dawson
Well-known member
So, compression..
Compression's been a difficult one for me to understand. My first introduction was a pawn-shop Dyna Comp that confused me more than anything- the only real use I found for it was to run it before my $25 envelope filter, but once I'd built a competent envelope, I had no more use for it.
All the time through the confusion, there's all this internet pedal hype surrounding all of these vintage & boutique compressors- I knew I had to be missing something, so when Aion released their pair of Dinosaural PCB's, I picked one up along with the Tube Bender. I figured if I played through the legendary Dinosaural OTC-201 Opticompressor circuit and was still confused, I'd just call it quits with the effect altogether and stop thinking about it.
Reminded about the Convex by some compression-related forum-chatter, I finally built the darn thing and it's basically the dawn of a new era..
This circuit can actually do the things I was told compressors can do! Adding sustain to a clean tone- lifting subtle dynamics and smoothing out unwanted racket- the Opticompressor can do it all! Total game-changer on both guitar and bass. Since this is the first competent compressor I've used, I really can't compare it to other circuits, other than saying my particular Dyna Comp unit is garbage..
Anyhow here it is:
The faceplate was designed in Photoshop and etched with ferric chloride. Rather than admitting to re-using an old design, I'll pretend that I planned this to be a Dinosaural series all along!
*Next Mouser order, I'll grab one of the switches that would allow toggling between buffered & true bypass. I run this directly after my tuner which also has a buffer, so I'm going to turn one of the buffers off.
*I made a neat little CLR/trimmer assembly on the 3PDT PCB but I'm going to have to knock it over because it just barely doesn't clear the inside of the box..
If you're wondering WTF is wrong with this guy who thinks it's okay to build upside-down pedals with no pants on, this thread may answer a question or two:
SCHMORG
Compression's been a difficult one for me to understand. My first introduction was a pawn-shop Dyna Comp that confused me more than anything- the only real use I found for it was to run it before my $25 envelope filter, but once I'd built a competent envelope, I had no more use for it.
All the time through the confusion, there's all this internet pedal hype surrounding all of these vintage & boutique compressors- I knew I had to be missing something, so when Aion released their pair of Dinosaural PCB's, I picked one up along with the Tube Bender. I figured if I played through the legendary Dinosaural OTC-201 Opticompressor circuit and was still confused, I'd just call it quits with the effect altogether and stop thinking about it.
Reminded about the Convex by some compression-related forum-chatter, I finally built the darn thing and it's basically the dawn of a new era..
This circuit can actually do the things I was told compressors can do! Adding sustain to a clean tone- lifting subtle dynamics and smoothing out unwanted racket- the Opticompressor can do it all! Total game-changer on both guitar and bass. Since this is the first competent compressor I've used, I really can't compare it to other circuits, other than saying my particular Dyna Comp unit is garbage..
Anyhow here it is:
The faceplate was designed in Photoshop and etched with ferric chloride. Rather than admitting to re-using an old design, I'll pretend that I planned this to be a Dinosaural series all along!
*Next Mouser order, I'll grab one of the switches that would allow toggling between buffered & true bypass. I run this directly after my tuner which also has a buffer, so I'm going to turn one of the buffers off.
*I made a neat little CLR/trimmer assembly on the 3PDT PCB but I'm going to have to knock it over because it just barely doesn't clear the inside of the box..
If you're wondering WTF is wrong with this guy who thinks it's okay to build upside-down pedals with no pants on, this thread may answer a question or two:
SCHMORG
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