While conscious dynamics are an important part of music, accidental ones such as uneven picking can make you sound less than stellar.
I have spent most of my life playing solid state amps, with the exception of a few great times where I played a nice Marshall or a Fender tube amp. In my experience,most solid state amps don’t accurately represent the envelope of the note you’re playing. There is this “runaway” feel, even on clean settings, that makes you lose confidence in your ability to control their playing, resulting in sometimes overly weak picking.
A good compressor can actually shape the envelope of sound. Every sound has what we call it’s envelope, or in synthesizer terminology, its ADSR ( attack decay sustain release).
Attack is how fast a sound comes in. Guitars, drums, anything percussive has a quick attack. Violins or woodwind instruments come in more slowly, so they have a slower attack.
Decay is how much time an instrument takes to go from it’s initial attack to the main body of the sound. Sustain is how life by the main body lasts, and release is how long the sound fades out.
One should use a compressor to mimic the ideal envelope or ADSR of the sound, but there are exceptions. Some styles of playing require a more flat (squashed) envelope to even out all the notes, while others demand an audibly obvious entry and exit of the compressor (pumping).
I personally like a very subtle compression that clamps down certain frequencies and levels and gives a smooth feeling to the song. For this I use a Boss CS3 compressor. It’s not really obvious, but if you A / B on and off the difference is there.
I run everything thru this compressor, even drum loops. It’s not expensive and it can really help to make your sound more complete.
I used to be against compressors, but they’ve added a lot of value to my pedal board.
And that’s that.
randy lin guitar 