The Hypergravity looks like it has a lot of flexibility like a studio compressor. How much tweaking do you do with it? I would probably just use it with the default settings out of the box because I imagine in a band situation the subtleties would be lost in the bass guitar, cymbal and snare drum noise anyway.
Eric
Though I love Blues (and this forum), my first love has always been Fusion Jazz and its derivatives.
I like modal stuff and intricate phrasings (think: Greg Howe, Steve Vai, Frank Gambale, etc.).
I like to play with a fair amount of distortion and I rely heavily on hammer-ons and pull-offs, especially with quick legato runs and phrasings.
(And yes, a great deal of that translates to Blues, but that's another topic)
Before I used a compressor, I relied on distortion pedals to create the sustain I needed for my type of playing.
But distortion alone tends to reduce articulation, particularly on lower notes and things can quickly begin to sound muddy. I wanted to be able to create the sustain and touch-sensitivity I was looking for without having to crank up the gain on a distortion pedal.
So I experimented with compressors and that did the trick.
A distortion pedal all by itself still allows for articulation when playing above the 12th fret because of the higher frequencies.
But it's when I get down around the 3rd fret (like if I'm playing something in D minor or B minor and want to add some bottom-end to it)) that the articulation begins to disappear because lower frequency notes take more time to develop and hang around longer and if played quickly with a lot of distortion, they often sound as if they're all jumbled together.
But with a compressor, now I can back off on the distortion (while keeping a good amount of the crunch I want) and still have the sustain and sensitivity to play the way I like but without the mud. A compressor also (more or less) evens out the high and low notes so that the clarity I get on the high end carries over to the low end as well.
And with less overall distortion those low notes sound much clearer and more individual - even if played quickly so that no matter where I am on the fretboard notes tend to flow together and sound more unified rather than sometimes sounding as if the highs and lows were played on two different guitars.
Eric,
To touch on your bass guitar comment, I think a compressor would work very well for a bass because it can help make short notes "pop" while still allowing the sustain most associated with a bass while evening out the differences between them. So I think it would afford you MORE subtlety and presence no matter how much noise the drummer is making.
Lastly, a compressor with all of the settings backed-off except "Volume" or "Level" can also serve as a boost to help overdrive the preamp which essentially eliminates the need for a separate boost pedal. And if the rest of the settings are judiciously applied, I get my compression and sustain too, so it's like having a dual-use pedal. So now if I use a lot of distortion it's because I want to rather than because I have to in order to get the sustain I want.
Win-win.
It takes a fair amount of experimentation to get things to sound just right and my advice for anyone is the same as the advice I got from other people about what to do with any new pedal: Start with all of the settings at 12 o'clock and go from there.