Homemade Compressor

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ibanezrocks

ibanezrocks

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I'm currently building a compressor pedal for guitar, an Orange Squeezer, that I got the schematic for online, and I have now completed breadboarding it to test if the schematic is right before I build a board for it.

Only problem is I've never actually used a compressor before so I'm not sure exactly what it should sound like. Right now it's giving me a noticeable distortion, that surprisingly responds to my playing very well (picking harder gives more distortion), but it is a bad sounding distortion. I've played it through both my tube amp and solidstate amp and it does the same thing, it adds distortion to the clean channel, but for the overdrive channel it just kills the sustain instantly. So my question is what is the compressor supposed to sound like and does anyone have any idea what could be wrong with mine?
 
it should be making your loud stuff quieter and your quiet stuff louder... generally speaking, of course.
 
shiatzu said:
it should be making your loud stuff quieter and your quiet stuff louder... generally speaking, of course.
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yeah I know that much, but should it be adding any distortion? and does the squished sustainless sound come from too much sensitivity or not enough?
 
ibanezrocks said:
yeah I know that much, but should it be adding any distortion? and does the squished sustainless sound come from too much sensitivity or not enough?
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Distortion is from flattening the wave. My MXR SuperCOMP makes one hell of a blues distortion pedal.
 
yeah, it's probably going to distort a little when it's "quieting" the sound (depending on how you have it set up).. but you should have hella sustain when it "loudens" your trailing sustain.

most odd, i wish i knew more and could help you further.

heh... "loudens"
 
It can distort if the attack is set too fast. It really depends but below ~15ms you might get distortion with a very full bassy sound. I got distortion with an ES-335, neck pickup with tone < 2. Its an extremely full sound. Other than that no, it should not distort. I assume you have a hard-knee compressor. Oh and no, it does not technically make quieter sounds louder, that's done by a post-compression gain amplifier. But the combined effect makes it seem so.
 
DunderXIII said:
It can distort if the attack is set too fast. It really depends but below ~15ms you might get distortion with a very full bassy sound. I got distortion with an ES-335, neck pickup with tone < 2. Its an extremely full sound. Other than that no, it should not distort. I assume you have a hard-knee compressor. Oh and no, it does not technically make quieter sounds louder, that's done by a post-compression gain amplifier. But the combined effect makes it seem so.
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Well, when you set the sensistivity/threshold to grab everything, that will flatten the wave and distortion is brought about from extreme compression.

But you are definately right about the 'not making quieter louder' part. That is what the 'output' knob is for. after it squashes the wave it boosts the overall signal.
 
These compressors are pretty nasty, but in the best possible sense of the word. I've built a few as well, and really like them on guitar. I believe Mark Knopfler (sp?) used some of these on his guitar during the dire straits stuff (and the 2nd position on his strat). They should cause some distortion, but only when you've got it cranked. What I've noticed is that when you (I say you and mean anyone that doesn't have the skills or machinery to make something the same way each and everytime) build something by hand, its always going to be different than the mass produced one. I've made a few pedals numerous times for buddys of mine, and they're all slightly different. Might be due to wire length, compactness (nor largeness) of the board, arrangement of pieces, etc... Lastly, your sustain shouldn't be killed, if anything it will "squeeze" your sound until it the string stops sustaining.
Rory
 
Outlaws said:
Distortion is from flattening the wave. My MXR SuperCOMP makes one hell of a blues distortion pedal.
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Without changing the thread, have you ever done a side by side of a Boss CS2? I have been interested in an MXR for a long time but never tried one?
Clive
 
it might help a bit for me to understand if i saw the schematic your using
 
shiatzu said:
thus why i used the "generally speaking" clause...
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Don't worry ;-) I simply brought up the point because he's making the compressor himself. So it's important to know that the distortion comes from either the compression part or the amp gain part. But most probably the compression part.
 
Clive Hugh said:
Without changing the thread, have you ever done a side by side of a Boss CS2? I have been interested in an MXR for a long time but never tried one?
Clive
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Nope. Sorry.
 
Outlaws said:
Well, when you set the sensistivity/threshold to grab everything, that will flatten the wave and distortion is brought about from extreme compression.
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Well actually it's the passing from non-compressed to compressed (the dB level going in and out of the threshold) that causes the distortion. That's because an increasing sin-wave will hit the threshold and then instantly be brought down in level, hence the flattening. And yes high compression can distort for the reason you brought up ;-) It flattens a lot more than soft compression.

If everything is below the threshold all the time then everything will be subject to the compression ratio, hence it's going to lower all the sound by the ratio so it won't cause distortion. If you have a ratio of 4:1 for instance, all the sound will be four times quieter. But if you bring that up you'll hear quite a lot of the noise floor. If that's fed in an amp, well it may feel distorted ;-)
 
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