Acoustic Guitar Compressors

Edit: I will be adding to this list and updating it.

What I worked on most of the night was an acoustic guitar track. I tried out 4 different compressors and 6 different EQ's (all using the same settings) and took notes on each. Here's what I came up with:

Compressors
Waves RComp (Renaissance Compressor)- Slightly dull sounding, which was surprising since in another shootout it was one of the brightest sounding comps I had. Really brought out the picking sound in the guitar. Attacked a lot of the highs, which I didn't like. The guitar was a nice sounding Martin, but really dark. I had high hopes for the RComp to balance it out, but when pushed it just sounded even duller.

Waves API2500- Very clean. Compressed, but not squashed. Didn't get the pumping sound some of the other compressors gave with the same settings. Very balanced in what it attacked. Bright sounding. Another surprise, as the API's are typically known for their darker sound. Did a really nice job on the acoustic.

Sonalksis SV-315Mk2- Another weird surprise. On the master buss and on drums this was the brightest sounding compressor I had. Then again I suppose since it's compressing a dark sounding source, I shouldn't be surprised to get an even darker sound. Compressed the acoustic far more than the other two. Very full sounding, but as the acoustic already had a lot of body in it, might not be great in the mix.

Waves SSL Buss Compressor- Kind of a nightmare. I can't really blame it, it is a buss compressor and not exactly intended to be used on individual channels. The only reason I tried it out was because the acoustic track was made up of 3 separate mono channels, which could technically be viewed as a small mix buss. Although it was really punchy, especially in the picking part of the track, it was incredibly squashed. Not much room in the controls for precision compression.

Acoustic Results
In this situation, I ended up using the API2500. Seemed to be the most balanced, and I'm not one who likes to "hear" a compressor hard at work.