L.R.Baggs Align Session Comp Effektpedal

I really wanted to like this pedal - as an acoustic guitar player who likes to plug in and play, this seemed to be the absolute business…a single preamp to get that a great basic sound on which to build…but sadly, no…

Leaving aside the fact that it only works silently if the power supply is exactly matched to its requirements, and its apparent dislike of being in a signal chain with other (quality) pedals, the main issue with it is that it’s not really worth the money or the effort if you want a live rig with fx into an amp. It was so bad , I thought it was broken and asked Thomann to test/fix it (they advised me the pedal is just fine, it was my gear causing issues - although none of my other pedals are noisy individually or ensemble) and ultimately, I sold it on.

To be fair - you could use this pedal (on battery power) to enhance your electro acoustic sound, but I can get just as good an effect from a quality optical compressor, with the bonus of no noise. It is advertised as a ‘studio quality’ preamp - I’m guessing that’s a 90s demo studio recording onto a cassette 😀