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A surprisingly capable compressor for bass When I reviewed the Joyo Scylla compressor back in 2024, I had no idea that the pedal would eventually become such an important part of Bass Gear Reviews. What started as a review of a relatively inexpensive compressor turned into the most visited and best-converting article on the entire website, and it has remained there ever since. So when Joyo got in touch and offered to send me their other compressor, the Avallon, it seemed like a particularly appropriate opportunity to revisit what the company is doing in this part of the market. The Avallon is a very different pedal from the Scylla, though, and that’s worth making clear from the beginning. This isn’t a comparison between the two, and I don’t think it makes much sense to approach it as one. The Avallon has its own design, its own way of approaching compression and, most importantly, its own audience. Where the Scylla puts quite a lot of emphasis on being a flexible bass compressor with a tone control, the Avallon takes a more traditional compressor approach. You get Input, Output, Ratio, Attack and Release, together with a gain-reduction meter that gives you something the Scylla doesn’t: a visual indication of what the compressor is actually doing. That immediately makes the Avallon an interesting proposition for bass players, particularly those who want to understand their compressor rather than simply switch one on and leave it there. A different approach to compression The Avallon is part of Joyo’s R Series, and it is physically larger than many of the company’s compact pedals. The extra space isn’t being used for decoration. Most of the enclosure is taken up by the controls and the row of LEDs that make up the gain-reduction meter. It’s a fairly straightforward layout. Input and Output sit at the top, with Ratio, Attack and Release underneath. There is no dedicated threshold control, so the Input knob is an important part of how you set the amount of compression. Increase the input signal and you’re driving the compressor harder; reduce it and you’re backing away from the point where compression starts to become noticeable. That takes a little getting used to if you’re accustomed to compressors with a separate threshold control, but it makes sense once you start using the pedal. The Output control then gives you a way of bringing the overall level back into line after you’ve established how hard you want to drive the compressor. Ratio determines how much compression is applied once the signal crosses the threshold, while Attack and Release control how quickly the compressor responds and recovers. In practice, those four controls give you quite a lot of room to move between subtle dynamic control and much more obvious compression. That’s really the essence of the Avallon. It isn’t trying to disguise the fact that you’re using a compressor. It gives you the controls and lets you decide how much of it you want to hear. The gain-reduction meter is genuinely useful The feature that immediately separates the Avallon from a lot of inexpensive compressors is the gain-reduction meter. Compression can be surprisingly difficult to set by ear, especially when you’re starting out. It’s very easy to turn on a compressor, hear the resulting signal get louder or more controlled and assume that you’ve improved the sound when you’ve actually just changed the volume. Having some visual feedback makes that process considerably easier. The LEDs show the amount of gain reduction being applied as you play, so you can see when the compressor starts working and how much it is reacting to your playing. That is particularly useful when you’re adjusting Attack and Release because you can actually watch the compressor respond while listening to what those changes are doing to the bass. It’s also useful for an experienced player. With bass, particularly a five-string, there can be a substantial difference in the amount of energy produced by different notes. A low B played aggressively can behave very differently from a higher note played softly, and watching the meter while playing can give you a much better idea of how consistently the compressor is responding. Attack and Release matter more than you might think Attack and Release are the controls that will probably have the biggest effect on how natural or obvious the Avallon feels. A fast attack catches the initial transient of the note quickly. That’s useful when the objective is to control peaks and make the overall performance more even, but too much compression too early can also take some of the character out of your playing. A slower attack allows more of that initial note through before the compressor starts reducing the level. On bass, that can preserve some of the punch and articulation that makes the instrument work in a mix. Release works in the other direction, determining how quickly the compressor stops working after the signal falls back down. A fast release can make the compressor feel more active and responsive, while a slower release produces a smoother and more sustained effect. There isn’t really a correct setting here. It depends on what you’re playing and what you’re trying to achieve. That’s one of the reasons I like the Avallon’s approach. There is enough control to make those decisions yourself rather than having the pedal make all of them for you. Using the Avallon with bass A compressor can help even out fingerstyle playing, control the peaks of slap, give notes more consistency and add sustain without necessarily sounding like you’ve put an obvious effect on the instrument. The Avallon is well suited to that kind of use because you can start with a relatively conservative ratio and a modest amount of gain reduction and gradually increase things until you find the point where the dynamics are controlled without becoming flat. The Input control is important here. Because it effectively determines how hard you’re hitting the compressor, small changes can have

The biggest surprise in the entire year! When I reviewed the Joyo Scylla compressor in 2024, I thought I was reviewing a good, inexpensive bass compressor. I liked the pedal considerably more than I expected to, and the review reflected that. What I didn’t expect was what happened afterwards. The Scylla review eventually became the most searched and most viewed article on Bass Gear Reviews. It has also been the site’s best-converting article so far, which is something I find particularly interesting because there are considerably more expensive, more prestigious and, on paper at least, more exciting pieces of gear on the website. Two years later, the Scylla is still relevant, and people are still looking for information about it. That seemed like a good enough reason to come back to it. This isn’t intended to replace my original review, which you can still read here. That article goes into the pedal itself in much more detail. Instead, I wanted to look at what happens when you live with a piece of gear for a couple of years. Does it still get used? Have my opinions changed? Does the pedal still make sense now that there are more compressors competing for our attention? TL’DR: In the case of the Scylla, the answer to all three is yes. Two years is a useful amount of time Most gear reviews are necessarily written relatively soon after receiving a product. That’s not a criticism of the format; it’s simply how reviewing works. You have a limited amount of time with a pedal, you spend as much of that time as possible playing it, testing its controls and trying it in different situations, and eventually you have to sit down and write about what you found. The problem is that some things only become apparent after the novelty wears off. A pedal can be very impressive when it first arrives because it’s new and you’re deliberately paying attention to it. A few months later, it might have disappeared into a drawer. Something else has taken its place on the pedalboard and you have stopped thinking about it altogether. The Scylla didn’t really do that. It became one of those pedals that was simply there. I would use it without necessarily thinking about the fact that I was using it, which is actually a pretty good place for a compressor to end up. Compression isn’t normally an effect you want drawing attention to itself. When it is doing its job properly, it becomes part of the way the bass feels rather than something you are constantly listening for. That has probably been the biggest change in my opinion over the last two years. I don’t think about the Scylla as an inexpensive compressor that happens to be surprisingly good anymore. I think of it simply as a compressor that I like using. The fact that it happens to be inexpensive is still rather remarkable. The controls are still what make the Scylla interesting The Scylla gives you Input, Output, Ratio, Attack, Release and Tone, and that remains a very useful combination. The Input control is particularly important because it determines how hard you’re driving the compressor. The Output then gives you the opportunity to bring the overall level back to where you want it. Between those two controls, you can make sensible level adjustments rather than judging the pedal based on the very common perception that a louder signal somehow sounds better. Ratio determines how aggressively the compressor responds, while Attack and Release allow you to decide how quickly it reacts to your playing and how quickly it recovers afterwards. There is enough range here to move from fairly subtle dynamic control into much more obvious compression, which makes the pedal useful for considerably more than simply evening out a few inconsistent notes. Then there is the Tone control, which is one of the features I continue to appreciate, and it’s not something we expect to have on bass. Compressors are usually valued for being as transparent as they can possibly be, but in the case of the Scylla, it gives it an extra oomph that’s very effective. The Scylla doesn’t simply give you a conventional bass and treble arrangement. The Tone control changes the balance of the signal, allowing you to make the compressed sound darker or brighter. It is particularly useful when you’re trying to compensate for the way compression can change the perceived character of an instrument. That combination of controls is a large part of why the Scylla has aged well. There are no particularly exotic features here, but the things Joyo chose to include are genuinely useful. The Scylla is a very capable bass compressor There are plenty of compressors that can technically do more than the Scylla. The price range of the pedal makes that inevitable. Once you start looking at significantly more expensive compressors, you’ll find blend controls, sidechain filters, sophisticated metering, multiple compression modes and considerably more refined control over the signal. The Scylla is not competing with all of that. Its strength is that it gives you a useful amount of control over the fundamentals of compression without making the pedal prohibitively expensive. You can use it to smooth out your playing, control the peaks from a slap part, add some sustain or simply make your bass feel more consistent from note to note. And I think that is one of the reasons the pedal continues to attract attention. Compression is one of those areas where it is very easy to convince yourself that you need an expensive piece of equipment before you’ve really worked out what you want the compressor to do. The missing blend control If there is one feature I would have liked Joyo to include, it would be a blend control. Parallel compression is particularly useful on bass because it allows you to keep some of the original attack and dynamics of your playing while mixing in a heavily compressed signal