NPD: Cali76 compressor

[jubal81]

I haven't bought a pedal in years and the demos for the 'Urei 1176 in a stomp box' made this thing sound irresistible and now it's in my house.


I've played with it for about 4 hours and have to declare: Hype deserved. It's huge and expensive, but the tone and performance is amazing.


Early observations:
It's HUGE! I included a pic with a 1590b for scale. I mean, I knew it was big, but I didn't know it was going to be BIIIGG.


The input 'buffer' has quite a bit of gain and lots of color. It came in buffered bypass mode and it was immediately obvious this wasn't my normal bypass tone. I moved the jumpers to go to true bypass since I need to test other pedals.


It's not completely silent like my favorite optical compressor, but it's close - not anything like OTA comp noise.


Headroom isn't as high as I would like, even running it at 18V. Being able to adjust the input gain is nice. When I was taking the gut shot pic I moved the gain reduction jumper over one space, so I'll see what that does.


It's got a blue 3PDT in there, which I don't like at all. I won't be turning it off much, so what's the difference, right?


I think I counted 34 transistors - 4 SMD. Lots of BC547 and that top row of 2n7000 is all for the LED light show. Build quality is excellent - all metal film resistors and Kemet caps.


SO, you gonna trace that thing, buddy?
Duh, of course - when I can do without it long enough to take it apart ...
There are some test points around the board and you can see it's a monster, so I'm not promising any results.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Jason... your review seems kind of ironical.

You start by saying that you enjoy the pedal and the hype is deserved... then you follow that up with 5-6 complaints about it 

Just an observation but... as long as you are happy... Money well spent brother!! 

[Leevibe]

That looks/sounds seriously impressive. Serial number on the front is cool. Looking forward to hearing more about this as you move past the honeymoon.

[midwayfair]

Looks great.

Pretty sure you don't need to do a bunch of work tracing it, though -- the Urei 1176 schematic is pretty easy to find.

[jubal81]

Looks great.

Pretty sure you don't need to do a bunch of work tracing it, though -- the Urei 1176 schematic is pretty easy to find.

Aha. Exactly. I'm curious where it deviates!

Jason... your review seems kind of ironical.

You start by saying that you enjoy the pedal and the hype is deserved... then you follow that up with 5-6 complaints about it 

Just an observation but... as long as you are happy... Money well spent brother!! 

Gotta try to evaluate it from a builder's perspective and get my criticisms out there. World didn't need another fanboi post on this thing. It really is a whole different animal from anything I've bought, built or breadboarded.

[GrindCustoms]

Pretty sure that set at 20:1 you just need to think of what you want to play and the notes explode in your amp!

Always nice to have the review of a DIYer on products that are hyped. It confirms that i want one. hahaha.

[lincolnic]

Looks great.

Pretty sure you don't need to do a bunch of work tracing it, though -- the Urei 1176 schematic is pretty easy to find.

Aha. Exactly. I'm curious where it deviates!

Let us know what you learn - I'd be really curious to find out how it's different from an actual 1176 myself.

[jubal81]

Sigh. The switch pop is really terrible. I really don't want to mod this thing, but it's bad enough that I think something has to be done.

[juansolo]

When I see a really nice looking effect like that and see a 3PDT in there, it makes me sad.

[GrindCustoms]

Sigh. The switch pop is really terrible. I really don't want to mod this thing, but it's bad enough that I think something has to be done.

Oh yeah! That's sad.

Have you sent an email to OriginFX about it?

[midwayfair]

Sigh. The switch pop is really terrible. I really don't want to mod this thing, but it's bad enough that I think something has to be done.

You could leave the switch wires intact and replace the whole 3PDT with an optotron. If you ever sell it, just solder the wires back in.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Sigh. The switch pop is really terrible. I really don't want to mod this thing, but it's bad enough that I think something has to be done.

Is the POP heard in the audio? OR, is it just the mechanical pop that is driving you nuts?

[jubal81]

You could leave the switch wires intact and replace the whole 3PDT with an optotron. If you ever sell it, just solder the wires back in.

Good call, I think that might be in my future.


@G_Lackey: It's in the audio signal. Builds up over time and after playing for a while gets load as balls.

[jubal81]

OK, I have to take back what I said about this pedal being a popper. There was an issue with the buffer/booster at the beginning of my chain. After some experimenting I got it worked out and the Cali76 is a silent switcher. 

[eldanko]

I actually picked up one of these things a few months ago. I really didn't want to like it - particularly because of its size and the amount of board real estate required - but it really is that good. One of those pedals where you'd blissfully forget that it was even on until you turned it off and realized just how much it was improving things. I'm really bad at describing it other than that everything is simply more pleasing to the ear when it's on.

Try it on acoustic as well. It's killer.

It's earned a spot on at least one of the boards I'm putting together for an upcoming tour: