When it comes to Phish, the audience is really, really listening.  Phish fans are asking Trey Anastasio, Phish’s lead guitarist, to put back a Ross Compressor into his guitar’s signal chain.  Trey Anastasio had used a Ross Compressor for much of Phish’s touring life but Trey applied the compressor in a unique way.

A compressor is designed to limit the highs and lows of a sound wave creating an more even leveled volume to the signal before it enters the rest of the signal chain.   Compression will also increase the sustain of a note.  However Trey put his Ross Compressor at the end of his signal chain, after two Tube Screamers, smoothing out the overall sound.

To really tell the difference you need to give it a listen.  Phishthoughts.com has setup MP3s that compare a signal with and without the Ross Compressor, playing the same piece of music.

Apparently the dialogue with fans took place on PhantasyTour.com, a message board site, when Phish lyricist Tom Marshall, an active member of the message board, relayed the message to Trey Anastasio.  Trey was a bit surprised by the request and admitted he wasn’t sure where the Ross Compressor was anymore.  Might be time for Trey to hit up Ebay…

Search Ebay for a Ross Compressor