[sdiy] limiter question

[peter edwards]

Howdy y’all,
I’m working on a project and have been having some difficulties.  
Hopefully someone here will be willing to help.
I have a BOSS PS3 pitch shifter FX pedal that I’m using to process  
vocals from the aux send of my mixer. I want to add a pre amp PRE  
pitch shifter and a compressor POST pitch shifter. I built a DOD 280a  
compressor clone based on schematics from General Guitar Gadgets. The  
schematics can be found here:
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_opcomp280a.pdf.

I built the first schematic on the page. The NON modified version.  
The problem is that it seems to be doing a whole lot of amplifying of  
low levels (especially line noise!), but not a whole lot of limiting  
high levels. Maybe I need a limiter???
  I want to smoothly eliminate pops and scratches so I don’t freak  
out my sound guy when I play out.
  I spoke with someone who said I can expand the comp. ratio to  
achieve a better limiting effect.
  I’m just getting burnt on this project but I need to get it done  
soon, so I figured rather than poking around for the next few days,  
I’d ask for some help.

  If anyone has some good simple pre amp suggestions also it would be  
much appreciated!
Thanks guys
-pete