The "Colour" Project Pt. 2: Going Modular August 31, 2012 16:48 10 Comments
Then came the big "aha!" moment: we decided to make the distortion stages socketed, and therefore interchangeable.
The new design splits the circuit up into a motherboard, which provides the input, output, and control circuitry, and three daughter boards, which contain the various colors (distortion stages). This changes everything. The "Colour" we're designing now is not so much a single piece of gear as a platform for experimentation and discovery. The user will now have the option to choose which colors to include in her palette and, this being DIY after all, the ability to create her own. And the DIY community will have the opportunity to design and release their own "colours." In fact, there's reason these "colours" should be limited to distortion--almost any type of signal processing could be made into a module!
Next Week: The colours we're working on
Now that we've covered the motherboard in depth, we can jump into the sexy stuff next week when I'll detail the distortion stages Link is working on. In the meantime we'd like your help brainstorming a Wish List of signal processing modules you'd like to see. No idea is too crazy!
Many thanks to everyone who has expressed their enthusiasm for this project.
Comments
abe on November 12, 2014 18:03
A filter that adds 2nd harmonic distortion to everything below say….200hz
Joshua Unitt on November 12, 2014 18:03
Awesome idea. It just occurred to me that two of these might be great to put after a pair of pres that you’re using in conjunction with a passive summing box. Like, to give you a more transformer/vintage/console type sound if you wanted? Hm…
Link on November 12, 2014 18:03
I want that DBX style distortion caused from Hard compression artifacts…hint hint…
MM on November 12, 2014 18:03
Something like a screamer, to really destroy sound
Travis Funk on November 12, 2014 18:03
This could be used as an awesome teaching aide. You could use the colour circuits to add ‘problems’ to your source audio like phase, comb filtering, clipping, distortion, etc. to help students learn what to listen for in each respective case.
ken on November 12, 2014 18:03
Phase tool!!
charles ramirez on November 12, 2014 18:03
Fully built units ,
i would be interested in,
2nd order harmonics/3rd
slew rate.
waveshaper etc,
Eric Jennings on November 12, 2014 18:03
Oh man, the idea of pluggable distortion modules is so so great. It reminds me of the Studio Electronics ATC-1 synth with its pluggable filters. This is a super idea.
One use case I find I do a lot, is bastardizing effects pedals as inserts on mixing channels. For instance, I have a SansAmp Bass Driver that I end up using on many sources as an insert—specifically acoustic guitar and sometimes BG vox (basically as a poor-man’s Distressor when you crank gain fully clockwise.)
Initially I knee-jerked and thought “make a Bass Driver module!”, but then I realized that there are a whole host of stompboxes that I’d like to experiment with, without spending the bulk of my time deciding about an all-or-nothing insert choice—especially if blend was controllable.
That said, it’d be great to have a stompbox-friendly module with 2 1/4" jacks on it that handle all of the line impedance and levels between the Colour and the stompboxes. Certainly make fantastic on-board distortion modules as well, but having the choice to blend in a Tube Screamer I have lying around, or the Bass Driver, would open up lots of possibilities for budget-conscious studios.
Joel on November 12, 2014 18:03
Im a huge fan of different types/flavours of gain on guitar and bass and I’ve been wanting to experiment with different types of gain stages for a long time, and bringing it to the recording world is definitely something I can get on board with!
The 3 main ideas (Various JFets, Diodes/LEDs, and Opamps) already thrown around would definitely be of interest. A pedal company by the name of Fuzzrocious has a cool feature on most of their pedals where you can switch through different diode types to get different tonal characteristics out of the one pedal. They actually make a huge difference! Being able to switch from the Silicon to 400 to Germanium to LED really opens up the pedal and makes it quite versatile.
Instead of making separate modules for each variable of a gain type, having a switch for different component types would be very cool, and increase the “bang for the buck” factor of each module.
Tape and tube style distortions would also be of great interest. For tubes specifically, the Thermionic Culture Vulture gets a lot of praise and Id be very interested in learning how that circuit breaks down. Again, switches and controls for bias, triode/pentode modes etc would all be extremely appreciate to make each unit as versatile as possible.
I’ve only just gotten into this world on the recording side, so I’m not entirely sure what’s possible/not possible/useable/not useable.
Thanks for this, I was catching up on my HRS shows and heard about this project in one of the episodes, so I came to check it out. Super excited to follow this as it progresses!
Joel on November 12, 2014 18:03
By 400, I meant 4001. Woops, should have proofread haha.
Comments are closed for this post.