Is there an easy way to increase a Ross Compressor's volume?

[auden100]

Just finished my second pedal build. Sounds just as it should. I was just wondering, now that it's finished, if there would be any way to pump up the volume a tad. At least so it doesn't produce any noticeable loss in overall volume.

http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/ross.php

I've read many of the threads about how this is just part of how the Ross Comp works, and that any changes to its sound would involve either reducing the amount of compression or introducing some of the original signal into the final mix, but I wanted to make sure that there was concensus that a simple level boost wasn't possible with the circuit as is. Apologies if this has been amply covered, and I've missed it.

Currently my best idea is to place a fixed volume treble booster at the end to bump up volume with a bit of high end (compensating for the apparent treble loss), but stuffing more into my already-packed 125B enclosure isn't going to be easy. I'm hoping I'd be able to do it without any degradation of the tone and noise level, and looking for any simpler altenative.

btw, I've tried the treble response mods listed on the Fuzz Central page, and have not been able to get anything I was looking for.

[brett]

Hi
just add a booster at the input.  3x to 10x will be plenty.  My choices would be a JFET buffer/booster (J201, Rd=6.8k, Rs=2.4k) or a simple BJT booster (see output stage of the Big Muff Pi).
There are others listed on the AMZ site too.
cheers

[Mark Hammer]

1) They ARE loud, so if yours isn't then something is wrong.

2) Pushing the input harder with a booster will just exaggerate the gain reduction and produce compression at the slightest whisper.  Not what you want.

3) The Transistor immediately following the 3080 serves as both the output driver AND the phase splitter that feeds the rectifier circuit.  As such, it is not going to be configurable for any additional gain (again, I don't think the pedal needs any more gain).  You would likely need to add somethingbetween the .05uf cap on the output and the output pot.

[auden100]

Thanks, gentlemen.

Guess I'll have to poke around for a problem in the pedal then. 

If I find the problem, I'll post it here.

[auden100]

So I've spent some time staring at my circuit board. Didn't find an apparent mistakes, but I'll keep looking. I've been digging through the search pages, and I've found several threads that all relate to this same problem, though I have no way of knowing if they're the same cause:

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=60628.0
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=7510.0
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=79246.msg660259
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=4817.0

Apparently, no one found an answer that suited them well enough, or they've decided not to post it. Looking on other forums, I've found some other match-ups, but again, with no fixes. If any of these threads' parents want to pick up where they left off, and spread some knowledge, I'd be grateful.

Just to be clear, I get no boost in volume with this pedal, except when the sustain is maxed, the volume is maxed, and the Attack is set to zero resistance. This produces overdrive as well as a boost, but that's the only setting with over unity volume.

I checked my voltages, and they all seemed okay, except that the first 5088 had slightly different voltages than those listed on the fuzz central page. The B voltage on Q1 looked a little low. I'm not sure at this time what might be causing that. I'll poke around more in the morning.

[Mark Hammer]

1) The recovery (attack) resistance should NOT be zero.  You always want some resistance in there to smudge the little blips in amplitude envelope arising from an imperfect rectifier (and precious few stompbox rectifiers will be "perfect").  The distortion you hear is that ultra-fast recovery in action.

2) The circuit works by subtracting gain, which requires having gain to start with.  If you want to use it as a clean booster, you will need to introduce some gain (for subtracting) to begin with.  So don't expect to turn the compression down all the way, and get a hot output with the volume set to less than max.  At minimum compression, no gain is applied because there is no need/request to subtract gain. 

So my take on your problem is that you're expecting the pedal to do something it was not designed to do.  A bit of recovery resistance, a bit of shift i expectations, and you'll be in good shape.

[auden100]

I guess I misunderstood your prior post about it being loud.

Indeed, I had no idea what it would sound like before I built it. Now that it's done, I'm wondering what could I do better now or next time.

The Tonemender looks like a good addition to compensate for what's lost with the compressor. Or, if I can fit it in the enclosure, a chopped down version with just some extra volume, and a bit of low end filtering placed before the comp's volume pot seems like it would work. Just need to make sure it's pretty clean sounding.
Tonemender: http://www.runoffgroove.com/tonemender.html

[auden100]

Oh, and thanks again for the info/advice.