MichaelW
Well-known member
In my quest to sample as many DIY compressor builds as possible, I just wrapped these two builds up this weekend. (Busy weekend for me! An NGD, a fuzz and two compressors!)
First up is the MadBeans "RoughCut" which is variation of the Diamond Optical Compressor.
I'm not familiar with this compressor but from the documentation it sounds like this MBP version has some mods to the original.
It's a super smooth compressor and like the other opto compressors I've built, it's not super "in your face" kind of compression. But I would agree with MBP that it is a very "detailed, articulate and smooth" compressor and sounds great! There's actually quite a bit of available compression but I find that at the highest end of the comp range it starts to get some "artifacts". Almost like a bit of light clipping. Just messing around with it today it sounds the best to me with the comp control around 12 to 1 o'clock. There's a pretty effective tone stack with a pretty wide sweep from bass to treble, so you can dial in as much color as you want. One of the mod's is a EQ bypass toggle which bypasses the tone stack completely. I've found that it's very transparent with the EQ defeated and prefer this setting.
There's also an option for a second toggle for a high cut. But I left it out of the build. I didn't think I'd ever need a high cut on an optical compressor and I think it was the right call. It overlaps what the tone knob can already do.
There's more compression range than the other optical compressors I've build (Delegate, Constrictor, and Cornish OC-1). Up till now it's been a toss up which I like better, the OC-1 or the Constrictor. Now there's a 3rd contender in the mix of my choices for an optical compressor. Really really like it a lot so far.
This was also my first MadBeans build and the workflow threw me off a bit. It was a tight build and the pads seemed like they were super close to each other. I spent a bit of extra time cleaning and examining my work after populating the board under a magnifier because I could swear I left some solder bridges. But it all turned out ok and fired right up first time.
I made a couple of substitutions, there were some oddball resistor values and I just used the next closest I had on hand. Doesn't seem to have effected it. Otherwise followed the BOM.
First up is the MadBeans "RoughCut" which is variation of the Diamond Optical Compressor.
I'm not familiar with this compressor but from the documentation it sounds like this MBP version has some mods to the original.
It's a super smooth compressor and like the other opto compressors I've built, it's not super "in your face" kind of compression. But I would agree with MBP that it is a very "detailed, articulate and smooth" compressor and sounds great! There's actually quite a bit of available compression but I find that at the highest end of the comp range it starts to get some "artifacts". Almost like a bit of light clipping. Just messing around with it today it sounds the best to me with the comp control around 12 to 1 o'clock. There's a pretty effective tone stack with a pretty wide sweep from bass to treble, so you can dial in as much color as you want. One of the mod's is a EQ bypass toggle which bypasses the tone stack completely. I've found that it's very transparent with the EQ defeated and prefer this setting.
There's also an option for a second toggle for a high cut. But I left it out of the build. I didn't think I'd ever need a high cut on an optical compressor and I think it was the right call. It overlaps what the tone knob can already do.
There's more compression range than the other optical compressors I've build (Delegate, Constrictor, and Cornish OC-1). Up till now it's been a toss up which I like better, the OC-1 or the Constrictor. Now there's a 3rd contender in the mix of my choices for an optical compressor. Really really like it a lot so far.
This was also my first MadBeans build and the workflow threw me off a bit. It was a tight build and the pads seemed like they were super close to each other. I spent a bit of extra time cleaning and examining my work after populating the board under a magnifier because I could swear I left some solder bridges. But it all turned out ok and fired right up first time.
I made a couple of substitutions, there were some oddball resistor values and I just used the next closest I had on hand. Doesn't seem to have effected it. Otherwise followed the BOM.
Last edited:
