This is a library of perfboard and single-sided PCB effect layouts for guitar and bass. I'm not an electrical engineer by any stretch of the imagination, just a DIY'er who likes drawing layouts. It is meant for the hobbyist (so commercial use of any of these layout is not allowed without permission) and as a way to give back to the online DIY community.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Walrus Audio Deep Six Compressor

Apparently it's going to be a compressor week. It came to my attention that my original schematic and layout for the Deep Six had a few errors. And since I want to build this one myself and my dislike of off board wiring, I laid this out for board mounted pots. It should be a pretty comfortable fit in a 1590BB, but if you're unlike me and don't mind playing with hookup wire, you could probably fit it in a 125B. Essentially, this is a modded Ross Compressor/DynaComp based off the BYOC 5-Knob Compressor and with a charge pump. I know a lot of you like to do charge pumps differently, so I've left that off the board so you can pick your preferred charge pump daughter board. And if you want to just run it at 9v instead of 18, that totally works as well.




And here's the updated schematic for references:

36 comments:

  1. is it verified?
    i would but it would take too much time for my to do it

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  2. how is the 2k trim used? would you explain please?

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  3. that ratio it's a blend? the 2k trim it's a threshold right?

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  4. Hi! What is the right way to install and wire an LED in case it's going to be used with both 9v and 18v? I know there should be connected through a CLR resistor of some value, calculated by max working current of given resistor, but it depends on supply voltage. I can't figure out how.

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    1. I hadn't given it much thought before. I'd probably just use a 10k resistor or do some breadboarding

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    2. I am currently building using this layout. I've got plastic jack sockets which do not make contact with enclosure and I didn't think about grounding before started. What is the best place to ground both signal in and out sockets?

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    3. I've got some like that. What I do is connect all the grounds together, typically to one of the jacks, then run a wire from there to the back of one of the pots. That will ground the aluminum enclosure as well.

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    4. so that would be some sort of "star" grounding?

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    5. In this particular build where did you connect your power socket ground?

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    6. I have a problem with my build. I guess it works but I hear a high frequency noise all the time. Sort of a very high and thin whistle mixed with the sound. I have tried both 9v and 18v power supply and with 18v the whistle noise just becomes louder. Please, would you help me to fix this. I have no idea why this happens. I only guess that the problem is not coming from anywhere outside.

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    7. Try adding a low value capacitor from the voltage rail to ground (100n or so). See if that filters out the noise.

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    8. no it doen't help. I think there's some sort of parasitic oscillation at few kiloherz within the scheme. The frequency of that noise gets a bit higher when SUSTAIN knob is turned at maximum. I have recorded the sound of it to determine the frequency looking at spectrogram. The noise is approx 11.5 - 12 kHz. I can't check it now with 18v because the charge pump has died eventually. I huess the max1044 ic was fake or defected. Anyway the high frequency sound remains with 9v power supply.

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    9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. What exactly were the errors in the original schematic and layout? I'd love to build a 6110 version of this thing. Thanks!

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    1. They weren't errors so much as it was more of the BYOC Compressor than the Deep Six (they're pretty close, but not quite the same). The other layout is verified though if you want to build it.

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  6. I made it, it sounds great. I used other transistors but I compared with my original deep six and it sounds extremely similar. Only diference I noticed was the volume pot sounds a little low than the original but cheked my charge pump and it has 15v instead 18v so that could be the problem. Is an excelent compressor

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  7. I can confirm 2n5457 works in place of the 2n5484.

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  8. Someone could help me, I am building and I have doubts about what capacitors 1uf can be used for tantalum since there is little space?

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    1. The 1µF caps in the layout are box film caps you can get off Tayda and other suppliers.

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  9. What is the difference if you run it from 9 V instead of 15 (or 18)?

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    1. There will be more headroom with a higher voltage supply. It's really just a matter of personal preference.

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  10. Just finished my assembly from this schematic. It works really well, but the volume is pretty low compared to clean guitar signal - boosting the signal post-effect does the job but also rises noise floor. Any idea how to make it a bit louder? I'm running it at 9V. Oh, and I used BF245 instead of 2N5457 - maybe that's the source of this issue?

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    1. For future reference - while BF245 may be a viable replacement for 2n5457 in some cases, it's the cause of lower volume for this assembly. Just swapped it, and it outputs proper volume ;)

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  11. Anyone knows how to adjust the trimmer? pedal works though, but on certain trimpot setting i get some distortion

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    1. It's meant to be set in the middle, then adjust if necessary to get rid of any distortion.

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  12. hi, in this design it is possible to add the v3 tone control potentiometer?
    regards

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    1. Yes, replace the 15k resistor with a 7,5k with a potentiometer in series. The BYOC uses A100K for this but try to experiment.

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  13. What kind of filter does C13, C12, and R26 make? And how do you calculate the cutoff frequency?

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  14. What would the pot ends be linked to, schematics-wise? Also which end of the resistor does the pot go on?

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  15. You should do an updated version of this with a tone stack!

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  16. Build it, with the aditional Bass control V3. excelent pedal! thanks for the lay-out !

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