Non madbean engineer's thumb

[jtn191]

Built it on vero, pretty happy with this one once I got the kinks out. Anybody mod theirs to get more volume?

[wolfingsworth]

I love the knob choice/layout! This circuit is really interesting to me. How's it sound?
P.S. I would be remiss if I didn't prod you for a gutshot

[jtn191]

Thanks, I like it...more transparent than my beringer but not as much compression. Two things I'd change are more volume and limit the range (minimums) of the attack/release pots so there aren't any glitches.

I'll record a demo today; been grooving to Niles Rodgers stuff on the new Daft Punk album. I got a sweet new mic pre but my amp/speaker leave something to be desired

[midwayfair]

Anybody mod theirs to get more volume?

Not really a way to do that in this design. If you don't let it trigger the envelope, it's got a massive amount of gain, but anything over the threshold is going to turn on the OTA chip and compress. The OTA chip is is the same feedback loop as the dry path, so turning up the gain just blends in the compressed signal from the other side of the op amp. The other half of the op amp is used to gain up the signal to make it louder (feedforward, remember) and help the signal get over the threshold. And when the gain (comp pot) is turned up all the way, the signal will never get louder than the original input signal, because it is at an infinite ratio. If you prevent the compression and gain it up, you WILL get distortion, the really bad kind (remember OOTAs really have very little headroom, part of the reason those red LEDs are there). The only thing left to do is put a small boost stage in series after the volume pot.

Edit: if your behringer has more compression, you might have to change the settings. The ET can do hard, infinite ratio limiting. It's got more compression than any Ross design.

[jtn191]

The only thing left to do is put a small boost stage in series after the volume pot.

yeah I think something like that would go well with this circuit. It may just be me, but every pedal should have the ability to make it LOUDER 

[nzCdog]

I love the knob choice/layout!

^this... Looks great

[jtn191]

demo as promised, excuse the bad playing
1st part settings:
ratio: max
volume: max
attack: min
threshold: max
release: min

2nd part:
bright switch on
ratio: max
volume: max
attack: min
threshold: max
release: max

all clips were normalized to even out volume deficiencies
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/jeff-n/engineers-thumb-compressor[/soundcloud]