and flat-picked. In rock guitar, amp and pedal distortion provided the compression. But in country guitar of the '70s and '80s, they needed some of the artifacts of tube distortion--sustain, fatness, and sag--without all the clipping. That's why compressor pedals took off in country guitar.

I start to hear the popping of compressors with Albert Lee and Ray Flacke in the mid-70s.

 

[VonBonfire]

About the same time people began thinking only a telecaster was acceptable for a country music electric guitar.

 

[twangjeff]

i'm not really sure that's the case. killing the attack transients and rolling highs off/smearing them (as a cheapo extreme comp would do) on something in a mix generally makes it harder for it to poke out. i think it was just a combination of style and also making runs more even as the guitar playing got flashier.

it's peculiar to guitar land that comps had to get "better" - we had fantastic fet, opto and vca comps in the 60s/70s that were totally doable in guitar pedal form in the late 70s and early 80s. they didn't really get better, there was just not a lot of demand for the sound yet, and so not a lot of options. funny you mention the cali 76, because that's basically a streamlined 1176, which came out in 1967.

A couple points here... When I said, "Cutting through," perhaps I should have phrased that with more precision... what I meant in context of country guitar players was the ability for single note melodic lines to cut through. If you are playing with a loud band and a clean amp and have no compression in a country context your tone will get buried. The old remedy was to fix this with volume, which is why people talk about the icepick tele bridge pickup. As the volume gets louder, the perceived effect gets more and more dramatic. People talk a lot about sustain, but the reality is... with the chicken pickin sound sustain isn't really a consideration. Brent Mason isn't BB King and vice versa.

When the original dyna comps and Ross compressors came out, they were noisy, they took off all of the treble, and as you can imagine, with only two knobs to tweak... they essentially just squashed everything. That's not to say that good compressors didn't exist in the 60s, just that they weren't available to guitar players in pedal format. When the CS 2 came out, that was a game changer, because it addressed so many of the obvious drawbacks on the earlier circuits. Now with the boom of boutique builders, there are infinite options, from modified Ross/Dyna Comp (Keeley, Xotic, Analogman), to opto (Demeter, Diamond), to studio style (Empress, Cali 76, etc).

I feel like with the context that we are discussing, a lot of that was fairly obvious, but I'm glad to lawyer with you if that's what you're into. Lol.

 

[codamedia]

There have always been varying degrees of compression on ALL recordings (not just country) applied at the studio... but I think country has 2 key turning points for compression use on guitar.

1: Reggie Young and his trusty Dyna Comp... many if not most country hits of the 70's.
2: Albert Lee's guitar track on Dave Edmunds "Sweet Little Lisa" which was released in 1979. It's not known as a country song, but it is a very influential track in the country industry.

Albert recorded that track without compression, but during mixdown judicious amounts of studio compression was added and the guitar was cranked really hot in the mix. During that same time, Albert was becoming quite well known in the US country scene playing for Emmylou Harris and that tone became a holy grail for many players and producers. I don't think it's a coincidence that almost every country lead track from that point on has been heavily compressed.

First Solo: 2:00
Second Solo(s): 3:00
Guitar fills run throughout....

In the '70s, wasn't Ray Flacke using Lab Series amps that had a built-in compressor circuit? That could be were it started?

That was with Ricky Skaggs in the early 80's... and yes, he was influential in establishing the foothold of compression on country guitar.

 

[fenderchamp]

: Albert Lee's guitar track on Dave Edmunds "Sweet Little Lisa" which was released in 1979. It's not known as a country song, but it is a very influential track in the country industry.

that certainly is a whole dang lot of lead guitar!!

 

[DanglingNutslots]

There have always been varying degrees of compression on ALL recordings (not just country) applied at the studio... but I think country has 2 key turning points for compression use on guitar.

1: Reggie Young and his trusty Dyna Comp... many if not most country hits of the 70's.
2: Albert Lee's guitar track on Dave Edmunds "Sweet Little Lisa" which was released in 1979. It's not known as a country song, but it is a very influential track in the country industry.

Albert recorded that track without compression, but during mixdown judicious amounts of studio compression was added and the guitar was cranked really hot in the mix. During that same time, Albert was becoming quite well known in the US country scene playing for Emmylou Harris and that tone became a holy grail for many players and producers. I don't think it's a coincidence that almost every country lead track from that point on has been heavily compressed.

First Solo: 2:00
Second Solo(s): 3:00
Guitar fills run throughout....





That was with Ricky Skaggs in the early 80's... and yes, he was influential in establishing the foothold of compression on country guitar.

Can someone re-amp that lead playing through a Diezel VH4?

 

[Cosmic Cowboy]

That question is the same as...why does most R&B use guitar compression? Or, why does rockabilly use reverb? Its a sound that is cool and everyone wants to make their music sound like the 'cool' stuff of the day.

I do it too. When I am playing clean, I want some sustain and compression, so I too, use a compressor. If I am trying to play a 'clean solo'...I can either..step on a tube screamer or use a compressed boost to allow some cut and some sustain...or both.

 

[Jazzcaster21]

In the '70s, wasn't Ray Flacke using Lab Series amps that had a built-in compressor circuit? That could be were it started?


No, the compressor in country guitar isn't about standing out--it's for sustain and evening out lines that have notes both open and fretted, finger-picked and flat-picked. In rock guitar, amp and pedal distortion provided the compression. But in country guitar of the '70s and '80s, they needed some of the artifacts of tube distortion--sustain, fatness, and sag--without all the clipping. That's why compressor pedals took off in country guitar.

I start to hear the popping of compressors with Albert Lee and Ray Flacke in the mid-70s.

how about this?

 

[codamedia]

how about this?

Great clip... this is certainly what got the American artists interested in this picker from England.

It's a strange yet unique distinction ... Once you recognize the differences of compression it's easy to pick it out on recordings.

1: Play naturally apply compression later (Roy Nichols, Don Rich, James Burton, Albert Lee, etc...)
2: Compression as part of the core guitar tone (Reggie Young, Ray Flacke, Vince Gill, Steve Wariner, Brent Mason, etc..)

Nashville and the country sound is a combination of both, at any given time.
What I'm trying to say is... the guitar player doesn't always play with a compressed tone... often that's done later.

 

[brookdalebill]

I detest it.
Though it’s use on guitar tracks is indeed obvious, aren’t the overall recordings themselves extremely compressed?
I have, uh, greatly disliked compression on guitar since I first became aware of it, in the late 70s.

 

[Edgar Allan Presley]

I detest it.
Though it’s use on guitar tracks is indeed obvious, aren’t the overall recordings themselves extremely compressed?
I have, uh, greatly disliked compression on guitar since I first became aware of it, in the late 70s.

What guitarists do you like, then? I feel like pretty much every recording of guitar has compression.

 

[schmee]

I bailed on compression for live shows many years ago. Why? I got a wireless rig and went to the back of the bar to listen. It was totally different than standing in front of your amp on stage. It was all squishy and mushy sounding out there. No detail, no 'cut', no edge.
It's a nice sound recording where the nuance is still there.
It's better with bridge pickup work, worse with neck pickup work.

 

[brookdalebill]

Thanks for asking.
I like Robben Ford (latest fave) Chris Buck (great soloist), Lenny Breau (favorite jazz guy), Eric Johnson (all time fave), Dickey Betts (who I think I sound most like, hopefully), Billy Gibbons (favorite blues rocker), yada yada.
Their “compression” sounds like natural overdrive/distortion, not a pedal.
My dislike is the sound of clean pedal compression.
I like transients, and natural dynamics.
That squished tone really annoys me.

 

[bluescaster72]

My favorite guitarists were ones like Don Rich and Roy Nichols who didn't use that . I've tried to find a use for it but I haven't really found a sound I like with it . I play a lot of traditional country from the 70s and early 80 and While I hear it I don't care for that sound. One thing Roy Nichols did to be hear and give his solos a bit was to use a MXR distortion pedal set low . I've been playing with that as well to give me that volume boost and a hint of bite and it tends to smooth out the clean frequency a bit .

 

[ndcaster]

Whenever I listen to country music from the 70s-80s I hear the compression on most ALL of the guitar fills and solos. So I am curious, what led to this development?

I am not against compression. I love my Keeley compressor and have it on most of the time when I am playing. However I keep my settings pretty low so you can't hear the squelch like you can of the "typical Nashville country guitar sound" of the above mentioned era.

the need for lower stage volume