Lightspeed Compressor

This pedal is based on the DOD 280 Optical Compressor. I used a few different parts from the normal pedal (higher gain opamps and transistors) so it smashes a little more, but based on the update below, I think that they were actually a great change!
Check out some more pictures here.
The knobs are (white) volume and (blue) bias, which is setting the compression threshold. Because it's using an LED/LDR as the compression control, this has what is called "optical memory," which a lot of people think makes compression sound a lot more natural than transistor based compression. The idea is that when the LED is on, and then turns off, it doesn't turn off instantaneously, it's like a light bulb whose glow slowly deteriorates after you turn it off (over a few seconds) until it is finally all the way off. While happening much faster than a light bulb, (much less than a second usually) it's still a lot slower than electricity through a transistor, so it's really smooth going from on to off.

The hardest part of this build was getting everything in the 1590B enclosure. These things are small. I'm going with 125B's from now on. It just makes life easier :-D

**UPDATE** Jon, one of the guys in my band, used this as a lead boost last weekend and said he absolutely loved it! He said it sustained brilliantly and sounds really great. He was really impressed at how much it evened out his solo's and allowed him to hold notes forever (he actually held a note for a whole verse just to see if he could during practice!).

Sound Samples coming Soon!

Once again, the schematic and PCB layout are used with permission from http://www.tonepad.com/