Orange Smoothie Compressor Build Guide

[midwayfair]

GGBB, would you (or others?) be interested in an Eagle PCB layout for this?

This could also lead to a shared OSH park project, making PCBs easily available and cheap.

We've worked something out. It's his project, however, he'll be the one to decide how it's distributed.

[tubegeek]

I'd be in for a couple, assuming they aren't going to cost a fortune and and an arm and a leg and a king's ransom.

[haveyouseenhim]

GGBB, would you (or others?) be interested in an Eagle PCB layout for this?

This could also lead to a shared OSH park project, making PCBs easily available and cheap.

We've worked something out. It's his project, however, he'll be the one to decide how it's distributed.

You know what would be awesome? A small daughter board that attaches with pin headers to the in, out, 9V, and ground that functions as a clean blend.

[GGBB]

You know what would be awesome? A small daughter board that attaches with pin headers to the in, out, 9V, and ground that functions as a clean blend.

I'll confess to ignorance up front, so can you help me understand the usefulness of a clean blend on a compressor?  Not that I've got a lot of exposure, but I can't remember ever seeing a clean blend on a compressor pedal.

[haveyouseenhim]

You know what would be awesome? A small daughter board that attaches with pin headers to the in, out, 9V, and ground that functions as a clean blend.

I'll confess to ignorance up front, so can you help me understand the usefulness of a clean blend on a compressor?  Not that I've got a lot of exposure, but I can't remember ever seeing a clean blend on a compressor pedal.

The wampler compressor has it. I have a buddy that is having me build the smoothie and he wanted a blend so I'm doing a little one on vero.

Honestly my ears are terrible at hearing compression. But from what I've heard it seems to be useful.

[midwayfair]

can you help me understand the usefulness of a clean blend on a compressor?  Not that I've got a lot of exposure, but I can't remember ever seeing a clean blend on a compressor pedal.

Some people like it because they get all the attack of the note even while the compressor is on, but the note still "sustains" longer because the parallel compression swells up to meet it.

One the Wampler and Barber compressors, it's actually useful, because it's an OTA compressor and those have an immediate attack, year-long decay, noise, and notable treble loss. You can't really make a Dynacomp "subtle," so this helps, and OTA compressors are one of the only times I don't think that parallel compression isn't just a gimmic (bass rigs are the other time it's useful, but then a lot of bassists want peak limiting, so parallel blend isn't useful in that situation).

The JHS has it on an orange squeezer, which I think it the most pointless thing ever ... the decay is short on the OS, the attack is a little longer than OTA (nothing like optical, though), and the effect isn't even that extreme to begin with. By the time the compressed/sustained note would have an effect, most guitars signals are well below the threshold and you won't get any benefit of compression. Plus part of the charm of the original OS is that "dip and swell" sound.

Personally, I think that a well-constructed compressor shouldn't ever need a dry blend. Threshold controls are important for this. Decay controls are useful. And a true ratio control, when possible, is also helpful. In this case, your compressor has control over every aspect of the envelope, so someone should be able to dial in every range of subtle to not subtle they could possibly want.

[GGBB]

Thanks Jon - very helpful explanation.

[Mark Hammer]

Most of the brightness in any picked/plucked string is at the very beginning, after which the string settles down and produces the fundamental, and some lower-order harmonics for a while.  If the onset of gain reduction is fast enough, the pick attack is severely downplayed and "underheard", such that the compression seems to dull the guitar's tone.

There are a few ways/strategies to address this:

1) boost the treble on the output of the compressor
2) use less compression
3) slow down the onset of gain-reduction so the pick attack passes unmodified
4) blend in a bit of the uncompressed sound, preferably just the mids and highs

#1 can result in more audible noise and breathing.  #2 diminishes the hiss/breathing but may not provide as much control over dynamics as wanted/needed.  #3 can be harder to do, and is often difficult to explain to novices.  #4 has less noise associated with it, is easier to explain, and easy to implement.

[Soup39]

jubal81 over at Madbean had developed a  stompswitch daughter board with blend pot build in called schoon toon.  they are out of stock but could work.

[haveyouseenhim]

[GGBB]

Very nice Mike!  That etch looks amazing.

[jimilee]

That's awesome, and one helluva orange smoothie

[upspoon12]

i know its several months in the future, but did anyone ever end up making some of these pcb's?

[GGBB]

The layout was finished recently, but we haven't had a chance to order boards for testing yet.  That should happen very soon.

[upspoon12]

Awesome! i'm looking forward to it

[upspoon12]

GGBB, would you (or others?) be interested in an Eagle PCB layout for this?

This could also lead to a shared OSH park project, making PCBs easily available and cheap.

We've worked something out. It's his project, however, he'll be the one to decide how it's distributed.

You know what would be awesome? A small daughter board that attaches with pin headers to the in, out, 9V, and ground that functions as a clean blend.

I know its been a while and i'm resurrecting an oldie, but i am in the process of ordering parts for the smoothie, I was wondering Mike, if that daughter board for the blend pot that you added was a circuit designed by you or if its available on the internet? Would any of the several blend circuits diagrams work?

Thanks!

[Cheshire]

Hi, all!
How do you think, will Smoothie be fine for bass?

[GGBB]

I have no experience to offer, but haveyouseenhim built one with an added blend control for a bassist (see above) - no word on how it was received. The orange squeezer does get used by bassists so the smoothie should work too.

[jimilee]

Hi, all!
How do you think, will Smoothie be fine for bass?

Yep, no worries.

[Cheshire]

Hi all!

This time I'm building Smoothie for myself (i.e. for guitar), and faced a trouble. After fixing all the assembly bugs (wrong holes, too much solder) I still cannot make it work.
I've omitted brightness and compression controls, replacing them with a trim pot and a 82K resistor, as it is recommended in the Guide.

The symptoms are:
1) only volume pot is definitely working, threshold pot doesn't make any change. Attack and sustain are usually quite subtle (as I know from my previous comp), so I don't wait any bright changes on them, but rotating threshold should change the overall output volume, as I understand.
2) Voltages like +1.5 - +1.7V at Q2 source are never reached. The maximum voltage reached in the extreme trim pot position is +1.4V

What was done:
1) I've checked out assembly bugs, track integrity, part polarity -> found several assembly troubles, no more found at the moment
2) I have 3 2N5457, so I've tried different combinations, no effect (except Q2 source voltage sometimes was +1.3V)
3) I have disconnected output jack from the scheme output and made a probe to check, whether there is signal where should be. I haven't found any inconsistencies, signal is available.

I feel like trying to break the wall with my own head: no ideas, what is wrong.

Could you please help me with some ideas, what else can I check?

P.S. jimilee, thanks for your response about bass! Sorry for my the "after-a-year" response. That bassist have reconsidered his desire to have a compressor, so I didn't return here for a long time...