Vox Cooltron "Snake Charmer" Compressor

For Magical Compression, See the Snake Charmer!

Here's another great pedal from the VOX Cooltron series. The Snake Charmer Compressor's tube compression circuitry provides smoothing tone control for evening out peaks and spikes, while maintaining overall gain consistency. A High/Low Switch lets guitarists choose between two overall levels of ratio. Gain reduction controls include attack and release. A Gain Reduction Indicator gives the user visual cues of the results of their settings. The Snake Charmer also features a High-End Emphasis control for fine-tuning the amount of compression applied to the top end of the guitar signal.

VOX Snake Charmer Compressor Pedal at a Glance:

Easy single control of ratio and threshold
Dial in sounds easily without needing gain control
Easy-to-check gain reduction LED
High/Low switch gives you two levels of ratio
Versatile Attack control
Flexible Release control
Fine-tune the high-end emphasis

Easy single control of ratio and threshold
The Snake Charmer's "Compression" control affects two characteristics of the compression action, namely: "ratio" and "threshold." The threshold is a predetermined reference voltage that can be used to determine the parts of a guitar signal that require compression. When below this threshold the guitar signal is permitted to pass through the pedal's circuitry unaffected. However, as soon as peak transients exceed the predetermined voltage, the compressor circuitry kicks in. By effectively reducing the Snake Charmer pedal's gain the amplitude of the peak is instantaneously reduced. Signal reduction can be subtle or more extreme, depending on the amount of gain reduction applied for a given peak in the input voltage.

Dial in sounds easily without needing gain control
The Snake Charmer's Compression control also increases the make-up gain in synchronization with the ratio and threshold levels. Without this the overall level of the pedal would drop on higher compression settings. This means that sounds can be quickly dialled in to the Snake Charmer without the need to play around with a separate gain control. Naturally, it also means that any background noise will become more apparent on extreme settings as the overall gain will be very high prior to gain reduction.

Easy-to-check gain reduction LED
The Snake Charmer's Gain Reduction LED will light up when attenuation is taking place. This is useful as it provides you with visual feedback - allowing you to see, in a clear and concise way, the results of tweaking pedal settings.

High/Low switch gives you two levels of ratio
The Snake Charmer's "High/Low" switch lets you choose between two overall levels of ratio. In the low position the ratio is similar to that of many classic guitar-orientated compressors. In the high position the effect is more pronounced - creating loud, percussive attack transients at the start of each note (on slow attack times), or completely replacing attack transients with dips in volume, as the gain is immediately reduced by an excessive amount (on fast attack times).

Versatile Attack control
The Snake Charmer's "Attack" control determines how quickly the gain reduction kicks in after the initial detection of a peak transient. Slower attack times will result in a percussive quality being added to the natural transients of both chords and single notes. This is because for a short instant the gain reduction doesn't engage and the note is momentarily amplified by the un-attenuated make-up gain. These short but loud transients will be limited by the cool tube as the valve enters its non-linear region. With fast attack times the gain reduction is introduced immediately and transients are quickly reduced. The attack time is shortest with the dial turned fully counter-clockwise and increases as the dial is turned clockwise.

Flexible Release control
The "Release" control on the Snake Charmer determines the amount of time during which the gain is attenuated. Consider the case with no, or very little release time. Once triggered, the gain reduction will remain intact until such a point as the input peak has passed. i.e. the gain reduction is purely influenced by the nature of the program material (in this case the guitar). You may set a release time in order to hold the gain at the attenuated level, for a finite period of time (regardless of any reduction in input signal - however, subsequent peaks can trigger greater gain reduction during this time.). The release control can be adjusted with greater release times being heard as the control is turned clockwise. Perhaps the easiest way to evaluate release time is to play a short and loud dampened chord and observe the amount of time it takes for the compression indicator to switch off.

Fine-tune the high-end emphasis
The Snake Charmer's High-end Emphasis control simply fine tunes the amount of compression applied to the "top-end" of the guitar's signal. This is done by using a filter to either boost or cut the higher frequencies present in the "side-chain" circuit (i.e. the signal that drives the "opto"/compression device). In the center position the frequency response of this filter is flat. As you turn the dial counter-clockwise, high frequencies are cut, and so the compression to the "high end" is reduced. The treble now rings out above the bass - giving chord parts greater jangle! Turning the control clockwise from the center position boosts the high frequencies, producing even greater compression. Overall dynamics are flattened and "digging-in" to lead parts produces very pronounced compression effects.
VOX Snake Charmer Compressor Pedal Features:

Versatile pedal provides smoothing tone control for evening out peaks and spikes
Single Compression control handles ratio and threshold
Gain Reduction LED provides visual feedback
Two different levels of ratio
Easy-to-tweak Attack and Release controls
Adjust high-end emphasis to your taste

For a smooth, balanced tone at any level, choose the VOX Snake Charmer!