Compression Sustainer

[livingnote]

Ah yeah - I meant the "trash-action" having not been for nuts, believe the "it rocked the house"
part.

Interesting with the socketing and listening, I can remember a certain Stefan going nutso with
his soldering iron and a pair of Ginkos (and sending lots of expensive chippedys to Gehenna).

Jürg from Vovox told me the same - sit down, try out, use ears.

I really have a coin in the machine for most people don't end up designing great stuff not because
of "doesn't understand technology", but rather "doesn't wanna experiment because lazy=true".

Afair, the SPL transient designer is chock full of Texas Lightning too...

 

[tv]

Hmm.. yep. What I find interesting is that a lot of "educated" people  don't really understand the differentiation in the actual music making process. I mean the diff. between init. sound-design/preproduction, recording/production, mixing/mastering and actual re-production - and what goes where and what impact it has.

It's funny to see the audiophile crowd obssessing on how to best reproduce the nonlinearities initially caused by all the 072s and 4558s at the beginning of the recording chain (or even in some consoles). But, as I also fiddled with reproduction side of the spectrum (just for the fun of it), I understand both sides...

One of these days I may search for my box of left-over circuits to see what's left inside.


Btw. did you try to change the input cap?
For use with guitars, I'd suggest to swap the elcos for multilayer caps. See that you have the X7R dielectric type. These will slim&trim the sound a bit. Sparkier than poly's, punchier than tantalums.

 

[livingnote]

Ah great because I'm working on the second one here while I etch - X7R multilayer? Now I'm wondering -
can get those at Conrad?

 

[tv]

Wouldn't know about Conrad.

However, a look at their website reveals that they stock Epcos multilayer caps of required type (C0G being best but for lower capacitances, and X7R passable - stay away from "Z.." and "Y.." types):

http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/overview/5445110/Keramik-Kondensatoren-Epcos

perhaps try these as well, you may get lucky but I wouldn't know --for sure--:
http://www.conrad.de/ce/de/overview/0245120/Keramik-Kondensatoren-Typ-KDPU

these ceramics will give a slightly more "barky" or "edgy" sound compared to poly's. I never liked electrolytics in guitar circuits..

 

[livingnote]

Cool, I'm off to see the wizard.

Here, this oughta work now, all checked through...

 

[livingnote]

By the way - most of these decoupling caps are specified 1µ, apart from the input cap
would it be a wise idea to paralleletize like 10x 100nFs just for bass response?

 

[tv]

I don't think that --input-- cap should remain 1uF. IME guitars like input caps 10-100nF, but ymmv. I have walked that path a lot in the past and subsequently tried a lot of different value combos.. in search for "bass response". My conclusion was that bass doesn't "live" in the input cap but elsewhere. Too big of an input cap (ime) kills the tone. Again, ymmv.

For other caps, stick with what circuit author specified.
If you don't find 1uF multilayer caps, this won't be the end of the world.. you will get them elsewhere. World is --full-- of 1uF multilayers.

If you want to experiment, just solder diff. caps below the traces... or use sockets to change them w/o re-soldering.
Tryout tantalums, cer. multilayers and poly's (ime the cheap "box" MKT's, like the small "noname" blue, grey or yellow boxes are "just right" for guitar circuits, they are slightly more "midrangey" than wimas..).

Tantalums and cer. multilayers add some "flavor". As I said before, I generally run away from electrolytics.


This has really grown into a whole "conference". Perhaps I will really dig out that box of mine with old circuits - I know that there was a small compressor board there (same principle as this one, but done differently).

A little friendly warning: When (and if) you start trying out what "sounds" best in a guitar circuit (which is even more wicked than hi-fi tweaking, because it introduces the "playability" factor into equation, i.e. the "response" must be "just right") - you will be screwed for a couple of years to come.

 

[livingnote]

"By the way Marty don't hook up to the amplifier, there's a -slight- possibility of overload".

I kinda get the feeling I'm screwed already. Stompboxes are fun.

But I did learn my lesson on sleep deprivation on the Q, and now once more getting my
shop running...so I guess I'll be fine.

Funny now that you mention it, back in the neighbors-to-murderers day of the first breadboard
Fuzz Face, we were playing with all kinds of caps, and there was iirc this grey MKT of I don't
remember what value, but it sounded best of all of them...

 

[tv]

A grey MKT..that wouldn't surprise me at all..

But, the important question is: does it sound "best" when -you- played through it or when you listened to somebody -else- playing through it.

With equipment that's meant to be recorded, that's even more important: it has to "sound best" both for the player and for the "recorder". Plus, it has to be "inspiring" so that it makes for a good performance.

And it has to "cut through" but still be "in the music".

 

[skipwave]

Gonna have to whip one of these up.

I've found that my favorite film caps for guitar boxes are these ugly blue blobs I used to get at RadioShack, labeled only "MF" max volts and microfarads.

Tried the same caps for coupling in tube microphones and sounded too gritty in the mids. Love 'em for git FX, though.

 

[livingnote]

I need to get someone here to act as a test mule so I can listen & swap...but for now I guess I'll
go after what I do best...building actual box:

Report: sounds a little clearer with the MKT's, and also a little "thinner" but I get your thing
about "punchy" & co...gotta fiddle with it now...

[EDIT] Holy Guacamole do caps ever make a difference. It's like bathing in the mud vs going to the spa.

 

[livingnote]

Help! I can't stop playing guitar!

What a box - especially on clean. Brings out all the ringing overtones on my Jackson. Distortion's your
usual diode clipper, this time I installed a 1N3...uhh...14A? Might change that back to the "dug it up
in the Conrad bin" germanium diode...

Next thing to do is design one into this box together with a Hornet Fuzz in cascade.

We're looking at like 4 footswitches before we get back out of the woods...

Comp-Dist-Clip Type-Fuzz

Real stage artillery...

 

[livingnote]

Oh, anybody know of a thatSoundsAwesome tone control to boot?

Ah or how about that box? 25-30cm sounds a little more like it...

Oh WOW and then it has like a recession for a faceplate....gaaaaah etchfab here I come!

 

[livingnote]

Okay here...maybe better to describe with sound clips:

Basic clean guitar

Standard diode distortion

And when you stick that up the Fuzz Face, this happens.

I left out the other distortion because it sucked with this diode. Clean comp+FF is nice too.

 

[tv]

"thinner" sits better in mix. what you perceive as thinner is actually more definition. the little noname MKTs have slightly sharper "attack" than wimas, more upfront. imho...

looking at these photos brings memories. heh I used -almost- the same approach with my builds (except the relay and connector - I always liked "hard" contacts...).

 

[livingnote]

Hard contacts - i.e. wired to connector and soldered down good? Might wanna make mine two-way
so that you can connect it the classic way and the mount-on-board way.

I went to the screw-it-on edition because I was tired of gluing stuff together, and dis-and reassembly
is easy if you need to repair or mod. Basically anything that reduces bench time for production.

Yeah - thinner/defined is "it". Considering the bigger picture with the mix, it's nice to work like that.
A friend of mine called the comp attack and transient response "like fresh dew drops on a spring morning".

The "fabeled" bass-response really does do its part to just drown out all the nice definition. You get this
nondescript "soup" where all the zesty lemon juice should be.

 

[livingnote]

And of course here - I had to do a clean version too (excuse the fumbly playing):

Nothing on

Comp on

Comp+Dist

Comp+Dist+Fuzz

 

[tv]

There's one thing with attack phase with such comps. Namely, "as-is" this particular (and similar) configs reacts on NEGATIVE transients, which is sort-of unwanted behaviour. But you can get by if using this on el-guitar. You don't -really- need anything more elaborate for guitar unless you are "tone freak deluxe".

For bass and percussives, I found out that you need to make sure your comp reacts on positive transients (at least, full-wave required for deeper comp.), which isn't that hard to do but there are some constructional pitfalls..

For pot. boards, upon N-th scratchy pot (failure) and/or "seeking the God-Like Tone" modding urge I decided that it is "Good Enough(TM)" to make a self-supporting small board (case width x 1cm) that only accomodates pots (the ordinary 90° PCB-mount types) - just like you mounted the audio board on the jacks... only that its just 1cm deep.

You could do kits with "detachable" pot board this way. Saves on PCB material, and is therefor more environmentally friendly.

This gives freedom of access (no screws to unscrew, only loose the pot ones), is durable enough etc. I still have a homebrew headphone amp in daily use that is done this way and it survived a ton of free-falling on the floor etc.

 

[Infernal_Death]

Brings out all the ringing overtones on my Jackson.

Can't add anything to the discussion here but gotta say you have great taste in guitars  ;D

Flo

 

[livingnote]

Yeah, it's a one-piece custom with two single coils and a humbucker on toggle switches, I love it.

It's so cool how you can go from "Wow I'm flying with the Angels" directly to "You're gonna BUUUUUUUURN!"

Full-wave rectification was one of the questions that popped into my head the moment I saw the diode -
looks like old Mr. Instinct had a few cents in the deal.

I am thinking if it might not be smart to do that stunt by using an 074 and a detector instead of the basic
guillotine...