Aphex Punch Factory question

[muzzza]

Hello Everybody. This is my first post.

I own an orange Punch Factory compressor and although it sounds great, the 'Drive' pot seems to me to be faulty.

Before I pull it apart and replace the pot, (I have actually pulled the thing apart , but haven't unsoldered anything yet) I just wanted to confirm that it is in fact faulty and not a characteristic of the PF.

Here goes with the feeble description... when I strike a string and adjust the 'Drive', the sound doesn't change smoothly. There are flat spots and then the sound changes abruptly after these flat spots. (Am I making myself clear? I just read what I wrote and not sure if it makes sense...)

So, anybody else got an orange PF that can confirm/deny?

Thanks in advance.

[enricogaletta]

I'm not sure what is your issue with the Punch Factory, can you explain better?
Cheers. Enrico
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[Pollinator95]

I think he means that when turning the pot, sometimes it doesn´t affect the sound at all, and sometimes it´s really radical. A bit like some areas of the pot being audio, and others reverse audio, I guess.

I´ve no experience with any Aphex products, sorry.

[muzzza]

OK I'll try to explain it better.

I'm trying to find how much compression I want. So I strike a string and start turning the 'Drive' knob from 0 to 10.

Lets say I get a smooth change in sound from 0 to 3, then no change between 3 and 4, then the sound jumps to where you'd expect 4 to be. Between 4 and 7 the sound changes smoothly as expected. Then between 7 and 8 there's no change in sound and at 8 it jumps again. Then its smooth up to 10.

The above scenario is made-up numbers, (the PF is pulled apart at the moment so an exact re-enactment isn't possible) but hopefully illustrates what I'm experiencing.

Do you know what I mean now?

[bongomania]

It's not defective, what you're describing sounds like normal Punch Factory to me. When you are in the lower drive ranges, it offers light, smooth, transparent compression. When you try to get stronger compression out of it, you just get distortion and bad tone.

[muzzza]

Nah, I'm obviously not describing it properly.

The problem isn't when the compression level is SET, it's when I'm in the process of rotating the 'Drive' pot to get the setting I want.

I think I'm going to have to post a video somewhere...