Ovnilab reviewed a few DIY compressors: Afterlife, Engineer's Thumb, and Bearhug

[midwayfair]

Afterlife (this was his favorite!):
http://www.ovnilab.com/reviews/after.shtml

Bearhug:
http://www.ovnilab.com/reviews/bearhug.shtml

Engineer's Thumb:
http://www.ovnilab.com/reviews/thumb.shtml

[Haberdasher]

cool, thanks for posting jon

i might try that threshold mod for the afterlife

fyi there is an unwanted "=" at the tail end of the thumb link

[gtr2]

Cool!

[jtn191]

cool! I've been nerdily waiting for those reviews.
I'm guessing by "sound quality" on the ET he means full & even frequency response?

Speaking of the "tic" I think I've experienced the same thing. When measuring attack times, I sent signal through the comp and the transients seemed to be exaggerated

[thesameage]

I was just about to post these. I pm'd him on the talkbass board to ask if I should build the ET or AL for bass and he highly rec'd the Afterlife. Interesting to hear his "long" explanation.

[midwayfair]

Speaking of the "tic" I think I've experienced the same thing. When measuring attack times, I sent signal through the comp and the transients seemed to be exaggerated

That is kind of weird. It's only when it first turns on. I wonder what's going on there. Maybe the level of compression is such that it's the "real" note and the attack just isn't completely immediate.

[lincolnic]

Speaking of the "tic" I think I've experienced the same thing. When measuring attack times, I sent signal through the comp and the transients seemed to be exaggerated

That is kind of weird. It's only when it first turns on. I wonder what's going on there. Maybe the level of compression is such that it's the "real" note and the attack just isn't completely immediate.

This looks to me like the compressor is set with a slow attack time - slow enough that the compressor doesn't start working until after the transients occur, so that only the sustain is getting compressed. This will sound like the transients are being exaggerated, but in reality it's just compressing everything that follows them.

[jtn191]

It was set from fastest (4ms) to slowest as you move left to right. The flat part of the wave is where the signal is being compressed, the slope from transient to compressed is attack time

[lincolnic]

It was set from fastest (4ms) to slowest as you move left to right. The flat part of the wave is where the signal is being compressed, the slope from transient to compressed is attack time

Guess my theory's out, then!

[midwayfair]

It was set from fastest (4ms) to slowest as you move left to right. The flat part of the wave is where the signal is being compressed, the slope from transient to compressed is attack time

Guess we have to make it shorter ... 4mS is really fast, but still audible.