building ones own compressor

[skiz]

hey guys, really not sure where to post this.. so i thought id just throw it here.

One of my engineering buddies and I thought it would be a cool project to build our own piece of gear that we could try apply to my home recordings.

I want to build a compressor, but not really sure where to start researching as far as circuit design etc goes. Does any one have any advice on where i can start looking for general compressor circuit designs so i can research it and get more insight into what needs to be done?

thanks a lot

 

[iqi616]

try Google

 

[FALKEN]

I believe that iqi616's post far exceeded expectations. Because of this, I feel that he was really the winner here.

 

[mshilarious]

http://www.conditionedresponse.com/DIY/C5/index.html

 

[thexflamesxburn]

iqi616, i'm not sure when sarcasm became the reason for the success of this forum. Actually, i am pretty sure its the resourcefulness that it has to offer, not simply telling anyone that has a question to google it.

Actually, when you google many things on the topic of audio recording, this forum comes up quite often. Now if everyone on this board said to google something when they were looking for advice, direction, or answers, wouldn't that create an endless loop?

And we engineers all know what a loop is, don't we?

The reason I clicked on this topic was because I had never heard of someone building their own compressor, and thought it might be something i would be interested in. The answers to questions such as skiz's helps more than just him.

Just my two cents. Feel free to disagree, but I think that would be silly.

 

[dualflip]

It depends on the compressor you are trying to build, but let me tell you it wont be easy, wont be fast to build, and above all will not be cheap..., you may try to build some easy DIY comp but if you want something to put on a rack, and that sounds amazing, well thats another story..., i just finished 2 1176 LN compressors, and im currently making an LA-2. It's been like 8 months since i first started doing them, i spent a lot of time finding the pieces, etc.., and it wasnt cheap though....

 

[skiz]

i understand that it wont be easy or cheap etc and im really not expectiing amazing results but i thought it would be a cool project

thanks for the links to things etc

dualflip: did you come up with the circuit design your self? or did you buy it? or did you find it somewhere? if you did find it, where did you get it?

oh and i did try google. mainly got stuff on compressing audio to mp3 quality etc.

 

[dementedchord]

one source you haven't likely thought of is chip manufacturers themselves... they put out books listing all the product with ways to utilize them... refered to as data sheets (or books)... some get way outta hand and some are pretty easy... the problem often is designing the pc boards... so ya may want to look for some kits since it's your first attempt...