Compressor for guitars

Many guitarists still swear by the good old valve amplifier. It is fact that valve amplifiers produce a sound different frorn that of a solid-state amplifier. This is caused mainJy by the fact that in valve amplifers the transition from the linear to the non-linear part of the operating range is more gradual than in solid-state ampliflers, in which the transition is sudden. In other words, invalve amplifiers, the distortion increases with increased drive levels and may thus be seen as a sort of dynamic compression. This phenomenon does not occur in solid-state devices, where the transition is quite sudden: the resulting sound is unpleasant.