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Compressor Mods

Started by phatt, December 23, 2010, 09:24:55 AM

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J M Fahey


phatt

Hi chaps,,,
head over here>  http://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2086.

I like what *mictester* has to say re these comp circuits.

The trick seems to be use the  LM3080 in the FB of another circuit.

Much like the Morly circuits,, look for those on page 2 links kindly posted by
*Tonetweaker*.  (I don't thjink you need to sign in as it's a link?)
I tend to think there is little chance of getting a *Low noise version* while working with 9Volts and it seems that the LM3080 was not intended to pass serious audio anyway so it may turn out to be a no brainer.

I have one LM3080 chip and I've made a discrete version of the CA3094.
(suprised myself ,,, it worked first go :lmao:)
Now between those two I will at some stage try to replicate the famous Moog Lab series compressor circuit which of course needs a split supply.

Sadly a lot happening at the moment and these things are labour intesive so it will be a while.
I'll be back,,, Phil

phatt

Quote from: DJPhil on February 17, 2011, 07:29:18 PM
Quote from: J M Fahey on February 17, 2011, 06:30:02 PM
Looks good, but I was dismayed when asked for LM3080's.
Looks like they are not made any more; NOS omes command from $15 to $30 each !!!!!!!!!!!!!  :duh :loco
Which is the modern replacement? (there must be some, although the ones I found so far were miniature SOIC and the like)
I poked around a bit and it seems there's not many OTAs made anymore. You might consider the Japan Radio Corporation's version of the LM13700 (Mouser link and datasheet). It's a dual, but it's only a dollar (here in the US anyhow). At that price you could leave the second half of the chip idle and still win out. I haven't done a detailed peek at the specs, but the original 13700 was used in synths, compressors, and LFOs for phasers for many years.
JRC has saved my bacon a few times, as they make more than a few older chips that aren't really easy to find. I'm a big fan of their LM386 clone (NJM386) as it comes in DIP, SOIC, and SIL (!).
Hope that helps. :)

Edit: Fixed a typo

Best I can make out is the *LM13700* might be a better idea anyway.

So far I've not been able to improve over the basic CS2 type copmpressors.
My ED Compressor is only just useable.

What may suprise those who've not had much to do with compressors it does alter things in a subtle way.
i.e. your Volume control on the guitar won't work quite the same while effect is on.

As you turn down the comp just keeps raising the gain up higher and higher until the last few notchs where it starts to shut off sharply.
By then the gain is so high the dreaded hiss will likely be quite evident.

I'm at a point where I'm starting to think it's all getting to complicated and I maybe better served by utilizing other drive circuits to make the sustain longer.

The only reason I got interested was because it extended the sustain of the OD sound.
As I have no use for clean Compressor type sustain then I might be better served by simply implimenting another OD circuit.
But we will see,,, oh all the things to ponder,, drives one round the twist at times :loco
Phil.

tarahall

Quote from: phatt on February 07, 2011, 08:04:14 AM
I finally got a working schematic.
Bear in mind this is all on the BBoard and still siffting through some ideas but this at least will work as shown.
It was Glitching or clamping hard off in a cyclic LFO kind of way but added R7 (1m2) seemed to sort the random hickup problem.

I know this was a long time ago Phil, but I found this pic of an SS EH blackfinger. Your R15 1.5m looks like it was a 2.2m on the EH pcb. and R5 & R6 could possibly be the 390k & 680k that are on the pcb but not found on the blackfinger schematic where they are marked as 120k but no 120k's are visible on the pic.

If it's of any interest I do have some 3080's. I could always post you a couple (I'm up near macedon), are you down in gippsland or still in nambour?

phatt

Yes it was a long time ago but I gave up on the compressor circuits as most of the circuits I messed around with never really got the sound I wanted. So thanks for the kind offer but not needed now. :tu:

For a while I'd given up on comp circuits but then that clever chap mictester at FSB posted his RSC (really simple compressor) circuit only using a dual opamp and a couple of LEDs.

I've learned enough about electronics to recognize which circuits have merit, You also pickup that some members are very talented people and worth testing there ideas.
Well I'm glad I followed my nose because Mictester's RSC circuit is just so simple and does exactly what I've always thought was possible. :dbtu: :dbtu: :dbtu:

There may well be better comp circuits around but this is all I needed.
The black finger circuit like a lot of others that use LM3080 the parts count is often high and IME a fair bit of trimming to get them to work well. :duh

While the RSC circuit is dead simple, requires no special parts no trimming needed, then add that it's also DEAD QUITE,,, it's a no brainer. The hardest part is making the LDR and LED package.

I've built 3 so far and one was was for me, incorporated into a 3 in 1 unit consisting of the comp, OD and cab sim with a simple passive boost at the output. I posted this whole circuit a while back so rather than repeating it all it's here;
https://www.ssguitar.com/index.php?topic=3923.msg30915#msg30915

Oh yes,,  I was in Nambour Qld but moved to Bairnsdale Vic,, long story.
Basically the music was great, lots of open mic gigs in East Gippsland, meet some great people but it's just far too cold and I'm an outside kinda bloke so I came back to the Sunshine Coast so I'm in Morayfield ~40 Khm's north of Brisbane.
I just looked up Macedon,, ouch mate that's probably even colder than East Gippsland,, you Victorians are obviously a tough bunch. Ice on the window is hard enough for me and if I never see Snow in my whole life I've missed nothing. I likes me sunshine a lot higher in the sky in winter. <3)
Phil.

tarahall

Quote from: phatt on August 16, 2017, 08:29:47 AM
For a while I'd given up on comp circuits but then that clever chap mictester at FSB posted his RSC (really simple compressor) circuit only using a dual opamp and a couple of LEDs.

The black finger circuit like a lot of others that use LM3080 the parts count is often high.

While the RSC circuit is dead simple, The hardest part is making the LDR and LED package.

Oh yes,,  I was in Nambour Qld but moved to Bairnsdale Vic,, long story.
Basically the music was great, lots of open mic gigs in East Gippsland, meet some great people but it's just far too cold and I'm an outside kinda bloke so I came back to the Sunshine Coast so I'm in Morayfield ~40 Khm's north of Brisbane.
I just looked up Macedon,, ouch mate that's probably even colder than East Gippsland,, you Victorians are obviously a tough bunch. Ice on the window is hard enough for me and if I never see Snow in my whole life I've missed nothing. I likes me sunshine a lot higher in the sky in winter. <3)
Phil.

I must bboard that RSC up - standard 5mm green LEDs I think you said. The high parts count is not so much of an issue in lieu of my research into comp ideas. I noticed that you used LEDs as a switchable option in your LNC version of the ROSS. I thought of trying that whole CV section from Q1,2,3 & 4 in the LNC as the CV section for the 3080 in your slackfinger circuit. At the moment I'm really just compiling ideas.

I lived up at Noosa in the mid 70's - we played up there for a couple of years. Barry still lives in Yandina and he and I still keep in contact regularly. One of my old schoolmates lives at Mooloola and the band's ex roadie is down near Caloundra. It used to be a great place until they Sufferers Parasited it.

Gavan


phatt

Yes standard 5mm Green LED's (wired back to back) hard up against the LDR inserted into a short length of black shrink tube. The LED's I had on hand were water clear green but the frosted ones work the same. I have no doubt many types will work as long as they are not those high brightness units.
I filed the tiny flange at the base flat so they could sit together tight and parallel then a dab of super glue. A small black plastic plug or some black foam holds them in and keeps light out. see pic attached :tu:

Well small world, I used to frequent an open mic gig at Yandina (old Bowls club house on the main street) about 7 years ago. I was told it had run for many years but it's folded now. Your mate Barry likely remembers it?
I agree the Sun coast is not the same now.
Phil.

tarahall

Quote from: phatt on August 19, 2017, 04:51:16 AM
Well small world, I used to frequent an open mic gig at Yandina (old Bowls club house on the main street) about 7 years ago. I was told it had run for many years but it's folded now. Your mate Barry likely remembers it?

Yes Phil. Barry vaguely remembers that there was an OM night but he never went to it.

As a matter of interest (to me at any rate) how did you find the noise floor in your Slackfinger circuit and how useful was the compression factor in it. I notice that the EH Blackfinger and the Morley Tel-Ray VCO pedal use similar implementations of the CA3080 in the FB network of an IC stage to achieve their comp setup as indicated by mictester as the preferred way of utilizing the OTA.

I never got a chance to use those 2 pedals live. I used to use an MXR Dynacomp many many years ago (back in the 70's). After using it on an album session at TCS in Melbourne I hated the sound of it when I listened to the playback and stopped using it after that. However as I have a few of these chips I thought I would experiment with them especially after playing with Rod Elliots Proj 27 and adapting it to use loudthuds JFET bender idea. I was impressed with the results.

Cheers Gavan

tarahall

Quote from: phatt on August 19, 2017, 04:51:16 AM
Yes standard 5mm Green LED's (wired back to back) hard up against the LDR inserted into a short length of black shrink tube. The LED's I had on hand were water clear green but the frosted ones work the same.
Phil.

I haven't been able to see mictesters circuit, so did he use a vactrol and did you use your green leds with ldr instead of the vactrol.
thnx mate.

phatt

#24
Hi Gavin,
          Re CA3080,, I'll roughly quote Mictester's comments and help from FSB feedback and comments about compressors in general.

IF you use the CA3080 directly in the signal path like Boss CS2 and many others then you have to put up with the noise.

The better way is like the Morley, Telray and some other rare ones, where the signal does not pass directly through the CA3080.

If you want a really good CLEAN Comp then hard to go past the Boss CS3 which uses  the "THAT" chip. wacky name but that is what it's called.

I had a Boss CS2 and a CS3 and a Marshall ED compressor as well as one of my ideas on a bread board all lined up and switching between them all the Boss CS3 was the Clear winner at low noise at high sustain levels.

It was around that point I found comments by Mictester who put me onto those other circuits. But by this time I'd lost interest in pursuing Comp circuits as none of them could deliver the combination of compression with distortion.
I then went into running a small power chip into a light bulb and re-amplifiying the result which worked ok but a lot of circuit for no real benefit.
Then I BBoarded the RSC and that worked. So yeah I'm happy with what I've got so end of story for me,, heck I do actually want to play the god damned guitar lol.

If you want the best the CA3080 can do then look at the Compressor circuit from the Lab series L5 amplifier. From what I've read and been told by people that know that Amplifier it can do the comp as well as distortion. BUT that's a lot more work than Mic's RSC. (hint)

There is a posting here somewhere on the L5 circuit but I can't find it right now

In answer to the Vactrols Q
No Mictester's circuit worked with green LED's and an LDR. Some may have tried the Vactrols but I doubt it would improve the result. I built all mine with the picture shown ,, 2 green LEDs and the LDR came from Jaycar Cat Number RD3485. You can build the LED LDR setup for less that $5  I doubt a Vactrol would be that cheap ;)

The only problem you may have with the RSC is if the input signal is too big and has too much bass it may fart out a bit,, but heck that is exactly what many $$$ Famous $$$ Valve amps do if you wind up the volume too far. Go figure 8|

If that is an issue then lower the input cap value and maybe raise the 220k series resistor to 330k~470k.
Cheers Phil.

ps; Mictester was there when the first Tube screamer was built,,,worked in the same factory,, I figure he knows his circuits  :dbtu:

phatt

Here is the Really Cheap Compressor circuit as posted by Mictester at FSB
The circuit inverts the signal so I used a TL074, adding a simple input buffer and the 4th part to flip the phase back.

I know some might think I'm picky but it's disconcerting when you stomp on a pedal and it flips the phase as the ears hear the phase flip as well as the effect which plays tricks on the interpretation of the actual effect. :grr
On stage it would never be noticed but makes it hard to define the change when you are A/B testing circuits. :duh

I've found that buffer stages are in all the high end gear and for good reason so I tend to use them a lot in my builds as you never know what you may end up plugging into.
Phil.

tarahall

Quote from: phatt on August 30, 2017, 08:47:33 AM
Here is the Really Cheap Compressor circuit as posted by Mictester at FSB

Thanks Phil,

I have looked at most of these circuits on this forum and I feel grateful that others within it have done an amazing amount of work and research into ss guitar preamp. I don't really use guitar pedals much. I have a BOSS RE-20 reverb unit and a BOSS CE-20 chorus unit which both run in their own separate aux send and returns which I built into my amps.

I guess I should explain my interest in the CA3080 and compressor circuits in general. I'm not really interested in compressors for compression sake itself though. I have been impressed with the JFET bender idea of "Loudthuds" after patching it into Rod Elliot's Project 27 preamp. I'm more interested in the research into the use of that chip as per "Mictesters" spiel on its use to control the gain in the FB network of an IC.

First a little background:

Back in the Tinbeerwah Hall days with Barry & the Rockets I was using a VOX AC-30 Top Boost. When we moved into playing the Maroochy Pub I swapped it for a Blackface Super Reverb as I wanted a brighter edge with less mid-range hump than I was getting with the VOX. When I eventually moved back to Melbourne in 76, for the next 8 years or so used a Mk 1 Mesa Boogie up til about 85 when I started to use my original 2SK117 FET based Roland Cube 60 (original model - even the terminals are Wire-Wrap) which I bought as a practice amp. I replaced that horrible Roland speaker with a Celestion and it virtually fixed the whole sound of the amp in one fell swoop. I took it to use on a couple of small bar gigs and I've been using it (sometimes 2 for large concerts – I have another model of the same sort of vintage) ever since then after making some minor mods to the circuit. Thanks to Qantas dropping it last year on a flight to Brisbane to play the GO Show concerts it has not been working optimally (the bastards f..kd it) and owing to the number of times the PCB has been removed for minor mods & repairs I doubt that it will ever be the same as it was or as reliable.

The Cube was great using guitar straight in (no pedals) to the firstt stage (OD channel and driving the second stage (Normal channel). Responded similar to a Fender Deluxe or Super Reverb and cleaned up after backing off the guitar vol pot. It also had a similar punch factor like the AC30.
After 32 years of never having to replace a tube I figure it doesn't really owe me anything :) besides which I can always get backline hired for major concert gigs. But I still need a decent reliable amp.

However I'm now interested in moving into the SS IC-based guitar arena. I like Rod's guitar amp project and as part of my checking out of IC systems I've just built up the L5 preamp but I've yet to test it. I rather liked mictesters idea of using the CA3080 to control the gain in the FB network so I was curious as to how you found the EH Blackfinger circuit both noise & response-wise.

I would dearly love to get an IC based front end that responded similar to that Cube 60 or the Fender Deluxe & Super Reverbs with the punch of the AC30 to use with a decent power amp like Rod Elliots.

phatt

Opp's,, yeah sorry I now see that I did not answer your Q re the slackfinger Comp.

Well it's a long time back and I honestly can't recall all the circuits I tested but I can
remember that everything I tried seemed to need a lot of tweaking to get things to work.
As JM Fahey noted on page 1 of this post **getting a good control signal is a nightmare**. :duh :duh :loco :loco :grr :grr

The dreaded pumping as they call it is due to that control voltage and with CA3080 in the signal path Hiss is unavoidable.

I also had a *Moen compressor* for a while which was quiet, (due to no CA3080) it was an LDR/LED setup but still the control was not great and it pumped too much and was to aggressive on the

signal. I ended up slipping a shim of plain white paper between the LED and the LDR (can't do that if you use a Vactrol) which helped to back off the aggressive behavior.
As I don't own a scope and sig gen and, and, and all the other fancy gear I can only go on what I hear coming out the speaker. At my age I'm not about to start up a teck repair workshop,, I'm just a guitar player with a reasonable grasp of the workings of amps and associated electronics.

As to your wanting a good amplifier,, you could just build another Cube 60.
Or keep going with "Loudthuds" Fet idea? :tu:

My observation after many years of messing around with electronics,,, There is no right way to get the sound you want as there are so many ways that may well achieve the same outcome,, or close to it. Just find one that works for you.

Like you I've always hated pedals but I've ended up with my main rig being an old Laney amp (A keyboard amp in fact,  :lmao:) which is about as basic an amp as you can get.

The power section of most guitar amps is a world away from a valve power stage and although you can tweak a SS Pwr stage I doubt it will ever respond the same way as a Valve unit. I believe you will find some of JM Fahey's SS Amps use output transformers. (He runs his own manufacturing of top rate gear)
There is much debate about the benefit of using *Defined output Z* on SS pwr stages,, some rave about it while others not so much. I messed about with some of those ideas but could not find any real benefit. Peavey uses some clever SAt circuitry but all the Peavey amps I've used don't impress me.

Your comments about the sound you want do seem a bit contradictory as those amps are very different.   xP

But if you want the punch of an AC30 just use a cab sim circuit (it's built into my pedals, I could not compete on some stages without it. With the help of my tone control setup, cab sim and Compressor I can dial up country pickin clean with a nice edgy rattle and two stomps away I can do a ZZtop rip off.
I also have a builtin *Level shift* button on the master volume of the pedal board output which is way better than stomping on another dirt pedal as you often sound worse as most alter the tone shape as well as more distortion and everything turns to mud.

My advice to anyone wanting to build a great guitar sound is *Limit Your Bandwidth*
The problem with a lot of modern rigs is Waaay too much bandwidth.
you noted above that changing the speaker in the Cube amp worked wonders to an average amp.

I once swapped a really fancy speaker in a Trademark 60 for a $10 2nd Hand old Etone and the owner could not believe the night and day difference in tone and usability of the amp. That original speaker had extended bandwidth which turns OD into harsh crap and makes it sound like a cheap SS Amp. :-X

Rod's ESP amp is fine but for what you want you will need more than just the ESP preamp tone control to get the sound to cut through.

Distortion is not that hard to achieve but for any serious OD,, TONE SHAPING is CRITICAL for a convincing result.
Hope I've covered most of you questions,, Phil.

J M Fahey

 :dbtu: :dbtu: :dbtu: :dbtu: :dbtu: :dbtu:

tarahall

Quote from: phatt on September 01, 2017, 09:36:09 AM
As to your wanting a good amplifier,, you could just build another Cube 60.
Or keep going with "Loudthuds" Fet idea?

I have given some thought to just cloning the Cube's PCB but I did like what the JFET bender sounded like when patched into Rod Elliots IC based guitar preamp.

Thanks for all your thoughts & ideas Phil plus the benefit of your research into the electronics of ss guitar.

Cheers