BYOC 5 Knob Compressor

[trinian1]

Well, I built my first pedal kit this last weekend: the byoc 5 knobber. It took me a few hours (there's a lot to solder on that board, and I had never soldered before), and I was too excited to monkey with painting the enclosure, so I won't post a picture.

I have to say, this compressor is nice. It's dead quiet (you know, for a compressor) with the sustain set in the first third of the range. It can really squash, it has a ton of level and thus works well as a boost, and I like how the attack and ratio knobs can be used to dial in varying amounts of subtle compression. I like my compressor to be fairly subtle, because I don't like the loss of pick dynamics that usually happens when you start to crank up the sustain. The control over the sustain, attack, and ratio do help to avoid that to a degree. Overall, I'm super impressed with the pedal, and it wasn't that difficult to build. Fun times.

 

[Dawg76]

I recently posted a thread inquiring about compressors under $150 and mentioned the BYOC 5 knob. Didn't get much in the way of responses regarding the BYOC. Sounds like you like what you hear so far. Have you tried it with an OD pedal (or OD channel)?

 

[clydes001]

awesome man. Congrats on the work. It's fun to build stuff.

 

[DudeBro]

isn't the byoc stuff fun? plus they really sound great. cheers!

 

[tjs]

Can you get a nice jangly sound out of it with the tone knob? Looking for a versatile comp that can do the Byrds thing as well as more subtle effects. Would the BYOC be a good choice?

 

[guitbeef]

Well, I built my first pedal kit this last weekend: the byoc 5 knobber. It took me a few hours (there's a lot to solder on that board, and I had never soldered before), and I was too excited to monkey with painting the enclosure, so I won't post a picture.

I have to say, this compressor is nice. It's dead quiet (you know, for a compressor) with the sustain set in the first third of the range. It can really squash, it has a ton of level and thus works well as a boost, and I like how the attack and ratio knobs can be used to dial in varying amounts of subtle compression. I like my compressor to be fairly subtle, because I don't like the loss of pick dynamics that usually happens when you start to crank up the sustain. The control over the sustain, attack, and ratio do help to avoid that to a degree. Overall, I'm super impressed with the pedal, and it wasn't that difficult to build. Fun times.

That's good to hear, and thanks for posting your findings. Been thinking about building one myself- I have done a lot of DIY pedals, but never a comp.

Watch out- you might be hooked, and will find yourself building all kinds of stuff! That's a great thing, of course- I encourage anyone interested in this to jump right in. Very empowering, and it's a great learning experience, especially if you really delve in to understand how the circuits work.

Really, REALLY addicting for me to populate a PCB (or breadboard a circuit) and put it on my test jig and have it fire up successfully on the first attempt!

 

[B_of_H]

byoc stuff is as good as anything out there and in many cases arguably better.

the compressor is great imo (i have an older model)

 

[trinian1]

Can you get a nice jangly sound out of it with the tone knob? Looking for a versatile comp that can do the Byrds thing as well as more subtle effects. Would the BYOC be a good choice?

Yeah, the tone knob is actually a bass cut knob. I run a pretty bright rig already (a Reverend, a Strat, or an ASAT into a Goodsell Super 7/2), so I run the tone knob all the way counterclockwise as I'm not looking to shed any bass. But I would think you could get jangly without a problem. This is only my second compressor--I had a Dynacomp that has been dying on me (loud pops when switching on and off, and a bunch of intermittent background crackle), so I wanted to replace it.

I only briefly ran the comp in front of an overdrive. I just built it Saturday, and I used it at church on Sunday, but I haven't had a chance to play with it much since. I'm a teacher, and we just started second semester on Monday, so I've been pretty busy. After the 1st week or so here, things will settle down and I'll get a chance to dive into it a bit more.

 

[trinian1]

Really, REALLY addicting for me to populate a PCB (or breadboard a circuit) and put it on my test jig and have it fire up successfully on the first attempt!

Yeah, I had to wait until Sunday morning to test the pedal after finishing the build Saturday night because both of my speaker cabs were at church. The suspense was killing me. It fired up, though, first try. And yes, it will be very addicting. I already have 2 other kits to build (the OD2 and the GGG Reverb).

 

[tjs]

Yeah, the tone knob is actually a bass cut knob. I run a pretty bright rig already (a Reverend, a Strat, or an ASAT into a Goodsell Super 7/2), so I run the tone knob all the way counterclockwise as I'm not looking to shed any bass.

The idea is to use the tone (bass cut) knob in conjunction with the ratio (dry/wet blend) knob by cutting everything but the high frequencies from the compression circuit, then adding dry signal back in to fill out the sound and achieve the desired feel. The ratio should favor the dry side fairly heavily - think of it as blending a small amount of compressed highs into the mix with your dry signal. It's almost like boosting the highs with an EQ, but due to the compression the highs will ring out a little longer as the low and midrange frequencies experience their normal decay. This is what helps bring out that jangle as opposed to simply making everything bright.

Of course, this only works if the dry signal that is blended in comes from before the bass cut circuit, and I don't know if that is the case with this pedal. Otherwise, you're just blending a dry bass-cut signal in with the compressed bass-cut signal, which isn't nearly as useful.

 

[trinian1]

The idea is to use the tone (bass cut) knob in conjunction with the ratio (dry/wet blend) knob by cutting everything but the high frequencies from the compression circuit, then adding dry signal back in to fill out the sound and achieve the desired feel. The ratio should favor the dry side fairly heavily - think of it as blending a small amount of compressed highs into the mix with your dry signal. It's a subtle effect, almost like boosting the highs with an EQ, but due to the compression the highs will ring out a little longer as the low and midrange frequencies experience their normal decay.

Of course, this only works if the dry signal that is blended in comes from before the bass cut circuit, and I don't know if that is the case with this pedal. Otherwise, you're just blending in a dry bass-cut signal in with the compressed bass-cut signal, which isn't nearly as useful.

Right on. Good thought. I'll have to nose around the BYOC forum to find out if this is how it works or not. I would hope that the ratio would be mixing the totally dry signal. Or, does anyone else here know for sure?

 

[direwolf]

Nice boost. I also use it to lower the over-all volume for home practice.

Add a fishman pro-EQ to the BYOC and it sounds great running into a DRRI for accoustic guitar. Sounds way better than the accoustasonic jr amp I sold.

 

[ironpyro]

Right on. Good thought. I'll have to nose around the BYOC forum to find out if this is how it works or not. I would hope that the ratio would be mixing the totally dry signal. Or, does anyone else here know for sure?

The schematic is posted within the pdf instruction file. www.buildyourownclone.com/compinstructions.pdf

Only the compressed signal is affected by the passive bass cut. The dry signal stays unaffected. So TJS's scenario is exactly how it works.

 

[trinian1]

The schematic is posted within the pdf instruction file. www.buildyourownclone.com/compinstructions.pdf

Only the compressed signal is affected by the passive bass cut. The dry signal stays unaffected. So TJS's scenario is exactly how it works.

Thanks, Ironpyro. I'm still very much learning electronics, so I can't always make perfect sense out of the schematics, and this one is a bit more complex than some others. But I did get a chance to test it out, and TJS is definitely right. When the ratio knob is set all the way counterclockwise, the only control affecting the sound is the level control. It can be used as pretty much a straight boost this way, too. I'm liking it more and more.

 

[blackba]

Can you get a nice jangly sound out of it with the tone knob? Looking for a versatile comp that can do the Byrds thing as well as more subtle effects. Would the BYOC be a good choice?

Have you looked into the Janglebox, that should do exactly what you want?

I would love to see a side by side demo with the BYOC 5knob and a true Ross compressor, I bet they sound pretty close.

 

[trinian1]

Okay, so after spending a week with the pedal and using it a bit more, I have to say I really like it. The only other two compressors I had used before this were the Dynacomp and the compressor side of a Visual Sound Route 66. The BYOC is way more versatile; I can dial in just a hint of compression, some nice top end chimey compression, some real squeeze, or none at all and just use the level knob as a boost. It sounds fantastic. I use it more already than I had ever used a compressor before. Definitely worth the coin and the time to assemble. I understand now why some people like to always run a little compression. Great stuff.