About this Orange Squeezer thing

[blackieNYC]

Not getting much compression out of it, so I busted out the scope. And a triangle wave generator. I need a little help with the expected behavior.

  I know tone is a bit odd in a compressor, but I thought maybe I could identify it's performance this way, and not swap fets and turn pots with the guitar in one hand. If I increase the bias resistor, I can see the DC voltage on the C7 holding cap go up.  That's when it is supposed to be compressing.  I'm eventually seeing clipping at around 5Vp-p, I think that's the op amp?
But when I turn the pot the other way, reducing its resistance, it just seems to be reducing gain.  I can reduce the bias resistance, and turn up the volume to make up for the substantial loss of gain, but I'm not hearing any compression. And when I do this, there is a much lower voltage on C7.
And I must admit, though I have read http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=54308.0 including RG's input - I'm not really sure  - is the compression increased by reducing the 10k pot and grounding the source of Q2?  Or is it increase by raising the resistance of the pot? If I reduce the
Q1 (current source) - D=9.6v, S=6V, G=3.5V   Q2 - D=3.3V, S=3.5V, G=.1V (or .6V with tone input).  Op amp is 5.3, 5.3, and 5.2V on the out, -,+.  unused half is looped and grounded.

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_osq_sc.pdf

[EBK]

Are you varying the size of your test signal at each setting of the compressor?  The apparent reduction in gain (or the apparent increase in gain) might be the compression or it might not be.  Impossible to tell unless you look at the response to different dynamics.  "Not hearing any compression" is usually a good setting for a working compressor, by the way   

[blackieNYC]

"I don't hear the compressor.  Success!"  Quite true.
I've read that the OS isn't quite as squishy as an MXR, but some build reports speak of "chord bloom", country gtr, and Mark Knopfler.  I'm not getting those, and watching that DC level on C7, I don't see how my guitar amplitude is going to fully charge that cap.
I've pulled and measured resistors, swapped electrolytics and tried various 5457 and MPF102 FETs.
From RG writings, I understand most of it, but I'm hoping someone could suggest what one might see on a scope in terms of DC behavior - compressed and not. Also, I can't hear any initial attack peaks, and while my scope isn't the fastest, I would expect to see peaks in some manner on the scope when I hit it with sudden test tone - do you think that would be true?
I've got an LA3A with a power supply to rebuild at work - I'll make a point of looking at compression ratio and test tone behaviors when I get around to that.

[GGBB]

I'm basing my comments on my experience with my orange smoothie variation of the orange squeezer - not on actual orange squeezer experience.

I can't hear any initial attack peaks

Then it's compressing. The OS might be considered subtle, but it can compress a lot. How hot are your pickups? When it does compress, it doesn't really squish the way other compressors do - to my ear it is much faster (no attack peaks) and then it bounces back slowly - that's the "bloom" you mention. But the FETs and bias setting affect that, as well as the rectifier diode, attack resistor, and sustain cap and resistor.