OMG! NEW Diamond Compressor EQ

[Texicaster]

Hoe-Lee COW!

Man I thought the original Diamond Compressor was great (and it was/is!) But the fellas up in Canada out did themselves when they re-launched the brand!

Even more silent and dynamic in a smaller package with EQ! I mean even cranked towards the max and there is no noise! Silent! As you may know most compressors are way noisy but not this one! Amazing how all the big pedal makers have utterly failed in comparison! There's not even a distant second IMO. I owned older MIJ Boss, Wampler and Keeley and those are utter jokes compared! Many hate comprerssor pedals due to the limotaions and noise. Well....try a new Diamond!

One of the rare pedals you step on that switch and are immediately knocked out!

The gold standard got a LOT better!

Comp/EQ

There are few compressors that are more sought after than our yellow box Diamond. This next-gen compressor maintains the classic circuit architecture while increasing range and functionality. The new EQ section allows you to sculpt your tone in the same box that squashes it (that’s a good...

www.diamondpedals.com

 

[ZackyDog]

Congrats. I've read good/great things about that compressor.

 

[sammy1974]

Happy Canada Day, Texi
Congrats!

 

[black_doug]

I want one.

 

[Vibroluxer]

Up until 15 minutes ago, I had one of each. I listed both on Reverb and the older until just sold. I'll be keeping the newer unit but would have been happy with either. Both are superior units.

 

[mandoloony]

I love my original Diamond comp, and I love the mids control on my Diamond EQ. This combination of the two looks great, except that they removed the battery option so I would never consider buying it.

Most compressors are not way noisy, though - that's almost always user error.

 

[Texicaster]

I love my original Diamond comp, and I love the mids control on my Diamond EQ. This combination of the two looks great, except that they removed the battery option so I would never consider buying it.

Most compressors are not way noisy, though - that's almost always user error.

I had an original and I recall when the battery dies, the pedal dies; stops working till new battery installed! THAT s***ed! I'd hate to be at a gig and have to be unscrewing the box to install a battery..... When that happened to me I thought the pedal was fried.

Perhaps I don't know how to use a compressor. I just know the Boss was ridiculously noisy just plugged in as was the Wampler. Keeley better but once you start adding compression it makes noise. Not sure what I was doing wrong but didn't like any of those and none of those are in the same league as the Diamond!

 

[Vibroluxer]

I had an original and I recall when the battery dies, the pedal dies; stops working till new battery installed! THAT s***ed! I'd hate to be at a gig and have to be unscrewing the box to install a battery..... When that happened to me I thought the pedal was fried.

I can confirm that the original unit requires a battery wether the AC adapter is used or not.

 

[mandoloony]

The original does not require a battery when the AC adapter is hooked up. I've had several and none of them were defective in that way.

 

[Vibroluxer]

I can confirm that the original unit requires a battery wether the AC adapter is used or not.

I just tested one a couple of hours ago and it needed the battery to fire up, which makes no sense. Do you know the mA required for the adapter? That's the only thing I can think of, it needs a heep-o-mA.

 

[Texicaster]

The original does not require a battery when the AC adapter is hooked up. I've had several and none of them were defective in that way.

I had one and it died.....bricked...Then I opened to see what's up and saw a battery I replaced the battery and it was fine for the rest of the time I had it. Battery was dead upon checking.

Perhaps the power supply is a factor. I use a Voodoo Labs which powers all my fx just fine though....Even Strymons....

 

[Texicaster]

I gave the Diamond a good go round last night playing along with some 1974 Grateful Dead (Grateful Dead Road Trips Vol. 2 No. 3—Wall of Sound, 6/16/74 at the State Fairgrounds in Des Moines and 6/18/74 at Freedom Hall in Louisville)

I was able to get tones closer to Keith's Fender Rhodes it sounded like he was playing. Big fat round notes with nice bell like tones! Super fun!

I gotta say I like it MUCH better than the original as great as that is! Best pedal I've ever owned! I may buy a second just incase they roll up the business again.

 

[PomPomPudding]

Boss was ridiculously noisy

User error.

 

[Texicaster]

User error.

Well yes and no. There are somethings you can do to lower noise on circuits that are inherently noisy such as those I mentioned above. The point is I was able to swap out the Diamond into the same spot I had a Keeley and it was basically silent whereas the Keeley was noisy. Exact same rig and environment. Perhaps I could have accomplished some gymnastics to lower the noise on the Keeley but the easiest thing to do was replace it with the Diamond!

I went from a ridiculously noisy Boss to a less but still annoying Wampler to a better but still noisy Keeley to a SILENT Diamond in exact same environments, same amp, pedal board, guitar, cables, etc....

It's not user error. It's a matter of how much you want to go through to lower noise. Again, the Diamond requires NO changes in my rig and has been silent no matter where in the pedal chain or what pedals used.....

For those who are interested in how compressors work I suggest a great website www.ovnilab.com from which I include the discussion on compressor noise.

From Ovnilab.com


Is it true that compressors are noisy? Can the noise be avoided?

All compressors, even the really expensive ones, have the potential to add noise. Most of them will add a bit of noise in normal applications. The reason is that compression reduces the peaks of your signal, which also brings down the average signal level. Our brains focus on the average levels, not the peaks, so reducing the peaks makes the whole signal seem quieter. To make up for that, nearly every compressor has a boost stage at the end, called "make up gain" (sometimes just labeled "level"). This gain stage boosts the level of the entire signal, including any noise that may have been in the signal path already from your pickups, preamp, pedals, room wiring, or a variety of other sources. You may not have noticed the noise before, but it was there- and the gain stage on the compressor just turned up the volume on it.

Additionally, any active signal processor may create a bit of its own noise, depending on how well it was designed and the quality of the parts used. So with compressors you get a combination of those two noise sources: noise that was already there in the signal, now amplified; and noise created by the actual circuit design and components of the compressor. That second noise source is where you can see improvement between a crummy cheap compressor and one of better quality. That's one factor in my reviews when I say a compressor has "low noise" or "more noise than I'd like". Good comps and bad ones will both amplify existing noise, but good ones are well-designed and made using high-quality components, and ideally should not add much noise of their own.

Now, to complicate matters a bit, there are many different types of compression circuit, and some types may be inherently more prone to amplifying noise. But it's hard to predict the results when shopping for a specific type of processor, as again it will vary depending on the way that particular model was built. Sometimes a comp may be designed to boost the high frequencies, which will result in more noise heard. Sometimes a pedal circuit will be sensitive to grounding issues anywhere else in the instrument-pedal-amp chain, resulting in hiss that's hard to solve. Some comps are designed with such low thresholds and high ratios that they can't help but boost noise a lot under normal use, even if the circuit itself is supposedly not noisy.

Another issue that I've run into many times is that some designs are very prone to picking up ambient electro-magnetic noise in the room. Tube compressors in particular give me endless problems this way. You may have a compressor that I say is "too noisy", but you don't hear any noise at all, and it's partly because you're in a different room, a different building and neighborhood, with different electro-magnetic fields.

Most often though, noise from any kind of signal processor is caused by ground loops or other grounding (earthing) problems. There is no universal standard for the way circuits/devices are designed in terms of grounding, which means that some devices which work great on their own, or with certain other gear, will work terribly in connection to gear which was just designed a bit differently. The ground/common of any one device is connected to grounds of all the other devices in the rig via several possible routes: the shield of the patch cords, the negative wire of non-isolated power lines, or metal rack rails for example.

Is there any way to combat the noise? Well, you can turn down the highs on your rig. You can eliminate other noise sources in your signal chain, such as overdrive pedals or any sort of extra amplification/gain/EQ/boost stages. You can put any noisy items after the compressor instead of in front of it. You can check for ground loops in your rig- they can be hard to track down, but ground loops are a major source of noise that most people do not even realize is going on in their system. Here is a very good article on that subject: (link removed).

As a last resort, you can use a noise suppressor or a noise gate- but honestly I would strongly recommend doing what you can to reduce the sources of noise before adding any gear that will alter your signal even more. See this article for more about noise gates. Many people consider buying a rackmount compressor because certain models contain a noise gate as a feature, but this is a bad idea--the gate is a very poor solution to most noise problems.

Did somebody tell you that a compressor would help reduce noise in your rig? They were wrong! "