The folks at Walrus Audio looked at the compressor section of a Neve console, realized nobody was going to tour with one, and built the Highpoint. It’s an all-analog optical compressor that runs on a ±15V internal rail—double the headroom of most pedals, zero starved-voltage compromise.
The result is compression that doesn’t sound like compression. It sounds like your amp suddenly got better.
- Threshold sets where the compressor wakes up. Lower it for more squash, raise it for light touch-up.
- Ratio dials in how hard it clamps down, from subtle leveling (2:1) to borderline limiting (20:1).
- Attack controls how fast it grabs your transients—fast for tight, controlled picking, slow for letting the pick attack punch through before the compressor even notices.
- Release is your sustain knob. Slower settings let notes ring out forever. Faster settings keep things tight and percussive.
But that’s not it. Makeup adds clean gain back after compression. Blend is parallel compression in a knob—dry signal on one side, squashed signal on the other, mix to taste. Sidechain HPF (160Hz) keeps your bass frequencies from triggering the compressor, so low notes stay fat and punchy instead of pumping. The LED VU meter shows you exactly how much gain reduction is happening.
$349. 50mA draw. Destined to be your always-on pedal, whether you’re a Nashville chicken-picker or a doom lord who just wants his riffs to breathe.
