Question about Sparks clean blend compression

Pedals
#1

Hi, I’ve been interested in Sparks and have been reading the manual and watching walkthrough videos.

In the walkthrough video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeRbv6Ia-eA there’s a section starting from 15:50 - creating a drive sound with parallel compression on clean blend.

Can someone explain how this works? I get the first part - setting up the drive sound.
But I don’t really understand how’s the compression working for the clean signal.
In the video the ENV is assigned to Blend control and Blend is turned in a negative direction (which makes the envelop turn down Blend when playing) - I can’t understand why this makes the clean signal compress? When Blend is turned down - doesn’t that make clean signal quieter?

Also - from that example I get the impression that one can set up different effects for the clean signal and the drive sound? Or is compression also applied to drive sound in the above example?
Could one set up some LFO modulation for the clean blend and have drive sound unaffected by it?

#2

BLEND is just the volume control for the dry signal — It doesn’t crossfade between dry and wet.

We used the term “blend” instead of “dry” because it made the artwork more symmetrical.

So when you envelope the BLEND control in a negative way, it works as a compressor for the dry signal.

1 Like
#3

Also, yes you can have the LFO do amplitude modulation (tremolo) on the dry signal while the drive signal is not affected by the LFO.

#4

Thanks for the answer. After reading this and some envelope follower explanations, I’m starting to understand.