This compressor captures the natural feel of your amp and speakers compressing as they are pushed.The PGC really shines in a live situation with a band where the heavier handed compressors, that sound good at home in a room, often sound thick and lifeless against other real instruments… … The PGC is already famous for its nearly transparent compression and dead quiet operation. You will also wonder if its on at all ~ until you turn it off to make sure and then turn it back on as quickly as possible.
How does this one work for bass? I have an Aguilar TLC on my board that I'd love to replace with a good homebuilt. Any other suggestions for good transparent bass compressor layouts is greatly appreciated. I built a Forest Green for my unc but didn't have a chance to try it on my bass rig.
ReplyDeleteIMO, both the forest green and the pale green are excellent with a bass.
ReplyDeleteAre they pretty similar? Which one would you recommend if I'm going to build only one?
DeleteIMO, it's a 50/50 toss up. they're both great. the forest green allows you to not effect the attack when in the sustain mode, whereas the pale green is a bit easier to dial in a good comp setting overall. I honestly don't know which one I prefer.
DeleteSo you're telling me to build both. OK OK if you're gonna twist my arm... :)
DeleteWould a regular green, or a "green water clear super bright" LED work better for this. 5mm or 3mm?
ReplyDeleteThanks
I used a diffused 3mm green and it worked well, but ended up using an nsl-32 from smallbear in mine:
Deletehttp://johnkvintageguitars.homestead.com/Effects/Compressors/BJFE/PGcomp-02.jpg
Worry more about the light dependent resistor. The brightness of the LED is far less important than the switching range (dark:light resistance) on an LDR. You can work out the total compression ratio based on that range. The LED just turns it on.
Delete+1
DeleteAwesome layout!
ReplyDeleteI am going to make this one... I have a 4 knob keeley that I am not too fond of and hopefully this one is a worthy replacement!
Build this one today and it works fine. I also don´t know which one to prefer, the pale or the forest green.... Thanks John!
ReplyDeletewhich NSL32, John? There are 3 of them listed, and I don't see any specs to compare.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.smallbearelec.com/servlet/Detail?no=356
ReplyDeleteI'm about to build one. I had a V3 Pale Green and I loved it but I feel like (from comparisons) that I would like a V1 with lighter compression even better. Do you think the photocoupler is the key to that? Can anyone recommend one that would result in less compression?
ReplyDeleteThanks
Just built this. Tone knob doesn't seem to do anything. I left posts 3 unconnected on both rows. I connected both posts 2 and ran them to ground. Posts 1 ran to the respective spots on the board. Did I do something wrong?
ReplyDeleteYes that's right. Is there no change at all?
DeleteI can't tell any difference. I'm trying to convince myself there's a tonal change but I'm not hearing it. Playing a Bass VI through a SS Fender bass amp in my office. Comp and Vol knobs workin great.
DeleteThe wife's untrained ear agrees with me.
DeleteWives are always right.
DeleteOr that's what mine tells me :o)
Check your other connection then that connect to the tone pot, and so the 22u cap and 2K2 from Tone B and the 5K6 and 100n from Tone A.
Will do!
DeleteAll those connections are solid. I may rip out this 'nsl32' that I ordered a batch of... They're labeled NSL7053 which makes me question its quality. I have a grab bag of photo resistors... What should I look for in light and dark resistances?
DeleteIf the compression is working fine then the vactrols are too so I wouldn't bother doing that yet. The tone control is a little side chain which should be a pretty simply part of the circuit. Are you sure the pot is ok?
DeleteI agree with IvIark. your vactrol is most likely fine
Deleteif it helps, here's the schematic that I drew it from:
http://johnkvintageguitars.homestead.com/Effects/Compressors/BJFE/PaleGreenschematic.png
you can see that the dual pot tone control has very simple wiring and you should be able to track it down pretty easily.
I'm just fishing for reasons to blame that vactrol rather than my assembly skills. :)
DeleteI'll test the A1 and B1 leads coming from the dual and if I see anything strange, I'll swap it out.
As I had the same issue building mine, I finally found this schematic
Deletehttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lFaW7baQFHY/TxgL2Kh3zLI/AAAAAAAAAoA/iH0mVjiMO84/s1600/FGCC.png
and tried the non optionnal version with a simple pot. As I never tried the real one, I can't tell if it's doing the same thing onto the sound but, at least, it does something you can hear!
Can I replace B20K dual pot with two single B20K pots? It's pretty hard to get where I live. Also, if I understand right, I can use either the NSL32 or a photo resistor and a green led? (I'm new to these optical things)
ReplyDeleteWould I have an issue if I used a 220Ω resistor in place of the 215Ω resistor in your layout?
ReplyDeletea 220 ohm will work fine.
ReplyDeletea couple of newb-ish questions: do i jumper lugs 2&3 on the comp pot? also which row is which on the dual pot (when looking at the bottom of the pot)?
ReplyDeleteNeed some help please. Can i use a NE5532 for NE5534?
ReplyDeleteNO! a 5532 is a dual opamp and a 5534 is a single opamp.
DeleteThanks a lot John, Please, do you have sugestions that works fine as subs?
DeleteI meant decent ones easy to find in a difficult country :)
Deletenot that i'm aware of. if I were you i'd just get some from ebay.
DeleteThe balance and compensation features of NE5534 are quite unique. There is one pin-to-pin equivalent that i know of, the NTE894. That is probably even harder to source. So ebay or tayda is the way to go.
Delete+m
Thank you John.
ReplyDeleteGreat pedal.
ReplyDeleteI'm using it as a enhancer. It makes the tone so SWEET.
I wish it had more volume, though.
Any suggestions to increase the volume?
I built this pedal and it works well. It is kind of sloppy as it was built when I was newer to building. Thank you for the build. Here is a picture of it.
ReplyDeletehttp://s1383.photobucket.com/user/denfox1/media/palegreencompressor_zps13c37408.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0
Built the circuit twice. Both have no sound when the circuit is on. I backtraced it against the schematics but found no errors or shorts. 9v and 5v are powering up fine at the op-amp. Any suggestions?
ReplyDeletefound out that it works (sort of). Extremely low output at the moment. Practice volume is 2 on my amp. If I crank it to 7 I can hear the guitar through the compressor. Volume knob works on the compressor, tone marginal change on the high end, min to max on the comp knob makes an equally marginal change. Output to ground matches the volume pot value, input to ground is in the meg range.
ReplyDeleteBuild this pedal today and it works. I've noticed that the volume increases so much if you turn the comp knob clockwise. Is this right? The compression increases too fast for my taste. At 9 o'clock there is a noticeable squish. Too much for my taste
ReplyDeleteHey All
ReplyDeleteDoes this compressor flip the phase of the signal? I'm going to try to add a clean blend to this circuit, and I'm not sure whether to use the SplitNBlend or the other Ross/Keeley- appropriate clean blend circuit.
Thanks!
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteFrom some reason, I am unable to get a clean tone from my circuit. Only a distorted. The more I turn a Comp pot up, the more it distorts (starting at 8 o’ clock). I have disconnected the C5 and R18, and C4, but the distorted tone was still there.
http://johnkvintageguitars.homestead.com/Effects/Compressors/BJFE/PaleGreenschematic.png
Any ideas what might be going on? Many thanks!
ozzy
See my response at the bottom of the comments! That should solve it.
DeleteCheers!
Why does it say "buy a kit" when at the link there is no Pale Green compressor kit?
ReplyDeleteI have the same problem as ozzy! Any ideas people?
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Martin
Solved it!
DeleteI just flipped the NSL32 over. +/- on the LED side was in the socket the wrong way around.
I have no signal passing through my NE5534P. I've traced it from the input to pin 3 and pin 6 to the output with an audio probe. It will pass a fairly weak signal if I jump 3 & 6. I also have 9v @ pin 7. I built an older layout with the 22u elec cap in front of comp 1, but it should still pass signal, right? Any suggestions would be appreciated. I rarely get this befuddled.
ReplyDeleteHey everyone! Awesome layout; a lot of parts but nicely spread and easy to construct.
ReplyDeleteAs stated a few years earlier by another builder, the tone knob really doesn't seem to do much if anything. Maybe if the amp is cranked? But not discernible.
Could someone who has the tone knob doing anything describe the aural effect?
Maybe it is my voltages on the NE5534? Pin 3 after the 1 Meg resistor is about 1.9 V... a pretty big voltage drop from the ~4.25 V of Vr.
Douglas Hernandez, if you are using the layout from the forum then you are not building the right thing. That layout has a few errors that are corrected on this page. Especially that 22u cap in front of comp 1.
hello my functional pedal but it has a slight distortion as an overdrive I used: Tl071, BC549Cs, LDR 1M dark and red led 5mm
ReplyDeleteshould the problem be the LDR? Would I use 500k dark instead of 1M?
The TL071 is a single opamp, the NE5534 is a dual opamp (2 opamps in the same case), so I’d start by replacing that and take it from there. I think the suggested LDR is 500k dark to, so I’d wire a 1M resistor in parallel with that to bring the LDR down to 500kohm.
DeleteHi, I'm having a little problem with the comp control, when I turn it all the way on the left I don't get any sound, after almost half way on the right start to pass signal, and it seems that there is no variation on the sound between half way and all the way up.
ReplyDeleteI tried to change the pot and the ldr but do the same every time, any solution? Thanks