Compressor Clone Project

[Steve Mavronis]

For my next DIY pedal project I'm researching classic compressor pedals to base a clone on to give me added note sustain with my playing. The two vintage pedals I'm studying now are the 70's MXR Dyna Comp and the Ross Compressor. They have very similar circuit design with the Ross adding extra filtering and is a favorite classic compressor pedal to clone. The Ross 'narrow box' is my architype but the MXR is also very popular, so maybe I'll base my clone on a hybrid of the two? At the moment I can't find any gut shots of the Ross narrow box version but I suspect it looks very similar if not a direct clone of the old MXR circuit board.

I'll be going through the same process and build techniques used to reverse engineer a clone as with my Neo-Classic 741 Overdrive project, but hopefully this time it won't take me 5 months to research and develop! My tentative name for this DIY clone project is 'Neo-Classic Dyno Soar' with appropriately themed graphic design artwork. But since these are my first thoughts for a compressor pedal clone everything is subject to change. Your thoughts are welcome.

 

[some dude]

The way I understand it is that the MXR has more top end chime and rolls off a bit of bottom end while the Ross is a bit duller but has more bottom end.

 

[nmarevic]

Both?
http://www.tonepad.com/getFile.asp?id=24

 

[Steve Mavronis]

For some reason my Vista computer can't display the Tonepad site and I get an ASP error message instead. I have a few schematics from various sites but I don't want to use any existing user made PCB layouts because I'll make one of my own instead. I know it's backwards from the way most people do it but it worked out great studying how parts were interconnected on the old gray 250 overdrive when I reverse engineered my own layout based from that PCB. But this time if I can't get good reference pictures of the Ross Compressor I may have no choice but to use schematics. I do have front and back pictures of the old 70's MXR circuit board though, but want the changes that Ross added on. I only have component side pictures of the Ross and need to see the other side for the trace connections in between. Then I can base my new layout design on what I learn from that.