MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Back to my compressor follies, I think it was @Bricksnbeatles that said I needed to build this one.
As one of the few Steely Dan fans on the forum I knew I needed to support my brother.....
.
Actually, the classic Orange Squeezer has made quite a few appearances on Steely Dan tunes over the years.
Most notably and probably most recognizably the guitar solo by Jay Graydon on the radio hit "Peg".
I remember being a teenager and just getting deep into the "Aja" album. It was a turning point for Steely Dan with super high production values and a lot more of their jazz roots coming through. One could argue that the title track could be considered "progressive" for it's time. One of the best drum performances I've ever heard on a studio album (Steve Gadd in his prime). But I digress.....
"Peg" would have been considered a "light, poppy" track of the heavier material on the album. It's essentially a blues with pantonal changes....which could describe a lot of Steely Dan songs. Anyway, I remember the first time I heard the solo to "Peg" and I was blown away by both the performance and the TONE.
I had a hard time wrapping my head around what he was playing both from a harmonic perspective as well as technique. And that wonderful smooth, sustaining, overdriven tone! It would be many years later that I came to understand that it was a compressor being used, and even more years later that I learned it was an original Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer. I remember as a kid seeing them advertised in the back of Guitar Player magazine, this odd little box that you plug into a guitar. I've seen a recent interview with Tim Pierce and Jay Graydon breaking down the solo to Peg and Jay mentioned the Squeezer was one of his studio secret weapons. As a busy session player and producer it was an important sound in his bag of tricks.
Fast forward to today's MichaelW's obsession with building compressors, the MBP Cupcake is @bean 's "pedal-ized" take on the Orange Squeezer.
From what I can tell he didn't do much to the original circuit other than making it a pedal.
Build was smooth and easy, I used a pair of MMBF5457's for the JFETs although 201's will work just as well.
I initially biased it by voltage to his recommended 1.7v but it didn't sound right, there wasn't a lot of compression. And this thing is supposed to be a SUPER squisher. So after plugging it in, I re-biased it by ear to the max compression and sustain. I didn't bother going back to measure what that was but chalk it up to variances with the JFET values.
If I were to do it over again, or maybe do a little surgery, I'd expose the Sustain trimmer (it's just a JFET Bias trimmer) and expose it as a knob.
It's a great sounding circuit and I can see applications for using it with more subtle levels of compression. You can't do that the way it is with the sustain trimmer inside. Once you set it, that's the amount of compression you get. The external knob only controls output. (And there's a LOT of output). With an external sustain knob this could be a very versatile boost pedal, with a little bit or a LOT of compression.
Anyway, I intend to do another demo of this compressor. I had a lot of fun stacking the TSO with the Cupcake and running into lower gain overdrives. Low gain but endless sustain, lots of fun!
Hmmmm....I just NOW noticed that I melted the output jack housing.....ugh.....that's going to bug me now........heh.
As one of the few Steely Dan fans on the forum I knew I needed to support my brother.....
.Actually, the classic Orange Squeezer has made quite a few appearances on Steely Dan tunes over the years.
Most notably and probably most recognizably the guitar solo by Jay Graydon on the radio hit "Peg".
I remember being a teenager and just getting deep into the "Aja" album. It was a turning point for Steely Dan with super high production values and a lot more of their jazz roots coming through. One could argue that the title track could be considered "progressive" for it's time. One of the best drum performances I've ever heard on a studio album (Steve Gadd in his prime). But I digress.....
"Peg" would have been considered a "light, poppy" track of the heavier material on the album. It's essentially a blues with pantonal changes....which could describe a lot of Steely Dan songs. Anyway, I remember the first time I heard the solo to "Peg" and I was blown away by both the performance and the TONE.
I had a hard time wrapping my head around what he was playing both from a harmonic perspective as well as technique. And that wonderful smooth, sustaining, overdriven tone! It would be many years later that I came to understand that it was a compressor being used, and even more years later that I learned it was an original Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer. I remember as a kid seeing them advertised in the back of Guitar Player magazine, this odd little box that you plug into a guitar. I've seen a recent interview with Tim Pierce and Jay Graydon breaking down the solo to Peg and Jay mentioned the Squeezer was one of his studio secret weapons. As a busy session player and producer it was an important sound in his bag of tricks.
Fast forward to today's MichaelW's obsession with building compressors, the MBP Cupcake is @bean 's "pedal-ized" take on the Orange Squeezer.
From what I can tell he didn't do much to the original circuit other than making it a pedal.
Build was smooth and easy, I used a pair of MMBF5457's for the JFETs although 201's will work just as well.
I initially biased it by voltage to his recommended 1.7v but it didn't sound right, there wasn't a lot of compression. And this thing is supposed to be a SUPER squisher. So after plugging it in, I re-biased it by ear to the max compression and sustain. I didn't bother going back to measure what that was but chalk it up to variances with the JFET values.
If I were to do it over again, or maybe do a little surgery, I'd expose the Sustain trimmer (it's just a JFET Bias trimmer) and expose it as a knob.
It's a great sounding circuit and I can see applications for using it with more subtle levels of compression. You can't do that the way it is with the sustain trimmer inside. Once you set it, that's the amount of compression you get. The external knob only controls output. (And there's a LOT of output). With an external sustain knob this could be a very versatile boost pedal, with a little bit or a LOT of compression.
Anyway, I intend to do another demo of this compressor. I had a lot of fun stacking the TSO with the Cupcake and running into lower gain overdrives. Low gain but endless sustain, lots of fun!
Hmmmm....I just NOW noticed that I melted the output jack housing.....ugh.....that's going to bug me now........heh.
