I finished up my Delegate Compressor (Boneyard Edition), based on the Earthquaker Devices The Warden. Here's Chuck's Delegate (Warden) Upgrades thread where he describes the changes made to the circuit.
The build itself was unremarkable, everything went together and appears to work correctly since the first power-up. I did use my buffered electrical bypass module for bypass switching. Perhaps the most exciting part of the build was using these Mushroom Head Momentary Switches that I learned about from @jubal81. If the specs are to be believed, they are substantially more robust than the momentary switches we commonly see used. The common ones, such as these are rated for 50k mechanical cycles and 6k electrical cycles. Whereas these "mushroom head" switches appear to be clones of these Apiele momentary switches which are rated for 1 million mechanical cycles and 200k electrical cycles. Even if the specs are exaggerated, they are nice because the "mushroom" makes a nice foot-friendly stomping surface; and they have screw terminals for quick and easy field replacement if they turn out to not be so robust. The closest comparison are these Lehle Momentary Switches, but I'm not ready to spend $20 for my switches!
For the enclosure, I recycled the grim reaper graphic I used for my Hybrid Fuzz Driver Deluxe. I used Dishwasher Safe Mod Podge to apply a Sunnyscopa film-free laser decal, as described here. This was on a Tayda Chrome Green enclosure. I'm not sure if it's the infamously fragile Tayda Chrome finish or the Dishwasher Safe Mod Podge, but some time after I drilled the holes, tiny cracks appeared on the enclosure face, coming out from the pot holes. I'm fairly certainly those did not happen during the drilling, I think they appeared while the enclosure sat idle waiting on the circuit to be built.
As for the effect itself... I think I'm only just now starting to "get" compressors. I've been using my Median (Wampler Ego 76) fairly regularly since I built it. I like to think of it as "an overdrive for my clean channel". What I find I'm liking is a slow attack (so the initial picking dynamics aren't lost), and a slow release for increased sustain. I like using the blend so the compressed sound doesn't completely take over, and that allows me to bump up the compression fairly high without the sound getting too "squished". At least that's how I've been running the Median. I've been trying to dial in the Delegate similarly, and I'm not sure if I've achieved that exactly yet. To me, the Delegate does generally feel "cleaner" than the Median - by that I mean it seems to color the sound less. With the sustain cranked, I was getting a tiny bit of dirt (which could have been the larger charge-pump based signal overdriving the next device in my chain? I need to test it in isolation).
Anyway, I'm glad I built it and look forward to spending more time with it!
The build itself was unremarkable, everything went together and appears to work correctly since the first power-up. I did use my buffered electrical bypass module for bypass switching. Perhaps the most exciting part of the build was using these Mushroom Head Momentary Switches that I learned about from @jubal81. If the specs are to be believed, they are substantially more robust than the momentary switches we commonly see used. The common ones, such as these are rated for 50k mechanical cycles and 6k electrical cycles. Whereas these "mushroom head" switches appear to be clones of these Apiele momentary switches which are rated for 1 million mechanical cycles and 200k electrical cycles. Even if the specs are exaggerated, they are nice because the "mushroom" makes a nice foot-friendly stomping surface; and they have screw terminals for quick and easy field replacement if they turn out to not be so robust. The closest comparison are these Lehle Momentary Switches, but I'm not ready to spend $20 for my switches!
For the enclosure, I recycled the grim reaper graphic I used for my Hybrid Fuzz Driver Deluxe. I used Dishwasher Safe Mod Podge to apply a Sunnyscopa film-free laser decal, as described here. This was on a Tayda Chrome Green enclosure. I'm not sure if it's the infamously fragile Tayda Chrome finish or the Dishwasher Safe Mod Podge, but some time after I drilled the holes, tiny cracks appeared on the enclosure face, coming out from the pot holes. I'm fairly certainly those did not happen during the drilling, I think they appeared while the enclosure sat idle waiting on the circuit to be built.
As for the effect itself... I think I'm only just now starting to "get" compressors. I've been using my Median (Wampler Ego 76) fairly regularly since I built it. I like to think of it as "an overdrive for my clean channel". What I find I'm liking is a slow attack (so the initial picking dynamics aren't lost), and a slow release for increased sustain. I like using the blend so the compressed sound doesn't completely take over, and that allows me to bump up the compression fairly high without the sound getting too "squished". At least that's how I've been running the Median. I've been trying to dial in the Delegate similarly, and I'm not sure if I've achieved that exactly yet. To me, the Delegate does generally feel "cleaner" than the Median - by that I mean it seems to color the sound less. With the sustain cranked, I was getting a tiny bit of dirt (which could have been the larger charge-pump based signal overdriving the next device in my chain? I need to test it in isolation).
Anyway, I'm glad I built it and look forward to spending more time with it!
