Classic Opto

Classic Opto-Comp

One day while Carl was adding some compression to a guitar track in his studio, he thought, why hasn’t anyone built a small opto-compressor for guitarists? An optical compressor performs gain reduction control via a light source into a photo sensitive cell... as the light source gets brighter, the photo sensitive cell sends a signal to reduce dynamic range, or what becomes a compressed signal. Welcome to the Vintage Opto-Compressor….an old-school compressor from the days where colouring was an important factor to the sound. The four controls (from left to right) are the Gain, which controls the ‘pre-glow’ of the optical circuit (the more you turn this up, the fatter the sound); Level, which controls the overall volume of the compressor; Compression, which controls how hard or soft the compression is, and the Attack control which takes the signal from transparent to outright total squeeze. A short time with this compressor will allow you to find some of those classic guitar sounds which may somehow have escaped you before. Again, like all the Vintage pedals, the Opto-Compressor comes in a solid diecast housing with cool chicken-head knobs, CM colour and graphics and a 9v battery compartment. Due to the nature of compressors, we highly recommend a regulated power supply (like the CM Big John) or a large stock of batteries…..

Reviews

VINTAGE GUITAR (USA) September 2010 Classic Opto-Compressor
The Carl Martin Classic Opto-Compressor is designed specifically to give guitarists the type of optical compression used in studios and on bass-guitar tracks for years.
Like the DC-Drive, the Classic Opto-Compressor is impressively musical. And it’s capable of being very subtle - it easily dials in very slight compression to even out the overall sounds, which is great for players who want to clean up notes without squashing them. If you’re going for spanking, vintage compression, fear not. It does that, too. Just keep honking on that Attack knob. Chicken-pickers and surf guys, in particular, should sit down with this box and take notice - the Classic Opto-Compressor sounds as good as some top-dollar studio components.

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Product: Carl Martin Classic Opto-Compressor
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted 11/23/2008 at 08:05pm by T, Lemmo

Ease of Use : 8

If you have a grasp on how a compressor works it is easy to manipulate.
At the very least as you turn the knobs you can hear what they are doing

Sound Quality : 8

For the price, its fantastic. I have a high end rack optical compressor I was using for my guitar sound, nice sound not so easy to cart around.
So I thought I would try this Opto pedal. To my delight it is every bit as smooth and fat as I was looking for. Thick and smooth is the way I would describe the sound. Great

Reliability : No Opinion

Seem Solid

Customer Support : No Opinion

Overall Rating : 9

Price, size and sound make this a no brainer.