As others may have mentioned, once you add this pedal to your effects chain, (like a noise gate filter) there's no reason to ever have it off while playing. It adds a smooth, professional, aesthetic quality to your everyday tone, regardless of style or genre. Place it at or near the beginning of your chain to get a purer signal into any/all of your downstream pedals making their output just that much better.

I wanted to get a compressed studio sound from my high gain amp-guitar set up. MXR did the trick. When it”s on I sound like a creamy pop-rock guitar in the mix. When it’s off I sound open like EVH. On low gain settings the pedal virtually transforms my 5150 high gain amp into a bluesy Fender amp. 200 bucks well spend.

I recorded bass guitar and the results were perfect!The compressor has clean headroom and brings a bass guitar to life ! Just ended up eq- ing with 3db of 80 hrz and 4k to add some clarity and mic pre is neve all descete witch color's the signal ! You will be happy with compressor for bass guitar !I haven't tried to do vocals with it but that's next!!

This thing is a non compressor guitarists dream… so smooth and subtle

Almost done recording my record with this. I am highly impressed with the quality. 5/5

QUIET! This thing is QUIET! None of the usual "popcorn" from nearly every other stomp box compressor I've known.GENERALLY:Dispite the addition of an input pot, I feel this compressor won't get as "Hard" as others, including the earlier MXR model, the Super Comp. I'm still playing with the settings. But I can't seem to get a reasonable Nashville Chicken Pickin Bark out of it. On the OTHER end of the compression, it's smooth as I've ever heard any rack mount studio comp sound. And that's the settings I'm in most of the time. Low compression, just barely bringing down the peaks. Nice smooth jazzy sound on a pretty stock tele.THE BAR GRAPH:It's kind of interesting to know when there's compression going on. But generally, the horizontal LED thing is just sitting over there doing it's thing. It's not like you'd want to watch it. Mildly distracting to audience members if they can see your pedals.THE ATTACK CONTROL:I've yet to figure out which direction does what with this pot. In the older Super Comp, I think(?) it worked in the opposite direction as this newer model. But in both, I never felt like the control does much either in very mild compression or harder Nash Cluck.THE INPUT CONTROL:This seems like a fabulous idea. Pre-gain into a compressor that's adjustable. Seems ideal. BUT, it doesn't really seem to have much of a GAIN effect. More like a pot to REDUCE the input. I'm sure it's an op amp stage or something so there should be something like 15-25dB gain. But on mine at least, I use it pretty much close to full clockwise. Otherwise there is essentially ZERO compression showing on the LED's at ANY ratio setting.THE OUTPUT CONTROL:I consider this one of the most vital controls on any compressor. On this MXR, like my previous MXR, the "sweep" of the pot seems HUGE. The appropriate output increase is like a 16th of an inch of rotation. NOBODY would ever need full CW or CCW. MXR, PLEASEmake the pot a smaller value so you can truly ADJUST the output. As is, it probably changes 12-15 dB with the smallest possible turn of the knob. No way you could ever do it on stage. And no way you could ever "re-find" the settings by marking the case. The thickness of your mark would be a monsterous increase or decrease in output gain.THE SUSTAIN CONTROL:I've never heard it pump, no matter where I've got the sustain pot set. This control might be the only one with a reasonable amount of sweep over it's functional range. It's not insane in one direction and then ten bazillion in the other direction. It does as you'd expect. Shortens or lengthens the reverb tail.THE 4 POSITION RATIO CONTROL:I'm not sure what the reasoning is for putting detents on the ratio pot. I'd have to imagine most guitarists want an infinitely variable control. Even if these pre-determined settings are what we all use, I think guys want to twist it till it sounds the way they want, not just click on a number. I'd rather see the more traditional "2 to Infinity" control. MXR seems to suggest that you pick a ratio setting with this knob, and then adjust the input gain to get the compression you want. That seems a little backwards to me. Starting with the gain and tone you want and THEN bringing down the peaks, seems like appropriate compressor use. It's how every studio engineer I've ever known does it. MXR is asking us to first set the compression and THEN adjust the input gain (and therefore tone) to achieve the squash we want.MAJOR CON:Geez! I wish pedal makers would stop putting those insanely bright blue LEDs on their boxes. It's so stupid bright that it literally lights up the stage in a jazz club. It's just ridiculous. Masking tape topped with sharpie tones it down.OVERALL:I'm guessing this is MXR's foray into "Factory built boutique pedals". I think what I've got here is a very good compressor for the light jazz peak leveling that I do. But It would definitely NOT be useable for chickin pickin. That's probably the two most frequent modes used in any compressor. So for two bills you get a really quiet box that does 50% of what's required. I'd be very happy to see MXR improve this pedal. Get some more input gain, less output gain sweep, leave or remove the LED bar graph, but surely get rid of the insane blue LED pilot lamp.I'll keep it. Only because it's so darn QUIET. But overall, I'm not real happy about paying 200 bucks for a compressor that won't do nash cluck.Thanks - Lumpy

"Dude, your bass was felt WAAAAAAY more in the room today, and louder too..."That was my drummer's post-rehearsal statement to me following the first time I used he MXR M76 Studio Compressor, though I didn't really need him to tell me that. The transformation in my live sound was apparent to me from the first groove I had played thru the pedal. Every plucked note, thumb-slap & finger-pop, harmonic, double-stop, hell, even my muted finger-thumps on my plucking hand are distinct and full within the room mix now (mind you I've Nigel Tufnel's amp-@-11 brother on guitar & John Bonham's clone on drums for band mates, lol, so you know how loud it gets!). Even the subtleties within other effects in my signal-chain seem more present: chorus sounds deeper, phasers sweep & swoosh more pronounced, even octave pedal has more bite to its sound. Having a ratio control also helps tremendously in nailing down that right sound. Easily THE best pedal compressor on the market right now, versatile yet not so complicated that you can't use it.