JHS Whitey Tighty or Wampler Ego Mini

Wampler.
JHS? Never.

 

Curious about JHS no-go.

 

Oh, joy. Thread #134, 879 in our continuing series of moral outrage at JHS. Is he any closer to going out of business? Of course not. Why do you so-called haters continue to give him FREE publicity? Kill me now.
Dear OP: please just Google this. Spare the rest of us. We will praise your name.

 

I don't have any experience with these two but I'd want to try them both. You mention zero about your use case which is really important. Clean country or Funk? Using it as a compressor+ boost? Using with dirt?

The JHS is listed as a FET. It looks like some reviews say it's pretty quiet.

The Wampler is apparently yet another Dynacomp type circuit. Ovnilab's says it's quiet for that type.

Haven't played either, but I have a Keeley Compressor+ and quiet is not a term I'd use to describe it and it shares origins with the Wampler, so that'd put me off the Wampler and I'd want to try the JHS I guess.

You could also look at the Xotic mini compressor. I tried one and was not real impressed as it's small but it's controls are buried inside, etc.. and it didn't do much for me when I tried it. But IIRC it was quiet which was a plus.

Noise is really important only if:
- You use single coils
- You play through gain channel on the amp or have dirt after the compressor

Right now I have the Keeley and an Orange Kongpressor. The Kongpressor is optical, it is unbelievably better if playing with gain. Personally even if it's mini I don't want it to make/amplify noise. But the Keeley is not Mini and the Kongpressor is even bigger. I am going to keep the Kongpressor though, because you can pretty easily set it up to get your funk/country sound on the clean channel of the amp and then switch over to a dirt channel and it does amazing things there without even having to adjust the pedal. The Keeley could do that too.. but it's too noisy, it makes as much noise as something like a Big Muff if it's fed into a gain channel.

 

Wampler designs circuits. JHS steals them and claims to have actually done the R&D.

Ignore List. Add me to it.

 

Okay, I'm late to the JHS hate party, honestly didn't know. I thought everyone is riffing off of one another on pedal designs/variations, but there you go.

Long Live BOSS!!!! King of the castle, I say. Speaking of which, I have a Boss CS-2 and the new CP-1X. They are not mini pedals of course, but the latter is very nice if you are ever willing to budge on the mini format. I prefer ever so slightly it to the much adored CS-2 because it retains more highs and is smoother, quieter. The CS-2 gives you more of that squash if that's what you are looking for.

 

I have a Wampler Mini Ego, had the big version too, both are great , no experience with the JHS, their pedals seem overpriced to me, but I generally buy used anyway.
I tried the Keeley and the Xotic, went back to the Ego compressor, it just works better for my needs, and it's pretty quiet.

 

Xotic SP

 

Wampler himself would not say this. He's got at least as colorful a background as JHS and he makes no secret of having started everything by copying & doing DIY clones. He constantly talks about his lack of training & trial by error process on his podcast.

The Ego is a tweaked Ross Style compressor.

I hear everyone on the complaints that both these companies seem to be a bit expensive.. the pedals are high quality but they are mass-manufactured pedals no different than EHX or Boss. Not sure what JHS is doing but Wampler pedals the manufacturing is outsourced, he doesn't hide that.

 

Brian Wampler knows the ins and outs of those circuits and has written the book on most of the modern day mods - along with Keeley. Josh - literally - stole circuits and claimed them as his own. Don't even bother comparing the two of them. Josh wouldn't know how to design a paper bag.

That said, they are both too expensive for my blood.

 

I love my full size Ego. On my church board I tried to save space by using a mini-Ego. The mini pedal is also great. My only frustration is that you can only have the tone switch in two positions. Darker or brighter. With the knob on the full size Ego, I normally set the pedal somewhere in between.

But the Wampler mini Ego is an absolutely great sounding pedal.

I personally absolutely love JHS pedals. I have several of them - I think the Morning Glory is one of the pedal overdrive pedals the world has ever seen. It is very different than any other Bluebresker derivative I own. So I would have high expectations for the JHS compressor to also be excellent, but I haven’t tried one myself.