Electro-Harmonix Platform Stereo Compressor Pedal Reviews

I use this pedal to run through my MPC Live 2 into my Studio 192 interface. So far so good I actually love this pedal. It sounds good. The controls are not too responsive or lacking in responsiveness, they are just right. They feel high quality. I highly recommend this pedal as a first compressor to help glue their mix! $200 can't be beat for such a thing!!!

This thing is pretty nice… It sounds good for a guitar peddle. I have it running first on my analog master chain from my MPC Live 2 into my DAW. Seems to glue the mix real good and the drive knob adds a nice touch too. pew pew.. oh and I produce Boom Bap and lofi chill hip hop

My Super Budget Master Chain: from MPC to,
1. Electro Harmonics Platform peddle
2. two Presonus Studio Channels (one for left channel and one for right channel
3. Berhinger SX3040 V2 2-Channel
4. Into my Studio 192 to Studio One Pro
5. Studio One master chain (Porta Tape, FabFilter Pro Q3, FabFilter Pro R, Ozone 10 Assistant.

Yeahaha I said budget! Sounds great to me for now! If you are looking for a decent stereo or mono compressor limiter with drive and sustain id pick this peddle up!

The Electro Harmonix Platform Compressor is a fantastic stereo compressor pedal that works quite well. It runs on a standard 9-volt pedal power supply that it comes with. I used three of them for a live techno set I was doing. I had a Roland TR-8, Roland TB-3, and Novation Circuit all synced and running together. I had Platform Compressors on the stereo out of each piece of gear and they worked perfectly. They were very reliable but I did have a user error once which I will mention so you can avoid it. The Swell knob got bumped and my attack times began fading in completely throwing off the timing of the TB-3. I couldn't figure out what happened till after my set. So be careful to not hit this knob mid performance. To remedy this possibility, I used electrical tape to hold my knob settings in place after this incident and never had this issue again. The Platform Compressor is fantastic for the money and for the functionality. Stereo compression has never been more convenient with the Platform Compressor.

Ehx makes a fine pedal. Well built and dependable.

This compressor is just great. I haven't even tried it on guitar yet. But for synths, and drums? Bruh…. Ok, so I'm not sure if this is a VCA or a FET. It seems pretty fast, so it could be a FET, but it feels like a VCA. Either way, it sounds really really really nice for the price. I've had more expensive compressors that sounded way worse than this. FYI: I'm going through a Radial EXTC into my Lynx Hilo; incase you were curious.

So let's start with the compression section. The Sustain knob is kinda weird until you read the manual. When the limiter function is off, the sustain is your ratio control. Now I don't know if it lowers the threshold as you turn the knob in this mode, but it kinda just sounds like a 1:1 to a 30:1 knob. When the limiter mode is engaged, the sustain knob very clearly becomes a threshold knob. The attack and release are great. Now that I'm listening more closely, I think this is a VCA, as I cannot completely flatten the transient response. But it's still pretty fast. Volume knob is the output gain. Swell is a great thing to have, but it would've been nice to have a threshold control for its envelope follower. The knee goes from hard to soft. Very nice on both ends. Overall the compression stage sounds really nice and musical.

Next up is the drive stage. This is also very nice, BUT this is not a distortion pedal. I wouldn't even call it an overdrive pedal. It's kind of a "bus friendly" drive, if that makes sense. It doesn't destroy your signal, but it's also not a transparent drive either. It definitely has its uses, and it's definitely nice to have, but it's not something you particularly need for every situation. Either way, it definitely adds value to this pedal. Tone knob is nice. It sounds like two shelves being inversely proportional to each other. Lows go down and highs go up clockwise. Lows go up and highs go down counterclockwise. Nothing special there. It sounds fine.

All in all, I'm really happy I got this pedal. I'm blown away by how good this thing is for the price. I love the warmth it adds. This is definitely a keeper.

I have to admit. I was a little bit hesitant about investing an electroharmonics because as a young teenager rock 'n' roll band, the big muff just didn't really do what my other friends Marshall Amsen so forth. I've evolved. In this pedal was spot on for what I was seeking thank you Electro Harmonix.

I bought mine to help my archtop stand out during loud passages. It is a studio quality compressor that rivals much more expensive gear. It is made like a tank. It's portable. And it will boost and swell and reverse tape shenanigans. It is not noisy.

Remember the "Violin" Effect that Lindsay Buckingham used to get? Remember the song Gypsy?He was and is an amazing guitar player.
Remember the "Violin" Effect that Lindsay Buckingham used to get with his Guitar?
Remember the song Gypsy?
He was and is an amazing Guitar Player, Producer, Recording Engineer, song writer & singer.
This pedal will allow you to get that effect. Just learn how to use 3 knobs…
"Sustain, Drive and Swell knobs."
This pedal does it! Thanks electro-harmonx!
Seriously, I Love this Pedal. It does a lot more than the "Buckingham Effect..."
A Bunch More...

This is one of my "always on" pedals. I had a dyna comp before and found it too extreme, though I liked it. The Platform on the other hand is clean and precise. Knee and limiter buttons also add charisma if you need it. I never use the swell knob -- pretty useless honestly but hey, free knob -- but the drive can be tuned nicely. Plus it's stereo so it works in studio settings too.

The EHX Platform comp/limiter? It's pretty cool. I like that that it's really transparent - no pumping or any other interference while it does its job in a workmanlike manner. There are features that I may never use, like the "Drive" function, although I do minimize the amount of drive, then up the drive-section volume control, and it gives a nice near-clean boost when you need that extra "push over the cliff," as Nigel Tufnel would say. Unlike other EHX effects pedals I've owned, this one is NOT dripping with personality, and in a compressor, that's a good thing. I imagine if you go to the extremes, you could get a Dyna-Comp-like squeeze. But I like using it with the soft knee switch on, and keeping the ratio moderate. As for the "swell" function, meh. I have a cheap foreign-made pedal that does that better. And, I never use that pedal, either. Overall, a very professional quality guitar compressor. I think it's bogus when manufacturers hype a product as "good enough for the studio," as EHX does in their marketing materials. It's not, unless you're still recording on a Tascam Portastudio. But it is stereo, and it is very clean. Just don't go selling your 160x yet.

The Compressor side of the pedal is great, its very discrete and doesn't get too squashy until you turn it up. Very modern sounding, the opposite of the other compressor ehx released, the tone corset, which has a very classic squashy compressor sound. Also a lot of control with the 'limiter' and 'knee' buttons. If you like me and you just want a touch of compression without it sounding too compressed, this pedal will do that. The light up db meter at the bottom very helpful to let you know how much compression is being used on your signal.

The overdrive part of the pedal is neat. There isn't a ton of drive on tap, but that ok. It can do from clean boost with the drive all the way down, to moderate overdrive. Its tight sounding, not fizzy at all. Combined with the comp, it give a nice smooth OD tone thats similar to cranking a tube amp up loud before it breaks up too much.

The swell is a nice feature, especially if your into ambient stuff. Or into quasi string stuff.

This pedal is great for anyone that thinks they want compression, but has hated every other compressor they have ever played (like me). Or need it for recording. Only downside is that you need to have compressor engaged in order to have overdrive on. Not a huge deal, but still..

A few years ago my trusty old MXR Dyna-Comp was "lost" and this is the first compressor I've been interested enough in to try out.

I like this pedal quite a bit. I usually play using a Roland GR-55 synth, and run the output thru this pedal on the way to an amp or mixer. This is kind of an unusual application but it works well, even though the GR-55 potentially has a lot more output than the typical guitar, so you have to watch it because as you turn the volume up on the synth it hits the compressor a lot harder. So it takes some practice to know where to set the output level on the synth. Most of my patches on the synth use a little compression already, so I keep the "sustain" control at a reasonable level.

I generally don't use it in stereo mode, but it's nice to know that if I did, I could run both outputs of the GR-55 thru it and have a compressed stereo signal.

The compression is smooth, nowhere near as obvious as the old analog pedals. Nor does it seem to raise the noise floor drastically when you're not playing like some of the old stuff. Since it's digital I can only assume there's some dsp gating or something going on.

It's nice to have a few more parameters that you can control other than the typical one or two knobs like a typical stomp box. The attack control is particularly effective for bringing out the initial bite of each note for chicken-pick or Mark Knopfler type stuff.

Using the "limiter" switch allows you to get some nice J.J. Cale type tones; by cranking the "sustain" up it gets nicely fat and responsive.

Not a huge fan of the overdrive; sounds like a fuzz. I typically get distortion in my patches that sound better, so it's not really all that helpful - but... it does allow me to have three levels of volume available because the drive section has its own volume control. So you can basically use the drive switch as a booster, and maybe dial in just a little grit. I will say, though, that with the tone control on the drive section dialed back a little, you can get some decent early Clapton (Disraeli Gears type) tones by turning up the drive.

About the "swell" control - I can see some limited applications for it but honestly it's hard to get the hang of it. Very few songs that I'm interested in playing have notes that are evenly spaced enough that you can have a fixed swell time like this and have it sound the way you'd like. And in the limited time between songs at a typical gig you really can't fiddle around with it much to get the swell time set appropriately for a given tempo. I don't know that there's a solution to this, and your mileage may vary. Maybe I'm just not patient enough to work with it.

On thing that would be really nice would be if there was a switch that would allow you to set one channel so that compression was either on or off on that channel only. This would allow you to do some parallel process type things, and would make the swell control a lot more usable, at least for me. I would like to have some "dry" signal and then have the volume swell in after the initial attack.

Minor quibbles and could be accomplished in other ways, so overall it's a nice acquisition, and I will continue to use it.

The pedal works better as a compressor. The distortion side is too bassy and too tied into the swell knob. A bare minimum swell knob movement causes the notes to be cut short and the swell knob function creates a muffled boomy sound. A friend of mine likes the swell knob on / kind of a synth cello sound...that is only consistent in one setting ...the swell knob causes the notes to be cut off at undetermined lengths of time through out most of the knobs movement...I can use the pedal but it is severely lacking in live time practical usage for anything I want it for. The knee function ....well if you don't like what you have for effects whether you have a knee cut hard or soft is irrelevant . If you take a chance and buy one at least be prepared to send it back.....this pedal, I would say, should be tried live before purchased. I can live with the compressor but I could have bought a better compressor for less than $.