Keeley Compressor Plus Germanium 25th Anniversary Compressor Pedal

The Keeley Compressor Plus Germanium 25th Anniversary edition takes Keeley’s best-selling Compressor Plus and infuses it with a carefully voiced germanium stage, giving you the same trusted control with added warmth, bloom and touch sensitivity. From subtle studio-style glue to full-on country squash, it delivers the polished, professional feel players love, now with a richer, more musical response under the fingers.

The familiar Level, Blend, Comp and Tone controls let you dial in anything from transparent enhancement to obvious effect, while the Single Coil / Humbucker switch keeps the recovery speed matched to your pickups. Add in Keeley’s super silent switching buffer with selectable true bypass or buffered operation, and you get a compressor that is equally at home as an always-on tone shaper or a dynamic tool you kick in for extra sustain and presence.

The new germanium stage is where the 25th Anniversary magic happens. Instead of using the germanium transistor as a gain device, Keeley employs it as a buffer and tone-shaping circuit, smoothing harsh highs, enhancing sustain and giving notes a sweet, musical saturation as they decay. Crucially, it does this without adding noise or stealing headroom, so it will sit happily anywhere on your board and play nicely with drives, fuzzes and modulation pedals.

With 9 to 18 V DC operation and ultra-low current draw, the Compressor Plus Germanium is built for modern pedalboards. The proprietary enclosure is compact and rugged, and the switching system lets you choose whether the pedal behaves as a true bypass unit or as a high-quality buffer for your whole signal chain. After 25 years and more than 160,000 compressors, Keeley have refined their classic formula into a compressor that feels more alive, more expressive and more inspiring than ever.

Germanium Warmth and Bloom

The germanium transistor is used as a buffer and tone-shaping stage, not a gain block, which means you get all the musical benefits of germanium without the usual drawbacks. It gently rounds off harsh high frequencies, adds a pleasing bloom to sustained notes and responds more closely to your picking dynamics, helping your tone feel smoother and more expressive under the fingers.

Classic Compressor Plus Control Set

The familiar four-knob layout makes it easy to get exactly the compression you need. Level lets you balance or boost your overall volume, Blend mixes in your dry signal to retain natural attack, Comp increases both ratio and sustain, and Tone moves from dark and thick to bright and open. Whether you want invisible levelling or obvious squish, the controls are intuitive and fast to dial in.

Single Coil / Humbucker Voicing Switch

The dedicated voicing switch adjusts the recovery speed of the compressor to suit your pickups. Set it for single coils to keep things snappy and articulate, or flip to humbucker mode for a more relaxed, breathing response. It is a simple way to keep your feel consistent when swapping guitars or to fine-tune the pedal to your preferred playing style.

Selectable True Bypass or Buffered Operation

Keeley’s super silent switching buffer lets you choose between true bypass and buffered modes at the footswitch. Hold the switch and the LED indicates which mode you are in, with buffered operation set at the factory for optimum performance on most boards. The buffer helps preserve high-end clarity over long cable runs and multiple pedals, while remaining quiet and click-free in use.

• Germanium Buffer and Tone-Shaping Stage - A carefully selected germanium transistor is used as a buffer and tonal sweetener, softening harsh highs and adding sustain and bloom without extra noise or loss of headroom, for a smoother, more musical response.
• Versatile Four-Knob Control Layout - Level, Blend, Comp and Tone cover everything from subtle, studio-style compression to pronounced squash, letting you balance dynamics, attack and overall brightness to suit any guitar or genre.
• Pickup-Optimised Voicing Switch - The Single Coil / Humbucker switch sets the compressor’s recovery speed to match your pickups, ensuring the pedal breathes naturally with your guitar and keeps your feel consistent when swapping instruments.
• Selectable True Bypass or Buffered Bypass - Keeley’s super silent switching buffer offers the choice of true bypass or high-quality buffered operation, helping you maintain signal integrity across complex pedalboards while keeping switching noise to an absolute minimum.

General

• Product: Keeley Compressor Plus Germanium 25th Anniversary Compressor
• Effect Type: Compressor pedal with germanium buffer and tone-shaping stage
• Bypass: Selectable true bypass or buffered operation
• Switching: Keeley super silent switching buffer
• Enclosure: Proprietary Keeley battle-tested housing
• Origin: Hand-made in Oklahoma City, USA

Controls

• Level
• Blend
• Comp
• Tone
• Single Coil / Humbucker voicing switch

Electronics

• Germanium transistor used as buffer and tone shaper
• Germanium saturation for warm, less harsh clipping
• Designed for low noise and full headroom

Power

• Power Supply: 9 V DC PSU (centre negative, 2.1 mm)
• Operating Voltage Range: 9 to 18 V DC
• Current Draw: 25 mA (ultra-low)