April releases available: two compressors, one distortion

[madbean]

This month we have the Bearhug, Monocle and TrashCompactor.

- Everyone here knows the Bearhug. Jon was kind enough to offer it as a regular project on mbp so much thanks to him!

- The Monocle is The Guv'nor in a 1590B. A very meaty distortion with TMB controls.

- The TrashCompactor in an mbp original. It uses a THAT4305 VCA for the signal compression. I don't know of any DIY project that uses this approach. There might be commercial guitar pedals that do, but I am not aware. Anyway, it sounds awesome and will squish you up like a 300 pound pug. The 4305 is a very tiny SMD so I am also offering it pre-soldered with a breakout board. The chips themselves are around $6 and the pre-soldered option is only $8 so I recommend it if you want to save the hassle of trying to solder it yourself.

I have demos to catch up on from the last release so tomorrow I'm going to shoot some quick 1 minuters for a few different recent projects. I'll be sure to include the Trash Compactor.

[jimilee]

Nice


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[matmosphere]

The Bearhug is so great! Might need to build another one. Though, I fear this means 1776 is never coming back, which dashes my dreams of a new version of the multiplex.

Might need to build the trash compactor too.

If you’re on a comp kick and thinking of doing another small board as a giveaway maybe you should do Mictester’s Really Cheap Compressor. Built one on a whim a while back and it is shockingly good on my twelve string electric.

[harryklippton]

If you’re on a comp kick and thinking of doing another small board as a giveaway maybe you should do Mictester’s Really Cheap Compressor. Built one on a whim a while back and it is shockingly good on my twelve string electric.

Interest piqued

[midwayfair]

Hey Brian.

If people need to sub the JFET, the import thing is that the drain->source resistance is low (with no voltage applied at the gate) -- you want something between 200-400R ideally, but the J201 is all the way up at 1K, and if you look at the resistor it's in parallel with, you'll see that can only has a 2.7:1 ratio, whereas something around 300 would give you a 9:1. I tend to look for 350, IIRC. I sorted them a long time ago but it's been so long since I built one.

The subs here will all be lower gain things (3819) as well as near-subs like the 5952 and BF245, all accounting for pin orientation of course.

[selfdestroyer]

My father still uses the Bearhug I built him years ago and loves it.. Glad to see its going to accessible again.

[madbean]

Hey Brian.

If people need to sub the JFET, the import thing is that the drain->source resistance is low (with no voltage applied at the gate) -- you want something between 200-400R ideally, but the J201 is all the way up at 1K, and if you look at the resistor it's in parallel with, you'll see that can only has a 2.7:1 ratio, whereas something around 300 would give you a 9:1. I tend to look for 350, IIRC. I sorted them a long time ago but it's been so long since I built one.

The subs here will all be lower gain things (3819) as well as near-subs like the 5952 and BF245, all accounting for pin orientation of course.

Makes perfect sense, thanks Jon. Luckily, the 2n5457 is available so I don't think it will be much trouble for anyone to get one. And, the SMD JFET shortage has continued onward for a while now.