Description
The Keeley Compressor Plus Germanium Pedal celebrates Keeley Electronics' 25th anniversary by revisiting one of the company's best-known designs with a new germanium stage. Rather than using germanium to create fuzz or overdrive, Keeley employs a germanium transistor as a buffer and tone-shaping stage. The idea is to soften harder high frequencies and distorted signals while giving sustained notes a more natural bloom and touch-sensitive response. It's still very much a Compressor Plus, but this version is aimed at players who want the familiar control and utility of that circuit with a smoother character around the edges.
The familiar Level, Blend, Comp, and Tone controls make it easy to determine how much compression you hear and how much of your original signal remains in the mix. Blend can move from cleaner, more parallel-style compression toward the fully compressed signal, while Tone lets you compensate for darker or brighter guitars and rigs. A dedicated voicing switch provides Single Coil and Humbucker settings by changing the compressor's recovery behavior, helping the pedal respond appropriately to different pickup outputs.
You can also choose between true bypass and Keeley's buffered operation by holding the footswitch, with buffered bypass selected from the factory. The pedal accepts anything from 9V to 18V DC and draws just 25mA during normal operation, so it's particularly easy to integrate into an existing board. We like that Keeley didn't use the anniversary as an excuse to turn the Compressor Plus into something unrecognizable. The Germanium version keeps the practical layout players already know and changes the part that matters most, how the compressor feels and responds around your actual guitar signal.
Specifications:
- Special Edition: Keeley Electronics 25th Anniversary
- Tone-Shaping Stage: Germanium Transistor Buffer and Tone-Shaping Stage
- Controls: Level, Blend, Comp, Tone
- Level: Controls Output Level
- Blend: Balances Clean and Compressed Signals
- Comp: Controls Compression Amount
- Tone: Adjusts Overall Brightness
- Voicing Switch: Single Coil / Humbucker
- Voicing Function: Adjusts Compressor Recovery Behavior for Different Pickup Types
- Bypass: Selectable True Bypass or Buffered Operation
- Factory Bypass Setting: Buffered
- Input Impedance: Approximately 333kOhm
- Output Impedance: Approximately 1kOhm
- Power: 9V to 18V DC, Center Negative
- Current Draw: 25mA, Up to 50mA When Switching Relay
- Made In: USA
Sku: KCOMPGE
