almondcity
Well-known member
I have a problem. Listed below in chronological order with my thoughts.
1) PedalPCB Delegate (Boneyard) [magenta] - Smooth optical compressor. Not much else for me to say, I soon learned that it was not an optical compressor I was looking for.
2) PedalPCB Creamery Compressor [white] - I like this one, it's got a chewy kind of compression, but it does seem to very slightly muddy my tone and it's fairly "hissy" at higher compression levels. Not unusable by any means but you don't really want to use the compression knob above about 1 o'clock. I'd place this as my 3rd favorite.
3) Aion Meridian [light green] - This is probably my favorite on the list. I believe it's basically a Dynacomp with tone control and exciter circuit. Really lets you sculpt the tone and the compression is fairly nice sounding although I used a C taper pot and so mine basically lives at about 10 o'clock. Going too hard on the sustain might not sound too great.
4) madbean Cupcake [purple] - Orange squeezer, I put the volume knob as a trim pot inside so it has no knobs. I like this one too but mine seems to cut a little more highs than I like. Go for this if you don't want to fiddle with those pesky knobs.
5) Jack Orman Q&D compressor [dark green] - This one is a bit nuts. It apparently has a compressor, limiter, and noise gate in one low parts count package. The compression on this is VERY nice, doesn't seem to change my tone at all. Some settings provide some sick overdrive tones. The reason this is a love/hate pedal for me is the noise gate. I socketed a bunch of stuff as I read about this issue, so I ended up changing a few values from the schematic to get the gate how I wanted it. But it is still kind of a distracting effect, not unusable but I would use this only if I had some heavy dirt later because you can use this to keep your signal 100% quiet when not playing. The amount of "juice" on tap is quite ridiculous. Pretty cool pedal overall, I recommend.
6) Lectric FX Rubber Band [dark gray] - This is a compressor plus parametric eq and noise gate. I will say the noise gate on this one is a little less intrusive than the Orman pedal, it's very nice. The eq is nice as well. I like this pedal but I just feel like it didn't have the best compression sound relative to my other builds so I don't really see myself using this one much. Pretty high parts count as well.
7) Pellucid compressor [black] - I just finished this and I love it. It was designed by jonny reckless over at DIYStompboxes forums and he said I bought the last PCB from him but I believe there are gerber files there if you want to build it. The compression is very nice on this and it is very quiet, as was the design challenge for this. Pretty low parts count. I think this is probably my 2nd favorite right now.
I think I may try to build one more optical compressor in 2022, I was thinking madbean Flatline. Anyone have a favorite optical compressor?
Thanks for reading, have a great 2022!
1) PedalPCB Delegate (Boneyard) [magenta] - Smooth optical compressor. Not much else for me to say, I soon learned that it was not an optical compressor I was looking for.
2) PedalPCB Creamery Compressor [white] - I like this one, it's got a chewy kind of compression, but it does seem to very slightly muddy my tone and it's fairly "hissy" at higher compression levels. Not unusable by any means but you don't really want to use the compression knob above about 1 o'clock. I'd place this as my 3rd favorite.
3) Aion Meridian [light green] - This is probably my favorite on the list. I believe it's basically a Dynacomp with tone control and exciter circuit. Really lets you sculpt the tone and the compression is fairly nice sounding although I used a C taper pot and so mine basically lives at about 10 o'clock. Going too hard on the sustain might not sound too great.
4) madbean Cupcake [purple] - Orange squeezer, I put the volume knob as a trim pot inside so it has no knobs. I like this one too but mine seems to cut a little more highs than I like. Go for this if you don't want to fiddle with those pesky knobs.
5) Jack Orman Q&D compressor [dark green] - This one is a bit nuts. It apparently has a compressor, limiter, and noise gate in one low parts count package. The compression on this is VERY nice, doesn't seem to change my tone at all. Some settings provide some sick overdrive tones. The reason this is a love/hate pedal for me is the noise gate. I socketed a bunch of stuff as I read about this issue, so I ended up changing a few values from the schematic to get the gate how I wanted it. But it is still kind of a distracting effect, not unusable but I would use this only if I had some heavy dirt later because you can use this to keep your signal 100% quiet when not playing. The amount of "juice" on tap is quite ridiculous. Pretty cool pedal overall, I recommend.
6) Lectric FX Rubber Band [dark gray] - This is a compressor plus parametric eq and noise gate. I will say the noise gate on this one is a little less intrusive than the Orman pedal, it's very nice. The eq is nice as well. I like this pedal but I just feel like it didn't have the best compression sound relative to my other builds so I don't really see myself using this one much. Pretty high parts count as well.
7) Pellucid compressor [black] - I just finished this and I love it. It was designed by jonny reckless over at DIYStompboxes forums and he said I bought the last PCB from him but I believe there are gerber files there if you want to build it. The compression is very nice on this and it is very quiet, as was the design challenge for this. Pretty low parts count. I think this is probably my 2nd favorite right now.
I think I may try to build one more optical compressor in 2022, I was thinking madbean Flatline. Anyone have a favorite optical compressor?
Thanks for reading, have a great 2022!
