"best" DIY bass compressor?

[thesameage]

I'm getting back into pedal building and would like to make myself a bass compressor. I've been reading around a bit on this and other forums and like anything, everyone has a different opinion. The one piece of advice I keep picking up on, though, is to have an idea of what "kind" of compressor sound would be best for you.

So here, goes: I'm looking for more of a tone machine kind of compressor that tightens up the sound and makes me a little bit more pronounced in the mix while giving me some sustain. I've had the EBS multicomp and I feel like it gives me that tight sound that stands out in the mix, but doesn't quite have the sustain. I have a Ross for guitar which has a very nice sustain to it, but doesn't keep the low end frequencies.

Any advice based on that? I've found some Diamond clone schematics, but I would have to build that on vero and overall that looks like too ambitious of a project. So, def looking for something a little less complicated.

What do you think?

[jimilee]

Honestly, for bass, it depends on your guitar and the pickups and the amp. I've built an afterlife, byoc opticomp, rotten comp, pick droppers Ross 5knob comp, an engineers thumb, a bear hug and maybe a few others. My current comp of choice is a soul preacher from EHX. It's tight with a knee switch. Cleans up nice. I use dimarzio split p pups in one a couple of p basses and sd quarter pounders in a jazz bass through a hartke 3500 with a 4x10 and a 15. I ran an afterlife through a peavey tnt115 and it sounded fine in my music room. It really depends on your set up.

[thesameage]

I guess it will be some trial and error. I'm using a jazz type bass with Bill Lawrence single coils and a series/parallel switch through a sansamp pre/PA amp and a 4x10 and a 1x15.

Afterlife is certainly one of the easiest to build!

[jimilee]

Yeah it is. Sounds like a good place to start.