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15/05/2022
Great Kit
This kit is a 5 out of 5 in every category. Quality parts, great design, comprehensive instructions, all at an attractive price point. Instant mix bus glue. The unit sounds great and I couldn’t be happier. Highly recommended.
10/05/2022
Very musical compressor!
Just finished assembling. Very fun and easy to build. Very musical compressor, can easily go 10+ GR without pumping. Unless the most software emulations of the 1176's on the market, with added highs when compressing, this compressor actually smooth out the highs a bit, which I really love in this digital era.
20/02/2022
Incredible value and quality throughout
- Very high quality parts and components
- Extremely well packed and organized
- Excellent, detailed instructions
- Thoughtfully laid out and designed
- Fun to build if you have basic soldering skills
- Best price for this circuit
- Looks gorgeous!
As my recording and mixing skills have grown, I have become increasingly interested in outboard gear. I have a few pieces of 19" rack gear but I have wanted to get into 500 series for the space savings. The issue for me has been the astronomical cost for quality gear.
I have a good deal of experience building guitar effects pedals and amps so I was confident that I would do well building kits to fill my lunch box. After extensive searching I found Sound Skulptor and I was truly surprised to find this level of quality at a price that is realistic for me. The CP4500 really stood out to me as an almost too-good-to-be-true kit, so I took the plunge and bought it.
Shipping to the US was surprisingly fast and when I opened the box I was immediately impressed with the packaging. Everything was expertly sorted and perfectly fitted into the custom cut foam internal packaging. Small parts and components came sorted into zip lock baggies and larger pieces were well protected. There was not a single scratch on the faceplate, knobs or meter, and after laying out every part, there was absolutely nothing missing.
The PCBs are thick and of excellent quality. They are double sided and through-hole plated, and there were no discernible defects anywhere. The layout and space makes it very easy to solder. I never felt like I was at risk of a solder bridge or that the components were so close that I might melt the top of a cap etc. All of the IC sockets are the high quality mill-max style, which I greatly prefer. Resistors are 1% tolerance and they have nice thick leads. All box caps are WIMAs and all ceramic caps are MLCCs. There are NO poor quality passives in this kit. Everything is top notch.
I highly recommend following the advice in the instructions to lay out all of the resistors, measure one from each set and mark the ammo reel tape. Then lay them out in order of resistance so you are less likely to accidentally misplace one. I did all resistors for all three boards before moving on to the taller components. Populating the resistors was by far the most tedious part of the build, and loading all of the tiny MLCC caps isn't much fun either, but the build really clicks along once you get through that phase.
Setup and calibration was very straightforward and easy to do. All you need is some way to generate a 1kHz sine wave and a DMM. I have a function generator but you could use a synth from your DAW or look for the link in the instructions for an online resource.
At the end of the process I ended up with a perfectly working, quality piece of gear that I am proud to have built and that I expect to use on my mix bus for everything! Once I have the money saved up I plan to build a pair of the EQP501s to go with it. I can't wait!
So, is there ANYTHING not to like about this kit? I hate to admit that there is ONE sticking point. In my opinion, the control pots really let this kit down. Others have noted that they feel a bit wobbly, being that they are plastic shaft and the shafts are pretty long. I agree with that criticism. But not only do they wobble, they just don't have the silky smooth feel that I'm used to. Am I afraid that they might break. No. Do they perform their function? Absolutely. They just don't have the feel that conveys quality. If I were building this to sell to someone else I would consider drilling out the holes in the faceplate and panel mounting better feeling pots. Time will tell if this bothers me enough to change them. Honestly, I'll probably just keep them as they are.
When you consider the fact that this unit is about 1/5 the price of the "real deal" and that, apart from the minor issue with the control pots, this unit screams quality, I can't recommend this enough. If you have successfully built at least one guitar pedal or similar project, you can do it. If you have never soldered before or if you aren't good at paying attention to detail you may want to pass or just buy one pre-built. It's still a phenomenal deal.
Great job Sound Skulptor!
11/02/2022
I love this thing
I was really struggling to get transparent level control of my vocal recordings. My La2a clone was just pumping too much and it sounded unnatural. This thing completely solved the problem. This compressor is awesome.
24/01/2022
Highly recommended for desktop
The modules fit perfectly, the quality and finish of the cabinet, circuit design is incredibly good. Highly recommended for desktop.
24/01/2022
Reminds me a lot of the LA3A
The extra functions in sidechaind are very useful. Premium quality in all components and the great sound reminds me a lot of the LA3A.
22/01/2022
Great piece of Hardware
Was not the best choice for my Neumann, but has found its place in the Master Chain as a Tube Saturator. And for that it is incomparable. Never again plugins! The setup was logical and finished in a few hours.
22/01/2022
What an awesome piece!
Simply WOW! super sound in all settings. If you pull the gain very high (and with PAD against it) increases the saturation but also the noise. Cleverly used an absolute universal classic at a bargain price. The construction is also no problem for anyone who knows circuit boards and soldering irons.
03/01/2022
transparent, punchy, flexible!
It was my first Sound Skulptor build and it was great fun - perfect documentation, I have to applaud JPK for his efforts! When I messed up a connector, JPK was of great help providing links for re-ordering part. He answered so quickly. I use the CP4500 on drum buss mostly, not on the mixbus. Compared it against UAD SSL4000 G Bus Compressor and it sounds a bit lighter, not that "gluey", but very punchy and more open. I was surprised how it worked as a buss compressor on backing vocals. Very transparent! Great unit.
02/01/2022
lots of colour, but far from subtle
it is a great colour box, but the saturation is very bold. I like it on kicks, bass, and dirt mics. But not on anything fragile. I cannot recommend it for busses and surely not the 2-bus. Plugins sounded a lot cleaner and gave more control here. Though the TS500 is fun and nice to have in the tool kit.