“The MXR Dyna Comp compressor (or any compressor for that matter) can be a misunderstood and underestimated effect. Think of compression like this — an overdrive does for your dirty sound what a compressor will do for your clean sound (harmonic boost/more clarity).”
“Not surprisingly the first genre of musicians to catch on to the value of compression were Nashville greats like Reggie Young and Jerry Reed who have used the Dyna Comp and Telecaster combination on many trend setting albums.”
“It is reported that Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour heard the amazing tone coming from Nashville players and in 1976 incorporated a Dyna Comp into his setup.”
The key to getting those big tones from the Dyna Comp is the sensitivity control. This takes all of the less dynamic sounds such as:
- low output strings
- or the ‘pop’ of your pick and raises them to the same level as everything else.
“The Dyna Comp does this with incredible clarity and infinite sustain. If you place the sensitivity level around two o’clock your big country style bends all of a sudden make sense and the notes simply hang in the air as long as your fingers are on the strings. When you combine this pedal with overdrive, chorus or delay the results can be truly inspiring.”
“These late 70s Dyna Comps have the eight-pin LM3080N. They sound a little different than the Script ones but they are also a bit less ‘hissy’. I recently sold a ’75 Script DC w/metal can op-amp and I really didn’t hear a big difference between the two. The main difference i noticed is that the Script was a bit less ‘squishy’ at lower sustain levels. I’m not sure how everyone uses these but I turn the Output up 100 percent and the sustain only to one. This way it acts as a limiter that also boosts my signal. With that setting, it still compresses but never sounds too squishy. Also, there’s still room for dynamics when playing finger-style.”
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