DIYRE Colour palette

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helterbelter

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Jan 26, 2006
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1,187
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Zevenaar, The Netherlands
I'm considering purchasing 1 or 2 Colour palette kits.  But the amount of available colours is pretty overwhelming, to say the least, hahaha.

So, I'm thinking- where better to ask for opinions about the Colour palette, and its different colours than here ?

Any users here ?
Is the colour Palette something you use intensily, or is it just a fun object that you use occasionally ?  Which colors do you recommend ?

And also a question about one colourplugin specifically : The DOA plugin : Does it represent the colour of the used DOA ? In other words, if I purchase 4 of these colours and throw 4 different DOA's, will it accurately show the sound differences of the DOA's ?
 
helterbelter said:
I'm considering purchasing 1 or 2 Colour palette kits.  But the amount of available colours is pretty overwhelming, to say the least, hahaha.

So, I'm thinking- where better to ask for opinions about the Colour palette, and its different colours than here ?

Any users here ?
Is the colour Palette something you use intensily, or is it just a fun object that you use occasionally ?  Which colors do you recommend ?

And also a question about one colourplugin specifically : The DOA plugin : Does it represent the colour of the used DOA ? In other words, if I purchase 4 of these colours and throw 4 different DOA's, will it accurately show the sound differences of the DOA's ?

I have a Colour Palette as well as two CP5 preamps.
Stuffed with 15IPS, Multi Stage Saturation and JFET distortion. On the preamps I have my own design of colour which basically is a HPF around 80Hz + EQ dip around 400Hz +  subtle distorion from two cheap triad transformers driven by an opamp.

The palette is more of a fun tool to me, all distortion plugins sound quite similar in my ears...

I guess you can A/B your DOAs with the DOA plugin since the rest of the audio path stays the same.

 
:)

The CP-5 is surely also interesting.

Majestic12 said:
I have a Colour Palette as well as two CP5 preamps.
Stuffed with 15IPS, Multi Stage Saturation and JFET distortion. On the preamps I have my own design of colour which basically is a HPF around 80Hz + EQ dip around 400Hz +  subtle distorion from two cheap triad transformers driven by an opamp.

So, basically, you made a plugin that suits more to  what you like to hear ? Cool.

Majestic12 said:
I guess you can A/B your DOAs with the DOA plugin since the rest of the audio path stays the same.
Okay, great, then that might be a very suitable way to let potential costumers hear the differences between the DOAs.

Majestic12 said:
The palette is more of a fun tool to me, all distortion plugins sound quite similar in my ears...

This was kinda what I expected....  But you do use it in a mix occasionally ?

I'm curious how well the other plugins are....
More opinions ? Please share !
 
helterbelter said:
Here are a few audiofiles from various DIYRE pieces.
https://soundcloud.com/peterson-goodwyn
Nice link! My friend uses the 15ips  for mixing guitars all the time.
 
I have 8 Colour modules and use them on every mix.

CTX, TM79, JFT and Pentode.

I don't drive them hard and take good care on gainstaging as they are inserted just after DA conversion
 
Well....

I must say, that when I heard the soundclips, I wasn't that impressed. So, I blamed my internetcomputer's soundcard,  or maybe the clips are just of bad quality, or maybe something else, because I mainly read positive stuff about the CP.

So, about 6 weeks ago, I built one DIYRE colour palette V2, with the plugins. 15 IPS, and a Discrete saturator.

Still not so impressed, to say the least.
Actually, initially I thought I must have made a mistake on the Colour palette, because the only thing I hear was distorted audio, and not the kind of distortion I feel it's useful.
So, I made a jumper as well, just to check whether the 'colour'was clean. Which is the case.

So, I checked some more soundclips, but this time with the expectation that what I hear in the soundclips, will also be IRL.
So, there actually was one plugin that sounded attractive IMO.:  Easy GE eq, made by BartHRK.
Then I saw BartHRK summer offer for the stereo Sound Palette, so, I ordered that one with 2 of the Easy GE eq's. All already assembled.

Received it yesterday, so, to day I tested it.

What am I doing wrong ?!?!?  In my ears, it sounds awful....
Just to be sure, I took out one of the Easy GE eq's, and put it in the DIYRE one.  In this one it's a bit more controllable than in the Stereo CP of BartHRK (which has gaincontrols instead of mixcontrols), and with the onboard trimmers of the Easy EQ set to more moderate settings, this plugin is usable for me, but.... still not impressed.

Okay, I must admit that I tested the colour palettes on a stereo mix, not on seperate instruments (which  surely makes a difference) but still.... It looks like the Colour Palette is simply not a tool for me.

Not giving up yet, I'll try it on seperate instruments during a mix on the next session I'll do (next month).

 
Helterberter:

What level are you driving into Colour Palette? What interface?

Do you gain stage properly?

You also may having some impedance issues. Do you connect DA straight to Colour? Tried inserting some hardware processor in bypass between DA and Colour?

Had similar issue with my Lucid ADDA. Distortion when running +4dBu (-18dBFS), had to trim to - 14dBu to get optimal results. Never had this issue with RME interface.

From my experience it expects to see levels around 0 and +8dBu (from - 22 to - 14dBFS for +4dBu = - 18dBFS reference).

More than that it starts to distort badly.
 
I think the old 15IPS was the most useful module. The new one is nice but much more subtle. I could use the 15IPS every day on everything. I also bought the discrete saturation modules (which I don't think he offers anymore) and they're very usable.

Some of the Colours are purely for effect. I have no interest in those.

There is one that replicates a little bit of the 1176 compressor, and that would be useful, too.
 
Ricardus said:
There is one that replicates a little bit of the 1176 compressor, and that would be useful, too.

I have the louder than liftoff module you’re talking about, and its pretty rad.
The threshold is fixed, and you vary the compression via your input level. Gain staging is very important because there isn’t a threshold level or output level, but once you deal with that, its a very useful tool.
I usually keep it engaged in my cp5, for a no nonsense, quick and easy scratch vocal chain that won’t clip my A/D.
I like it so much I’ve brainstormed hacking the module to grant front panel control of the trim pots and jumpers and stuff. Haven’t built it though...
 

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