General
Putting studio-quality compression in a little red box, the Maxon CP9 Pro features adjustable ratio and delivers a clean boost of up to 30 decibels, making this pedal able to lay on everything from light compression to hard limiting. No matter how the CP9 Pro is dialled in, the effect leaves the natural tone and colour of your instrument fully intact, while your sound is tightened up and volume-differences are reduced - the intensity of which is dictated by how things are set up. Since this stombox also features internal voltage doublers, you're getting masses of headroom from a 9 Volt pedal. All of this makes this Pro model flexible enough to be placed anywhere in your setup, whether it's serving as a standard pedal before your amplifier; hooked up to the effects loop of your amp; or used as a stand-alone compressor to support recording sessions.
Maxon
First born in the '60s, Maxon was initially busy producing pickups, but by the end of that defining decade, had already started dipping into the dynamic world of effects pedal development. Since they were mostly making pedals for other brands, when the '70s arrived, Maxon were building stompboxes almost exclusively for Ibanez. As such, many legendary Ibanez pedals are actually Maxon designed and made. The most renowned pedal from this period has to be the Ibanez Tube Screamer (also known as the Maxon 808 Overdrive). This partnership carried on well into 2002 when Ibanez and Maxon finally parted ways. Ever since, Maxon have been producing their own gear, under their own name, and some of their fresh pedals include versions of older Ibanez stompboxes - reissued, and re-stamped with the now-independent Maxon name.
