When I bought my guitar back in maybe 2013, I asked another guitar player what 2 pedals would you recommend I get. He said a Wah-wah pedal and a Compressor. Well being an old head I know what a Wah wah pedal is, hell I remember the theme from Shaft. What I did not truly understand is what the hell is a compressor. Well what a compressor does is eliminates the extreme highs and extreme lows, kind of keeps your sound even. It’s a little more detailed, but that’s the idea.

Now although I’ve had an Electric Guitar for years, I very seldom play it. I love the sound of an Acoustic Guitar. Maybe it’s because I have always had an Acoustic. My first Acoustic was a Takamine F-349 Dreadnought. I loved that guitar. Took it with me everywhere I went for years, but that’s another story.

Since my goal is to start recording songs I’ve started playing my Electric Guitar and I can now see why a compressor would be necessary. So the question I asked my self is (A) should I compress the sound using a pedal and send that signal into the DAW, or (B) should I send a raw signal into the DAW and then compress it using the DAW’s on board compressor (Cubase in my case).

After doing my research, I think the answer is to send the guitar signal from your Audio Interface into the DAW and then compress it. I’ll drop a few Youtube videos in my next post that will talk about this in further detail. 🙂