Compressor

I have a love hate relationship with compressors. I love the polish that they lend. I love using them as an overdrive. They sound super great with sparkly things like Strats and 12 strings, lively, "stringy". I like the soft squish of a jazzy solo, the audible pump of Roger McGuinn's Byrds work.

However, I hate digging into a chord and getting muh instead of krang! I hate my hot bridge pickup being quieter than my uninteresting middle pickup. Here is what I use and how I get around my limitations.

I have never really been a guitar knob tweaker but with a compressor I kind of have to be. In order to back off on the input of an Orange Squeezer, for example, you have to pick softer or closer to the bridge or back off on your guitar's volume. Differences in attack and volume of each pickup will necessitate adjusting one or more of these parameters after switching pickups. Consequently, I live in the middle position for a lot of my clean stuff. When I really want to dig in or hit a full cowboy chord, I pick almost right at the bridge to lower output and bass frequencies.

See? Simple.

My favorite compressor from a build perspective is the Orange Squeezer. It is the simplest of the schematics out there and it sounds great! Squishy and sweet. It makes a great overdrive and with the bias mounted externally gives you some control over the amount of squish. Mr. Squishy incorporates this and an input volume control for a very versatile Squeezer.

In a Box.

Rat

I have not been a Rat fan but I seem to be getting over that. When I was a kid in 1982, disappointed that I had spent all of my money on a Tube Screamer that did not get nearly as dirty as I had expected, the Rat would have certainly fit the bill.

Then, long after I sold that TS, I became enamored with that gritty sound that my brother calls half distorted. I've come to enjoy the BB Pre-Amp as the best of this club. And then I heard Chuck Prophet.

I was listening to the Focus on New Americana featured playlist on Google Listen Now. Up pops Chuck Prophet' Castro Halloween. I don't know from Chuck but the outro solo caught my ear so I started Googling. I did know that his #1 (if not only guitar) is an 80s Japanese made Squier Tele through Princeton or Deluxe Reverb amps. What I did not know was that his stomp of choice for soloing is the Rat. It has that open, gritty tone that I love. Rat + Tele. Who knew (besides Chuck).

I played my first gig with this Rat on Saturday. It was a little hot on top of my TS patch but it's sounded great, scratched that sonic itch. Mine has 3 clipping options, normal silicon diodes, JFET (BS107s as diodes) and LEDs. The LEDs light up when you play which is super fun. There is also a low gain setting.

Germanium FY-2

I am a fan of the silicon Shin Ei FY-2. The sonic range is anywhere from gnarly to raspy covering grim and cheesy as well. I build mine with a gain control and output boost as well as a tone control to dial back on the mid scoop. The Germanium model is different. It shares some Fuzz Face architecture.

Unlike the Fuzz Face, which I think of as creamy, the FY-2 is bright and fuzzy through most of the range of the fuzz control. There is some of that exploding character at the highest fuzz setting that I love. It does clean up with the volume backed off and retains retains that bright cutting character.

It excels at single notes. Chords however vibe slightly as with an octave fuzz. Slightly grotesque and dissonant.

My build with pretty non-polarized caps

The build is easy and straightforward and looks nice on the board with matching electrolytic capacitors and transistors.

My initial reaction to a low E through this device was Beck's E-Pro (which was likely a Silvertone through a Big Muff, but still).

Here are some sounds with a Road Worn Strat through a Valve Junior.