"Colour" 500-series Harmonics Generator

[Meathands]

Aha! I gotcha. Great idea. There are also those pots with one shaft that controls a different wiper when you pull it out, as in the SSL channel strips.

 

[Script]

Yeah, mix that with...

"Turning the mix pot clockwise fully lets only the daughter board output go to the output summing amplifier. Turning the mix pot fully counter clockwise lets only the original input signal pass to the output summing amplifier" (quote from diyrecordingequipment)

...and you can double the number of controls on the faceplate of a mono unit.

I might be interested in this unit if it wasn't 500-series. But, hey, who says I couldn't put the stuff in a 1U rack case 

 

[Meathands]

We're looking into dual shaft pots at the moment. But here's a question for you, what's better: two stages with their own individual input drive and mix controls, or three stages with a master input drive and mix controls only for each?

 

[kevinkace]

Three stages, each with their own input drive.

Would it fit to have an input trim per stage inside, not accessible from the front panel?

 

[Meathands]

Would it fit to have an input trim per stage inside, not accessible from the front panel?

Great idea. It would require extra opamps for each stage, but I think this might be the way to go. That way, during normal use there would be the simplicity of the single drive knob with individual mix controls. And those who wished to tweak could go under the hood.

 

[Meathands]

A little update... proto PCBs have arrived and Link and I are putting them through their paces.


(Click the image for full-size to see what's really going on).

We decided to go with only mix controls on the front panel and individual drive controls via trim resistors on the board. This will allow "Colour" developers to specify a default gain setting, while allowing the more tweak-minded to set their own.

 

[kevinkace]

Hot stuff!!

 

[Dylan W]

This project looks so cool--can't wait to see what modules people come up with, and to take a crack at doing one myself.

Still a little confused about how stereo linking will work.

Dylan

 

[Meathands]

Still a little confused about how stereo linking will work.

See all those Molex connectors by the pots? Those are to connect the second gang of the pots to another, "slave" board, which has no pots, only input connectors.

Make sense?

 

[Dylan W]

Still a little confused about how stereo linking will work.

See all those Molex connectors by the pots? Those are to connect the second gang of the pots to another, "slave" board, which has no pots, only input connectors.

Make sense?

Right, I'm that far--more curious about the implementation. Will this be a doublewide unit, or will the ribbon connectors attach to another separate 500 series module? I'm picturing that being a bit fragile to install.

Best functionality, IMO, would be a pair of fully functional mono units where one could be slaved to the other. That way you could use them independently, for bass guitar and snare, etc, or as a stereo pair for drum bus.

 

[Meathands]

Best functionality, IMO, would be a pair of fully functional mono units where one could be slaved to the other. That way you could use them independently, for bass guitar and snare, etc, or as a stereo pair for drum bus.

That would be ideal. Any thoughts on implementation? Unfortunately, it's not as easy as a compressor where you can just send the control voltage to the other channel.

 

[Dylan W]

Best functionality, IMO, would be a pair of fully functional mono units where one could be slaved to the other. That way you could use them independently, for bass guitar and snare, etc, or as a stereo pair for drum bus.

That would be ideal. Any thoughts on implementation? Unfortunately, it's not as easy as a compressor where you can just send the control voltage to the other channel.

You could put an HD15 (VGA) style connector on the front panel and use a short external link cable. That would still be pretty cumbersome, though, and finding the right dimension thru-hole part could be hard.

IMO the best way to go would be stepped switches. It looks like you have room for grayhills and resistors. You could leave the footprint for the regular pots, the way Jeff does it with the ClassicAPI pres, for those who don't need precision or stereo matching. The grayhill switches would be an optional expenditure.

This comes with the HUGE (imo) additional benefit of recall. For those of us who mix hybrid (which I would guess is a lot of the user base for this unit), stepped switches are a huge boon for recall, especially with something as touchy as distortion.

 

[Meathands]

You could put an HD15 (VGA) style connector on the front panel and use a short external link cable. That would still be pretty cumbersome, though, and finding the right dimension thru-hole part could be hard.

Right now, we're thinking there will be a cutaway in the l-bracket to patch the MTA or IDC cable from the master to slave modules.

IMO the best way to go would be stepped switches. It looks like you have room for grayhills and resistors. You could leave the footprint for the regular pots, the way Jeff does it with the ClassicAPI pres, for those who don't need precision or stereo matching. The grayhill switches would be an optional expenditure.

Looking into pots from BI that have 11 detents. It would be a custom order for sure, but much cheaper than Grayhills.

 

[jordan s]

Really interested in this. How's it coming along?

 

[mig27]

+1!

 

[Meathands]

Hey, thanks for the continued interest! We are plugging away--I recently got a congratulatory email from another designer welcoming me to the "everything takes longer than you think it will always club"!

What's new?

• We implemented some major changes to the modules and interface after the first prototype. I detailed this in a blog post last month (http://www.diyrecordingequipment.com/5062/podcast-6-everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-audio-electronics-part-2/)
• We restructured the controls so that instead of wet/dry mix knobs, there are now simple volume controls for the dry signal and each Colour module. The control approach is now more akin to mixing in aux returns on a mixer channel.
• We did a ton of little tweaks to the PCB to make it uber-DIY-friendly: bigger pads, more spacing between components, polarized components facing the same way, etc
• We've heard from at least four designers who have expressed interest in bringing out their of Colour modules. Hopefully that number will grow
• The modules are *big* now: 1.3"x3"
• We're almost ready to send away for proto #2. Then we'll be looking for beta testers!
• We added a 3-way master input drive switch. We haven't decided on the exact dB values yet, but the idea is something like "Colur," "Saturate," and "Distort"

 

[jordan s]

Put me in line for beta testing.

 

[Sammas]

I will happily beta test too!

 

[okgb]

I'll jump on the testing bandwagon A friend who is ultra critical has been wanting more color
and has a decent studio ,  it's a tough  compromise between or even getting a subtle but constant
" saturation " softer  added harmonic content Vs the more obvious and easier " peak " distortion
that limits how much you can use or stays .  Some compression can be helpful .

 

[Meathands]

Well, this revision is already a bit old, but it shows the new module sizes.