Build Your Own Clone 5 Knob Compressor

Easy to use, blend knob is particularly useful for getting the right mix of wet and dry signals. Build instructions are very clear but you need some soldering experience.

This pedal definitely affects your tone, cuts bass frequencies making it brighter and more twangy. Has its uses for funky chops and country pickin' but not a pedal that will suit all musical styles. Does give good sustain and is fairly quite but lacks versatility.

Not impressed at all with the BYOC 5 Knob, it's really not worth the hassle of building one of these when there are plenty of ready built compressors around that are just as good for similar money.

If you don't mind spending a bit more, check out the Carl Martin Compressor/Limiter, it's more than double the price of the BYOC but it's also more than double the quality - and you don't have to build it yourself!

5 knobs offer a lot of tweakability, but if you set them randomly, it would still sound pretty good - in other words, it's pretty hard to get a bad sound out of it.

I put this pedal first in the chain of effects. After that, at the moment, there are 3 fuzzes, one tube overdrive (Radial ToneBone Classic, highly recommended), envelope filter, delay, chorus, clean boost, etc etc. Any compressor will add some noise, for the record, but I don't sweat it. I use compression for the Andy Summers chime and sustain. I've owned 5 compressors including this one, and I didn't like any of the others (that I tried or bought) as much as this one. Obviously the idea is for a compressor to be transparent, and this one is.

Built it myself, so I trust it. Components are top-notch.

BYOC has a forum for tech support, etc. so if you're stuck, they'll help you.

I play rock. I own about 30 pedals. They can be expensive, but once I got started on the BYOC's, I got kinda hooked. Vintage pedals are neat to look at, but I would never buy any of them, mainly because the bypass circuits are so bad. BYOC's are true-bypass, "Boutique" quality, snob-approved, but affordable. Plus, building your own, if you have the time, means you get all the credit/blame. This one took me about 3 hours to put together (fuzzes will take much less time) and, like I said, it's the first pedal in my chain of command. I play on everything from Disney records and video games to performance-art space-punk freakouts, and a good compressor will obviously smooth out your sound when you need it. I can't recall all the other compressors I've owned and/or tried, but I know that among them were Boss, Demeter, and Visual Sound. I like this better, and I've reached a point of stasis with my pedalboard after all these years of weeding out the so-so pedals. BYOC's are really top-notch.