Hello Gearheads! Welcome back to the wonderful world of tone. Today I’m excited to bring to your attention one of the most musical sounding compressor pedals I’ve ever come across, from some of the coolest people out there making musical equipment - the sweet folks over at DryBell Musical Electronic Laboratory! For any of you gearheads who might not know, DryBell are an inspired company from Croatia who have a penchant for vintage voiced pedals with the modern brain in mind. They’re the genius behind the Vibe Machine and The Engine… both of which I’ve featured previously! I really love the direction DryBell takes on their pedals - maximizing the history, function and most importantly, tone of their pedals. It’s always a joy and anything DryBell makes is ready for the most experienced to the simplest of needs. Today’s feature fits snugly right in that experience!
The Module 4 is in short a compressor pedal based off the Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer circuit. The original unit was a small attachment that would hook up to the input jack of your guitar and the cable would then run to your amplifier… Rudimentary, but very toneful. The Orange Squeezer was best known for it’s use on “Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits and by Skunk Baxter care of Steely Dan. The Squeezer had a sweet smooth compression and very musical “squash” on the note.
The folks at DryBell took great care to not only be inspired but to take this circuit into the present and the future. The Module 4 offers a bevy of compression uses - all of which are extremely musical. I’m not sure about the rest of you… but I’ve had a very shaky relationship with compression, and most of all compressor pedals. Often misunderstood and misused - from the “you can’t tell it’s on” to the “all my dynamics are toast” scenarios, the pedal compressor has been an interesting choice each and every time. I’m happy to report that the Module 4 is the first compressor pedal that (in my opinion) retains as much of your original voice as you’d like. I’ve owned most of the popular pedal compressors and while I wished they would work for me, they always would change the core feeling of what I was doing on the instrument. No matter how many controls or options they had, I’d always feel like something was missing and I’d usually just end up using them as clean boost pedal… and then ultimately deciding a compressor pedal is… not. for. me.
Cue the DryBell Module 4. The Module 4 has a very powerful combination of controls. Output, Tone, Blend, Attack, Release & Preamp. DryBell of course offer deeper and much deeper diving into their feature set if you so choose… adding deeper control and an interesting Expander circuit that works like a noise gate. You can set that circuit to react fast or slow, which changes the way it curbs the signal to noise ratio. While I did try the Expander circuit, I found the normal setting to be more to my liking. In addition to the 6 knob configuration, you also get the option of using the original “Orange” setting or a more full range compression circuit. Both are valuable and equally musical. I found myself tied to the “Orange” setting with all my electric guitars and using the “Full Range” setting for bass guitar and acoustic guitar. There’s definitely a sweetness to the “Orange” setting, which is addictive in the best of ways.
The Module 4 is one of those great tools that can work as simply as you prefer or as deep as you decide to dig. I found running various sources into it, using the TONE, BLEND and PREAMP controls yielded the most enjoyable and quickest results. Most of the time, in sessions of any form… finding your tone quickly is the most valuable resource. The Module 4 works really well in that regard. I found once I found general OUTPUT, ATTACK & RELEASE settings, I could simply make small movements of the remaining controls to get what I needed. I will say the Module 4 has the most usable tone control circuit I’ve ever encountered on a compressor pedal. The PREAMP control also adds color, not just gain to your signal, so it’s very interactive with each input source.
On the demo below, I used the Module 4 on all the stringed instruments including bass guitar and acoustic guitar. While I do prefer to do a dual microphone/DI setup for my usual acoustic sessions, I opted to just use DI for this feature, of course utilizing the Module 4. It worked fantastically and it’s now a permanent fixture in my DI chain. Being able to add that extra bit of “juice” before a DI is just so useful and it really helps to settle in the source before it hits the rest of the chain. For those interested in my DI chain, it’s simply the Module 4 and a Spontaneous Audio Devices Son Of Kong. I use this chain for both acoustic and bass guitar and it works great!
All in all, I found the Module 4 to be a multitude of tools in one. Front end compression, subtle tone shifting, EQ and spacial management and also a wonderful boost source for other gain pedals or amplifiers. The folks at DryBell have literally outdone themselves and I’m so happy to be part of their family. They make musical devices for the entire spectrum of music creation… and I know I’ve said it before, but it begs being said again - I cannot wait to see what they come up with next!
Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the DryBell Module 4. If you’d like to learn more about the fine folks at DryBell and the Module 4, please do check out these sites for more information.
Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!