Tools, Tones and Toys for Guitarists
One of mictester’s circuits from FSB, very transparent compared to Dynacomp or Squeezer’s so definitely one to try for the compressor fans. Mictester’s description: The original idea was to replace the old fashioned way of getting compression – connecting an LDR across the volume control of your amplifier, then illuminating it with an incandescent lamp … Read more
Info from Demeter about the original: “The Compulator was born after I solved an engineering problem of biasing an optical unit with only a single 9V battery. I had always loved the sound of optical compressors and designed and manufactured tube units in the pro audio market for a number of years. I wanted to … Read more
Another request. This was a bit of a pain to make 1590B friendly, especially with my aversion to standing resistors, but I just about managed it. Had to do a couple of things I don’t like to do, like the grey external link and the angled component avoiding link (make sure that one is insulated), … Read more
This one is verified. Level and Sustain are both 10K And with external Sustain control:
You don’t come across this very often, but this is a fairly original compressor! At 22 columns wide it will fit in a 1590B, but file the sides down as much as possible for extra space, and maybe use some electricians tape on either side of the box for insulation as a precaution. I tried … Read more
Not much has been said about the circuit from the creator who just simply links to the schematic on his website, but here is a great descriptions from Floris: The Flatline compressor is basically a non-inverting amplifier around a opamp. The optocoupler together with the gain resistors determine the total gain of the circuit. The … Read more
This one needs an 18V supply, so use a dedicated supply, two batteries, or you could build up the 9V to 18V converter that I’ve posted here. Best results may be obtained if you heat shrink the LED and LDR together or at least wrap a bit of electricians tape round them both.
Righty-O here we go. We all have our own tastes, opinions, favorites, and go-to’s when it comes to gear. Whether it be an amp or pedal, guitar or set of pickups. This is what makes gear so special and what gives us all our own unique tonal voices. To me there is no such thing … Read more