DEMO GOTA/Sheepy Love "Squishy" (Boss CS-2)

[MichaelW]

Build Rating

5.00 star(s)

So wrapping up the last of my compressor builds from the recent spate of compressors I've built.

This one was a surprise that I wasn't planning on, but my man @Guardians of the analog hooked me up with one of the boards that he and @szukalski cooked up recently documented in his build report.

I got the board in the mail yesterday and couldn't wait to build it.
As per Chris' build report, this is based on the Boss CS-2. Which is actually quite different from the Boss CS-3 project from MBP (The Oracle).

Both are excellent compressors but the CS-2 is OTA based with its roots firmly in the Ross/DynaComp family tree where the CS-3 is a VCA based compressor.
Between the two I think this project from @Guardians of the analog and @szukalski sounds better, is quiet and has more compression on tap.

It might be my favorite non-optical compressor. It sounds freaking awesome, very sweet compressor.

The downside is that it uses an obsolete OTA IC, the BA662 but you can get a discrete SMD clone of it from Synthcube.

The build itself went smoothly. @szukalski has definitely adopted some of the @PedalPCB DNA in his board layouts.

I was originally planning to socket the IC in case I screwed something up but with the socket plus the pin risers it would not have fit in a 1590B.
So I rolled the dice and soldered it directly into the board. Sigh of relief when it all fired up.

So I used another cool enclosure from StompboxParts. "Purple Fury Metallic" and I went with some purple aluminum knobs and a metal bezel for a classy look.








I recorded a demo of this pedal compared with the last few compressors that I've built that I haven't demo'd yet.
So in this demo is the MBP Kompromat (Keeley/Barber), the MBP Cupcake (Armstrong Orange Squeezer) and the AionFX Aurora (Ross/DynaComp built to DynaComp specs).

Also some of my experimentation with using dual compressors.

 

[steviejr92]

Beautiful build! Amazing work to both @Guardians of the analog and @szukalski!!!

 

[cooder]

Great build, great write up and demo! Will need to listen to that over good speakers later again a few times. Thanks for playing same/similar phrases and getting back to clean tone in between, makes the comparison defintely more clear on something hard to demo like these fellas!
Nice guitar too for sure, I always have been curious about those Eastman, had two or three briefly in my hand s and they were nicely done.

 

[fig]

What @cooder said Great stuff!

 

[music6000]

Cool Demo!
Need some info on the Guitar ie Model, upgrades ect.

 

[szukalski]

Looking at sounding great! I need to verify the SMD option (I think I finally have the traces right ). Then look at a dual compressor!

 

[MichaelW]

Cool Demo!
Need some info on the Guitar ie Model, upgrades ect.

It's an Eastman T185MX.
15" bout so a tad smaller than an ES335 or Eastman's own T385, T486, T59, T64 series.

It's not really semi hollow but rather a true hollow body with a bridge block. And the construction is more like Eastman's jazz box hollowbodies. Solid carved maple top, on a solid carved out mahogany body.

I'm convinced that Eastman introduced this line to compete with Collings as the design notes follow the Collings I-35 fairly closely.

Check out the specs:
Eastman T185MX
Collings I-35

The guitar came with Bare Knuckle Boot Camp Old Guard PAF's which I did not care for.
I put a set of Lollar Low Wind Imperials in it first. But they were too bright for me.
I currently have a set of Wolfetone Legends in it and it sounds perfect to me.

Collings uses their own Ivoroid knobs made in house that I think looks pretty cool. I wound up putting a set of Tone Ninja ivoroid knobs on mine to cop the same vibe.

Hmmm what else, oh yah VIP Vintage Taper 550k pots in the harness, my favorite Russian PIO caps (.015 neck, .033 bridge)
Faber Tone lok bridge, tailpiece, ABR1 conversion studs. It came with a Gotoh Nashville style Tunomatic that now lives on my Chibson Goldtop.

My personal experience with Eastman is a bit mixed. I've owned a number of their acoustics over the years and can say they quality has gone through the roof since they first came onto the scene with their hand carved jazz boxes.

But on the other hand, I briefly had a T59v, which is their relic'd 335 style guitar with a varnish finish. It was a beautiful guitar but I could not for the life of me get it to intonate correctly. I think the bridge was slightly mis-located on that guitar. So it got sent back.

I took another chance with this T185MX and it's been a gem right out of the box. The build quality is superb and some real high end touches like flammed maple binding on the whole guitar (no ivoroid).

Edit: These are the sellers pics when I bought it. Oddly enough I don't have a lot of pics of this guitar.

 

[Guardians of the analog]

Glad you like it so much Mike, I thought you'd dig it. It's a great pedal and Dave did a great job on it!