Band of Dans
Well-known member
- Build Rating
A bit late posting this, but figured I'd add another Median build report to the pile. This is the third compressor I've built, which is kind of odd because I don't really care about compressors that much?
As others here have said, this is a very nice circuit. It can do some light tone shaping/sweetening and is much easier to dial in a subtle but obvious (what does that even mean) amount of compression that almost has more of an impact on *feel* than sound that I just find very pleasant and satisfying. That's where my compressor opinions end, so I'd recommend checking smarter people's reviews for better tasting notes (MattG's and MichaelW's reports influenced me to buy this board in the first place).
For the build itself, I didn't do anything outrageous for the passives. As you can see below, it's kind of an unholy mish-mash, but I tried to use Wima/Nichicon/Rubycon caps wherever possible. I tested about 20 JFETs and picked the two that were closest to the specs in the build docs; I couldn't find anything that made a perfect match, but it seems these are close enough because everything works as expected. I splurged on the full-fat OP1678 treatment, using PPCB's handy TH adapters. Assembly was pretty straightforward: I soldered all the ICs and headers to the strip of adapters at the same time, only breaking them apart after everything was attached. Keeping the adapters together makes everything *much* easier to handle. You can also use blu-tack to keep headers aligned without worrying about things getting all melty.
Blue hammer tayda enclosure with a boring but functional label print (appropriate for a compressor IMO). Annoyed that the "Median 76" label is so close to the footswitch, but I'm really happy with how the knob dials turned out. Kinda silly, but they make it feel more "studio" to me, ha. @Brett 's knob graphics were *super* helpful for making sure my choice of knobs would fit correctly in the dial graphics
.
And that's it! Really happy with this one and would easily recommend it
As others here have said, this is a very nice circuit. It can do some light tone shaping/sweetening and is much easier to dial in a subtle but obvious (what does that even mean) amount of compression that almost has more of an impact on *feel* than sound that I just find very pleasant and satisfying. That's where my compressor opinions end, so I'd recommend checking smarter people's reviews for better tasting notes (MattG's and MichaelW's reports influenced me to buy this board in the first place).
For the build itself, I didn't do anything outrageous for the passives. As you can see below, it's kind of an unholy mish-mash, but I tried to use Wima/Nichicon/Rubycon caps wherever possible. I tested about 20 JFETs and picked the two that were closest to the specs in the build docs; I couldn't find anything that made a perfect match, but it seems these are close enough because everything works as expected. I splurged on the full-fat OP1678 treatment, using PPCB's handy TH adapters. Assembly was pretty straightforward: I soldered all the ICs and headers to the strip of adapters at the same time, only breaking them apart after everything was attached. Keeping the adapters together makes everything *much* easier to handle. You can also use blu-tack to keep headers aligned without worrying about things getting all melty.
Blue hammer tayda enclosure with a boring but functional label print (appropriate for a compressor IMO). Annoyed that the "Median 76" label is so close to the footswitch, but I'm really happy with how the knob dials turned out. Kinda silly, but they make it feel more "studio" to me, ha. @Brett 's knob graphics were *super* helpful for making sure my choice of knobs would fit correctly in the dial graphics
.
And that's it! Really happy with this one and would easily recommend it
