Colour
Manual · version 0.2
Saturation in four characters with one drive knob. Auto-gain holds the output at the input level, so drive changes the sound, not the loudness. Low cut and high cut limit the saturation to a frequency range and let the rest pass clean.
Where it goes
On vocals, bass, drums or the mix bus. The curve runs at 2x oversampling, which adds 31 samples of latency, reported to Logic.
Controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| TAPE | Default. A soft curve with odd harmonics. As drive rises the top rolls off (22 kHz at drive 0 to 7 kHz at drive 10) and a head bump of up to +2.5 dB builds at 70 Hz. |
| TUBE | The signal sits on the bend of the curve, so even harmonics lead. Drive moves it further up the bend, and one side clips sooner than the other. |
| TRANSFORMER | Only the band below 300 Hz saturates, with odd harmonics. The rest passes untouched and the two sum phase-correct. |
| CRUNCH | A wideband clipper with a 3 dB soft knee, the hardest of the four. For drums and parallel crush. |
| Drive | 0 to 10, default 2. Sets the gain into the curve and how hard it bends, on a squared law so the first half is gentle. Drive 2 is +1 dB into the curve, 5 is +6 dB, 7 is +11.8 dB, 10 is +24 dB. At 0 the output is the input, bit for bit, 31 samples late. |
| LOW CUT | 20 Hz to 2 kHz, default off. Below this frequency the signal passes clean. Keeps the sub of a bass or kick clean. |
| HIGH CUT | 1 kHz to 20 kHz, default off. Above this frequency the signal passes clean. Keeps the top of a vocal or cymbals clean. |
| Tone | -100 (dark) to +100 (bright), default flat. A tilt around 800 Hz after the curve, ±6 dB at the ends of the band. |
| Mix | 0 to 100 %, default 100. Parallel blend with a delay-compensated dry path, so 50 % at drive 0 is still the input. |
| AUTO-GAIN | On by default. Returns the saturated signal to the input level (RMS over 300 ms, within ±18 dB). The large number shows what it added. Off, drive changes the level. |
| Output | -12 to +12 dB, default 0, after the mix. |
| BYPASS | Level-matched, capped at 20 dB, with a 25 ms fade. The label shows the match. |
The display
The transfer curve of the current character and drive, input against output before auto-gain, with unity dashed. A dot marks the level of the saturated band on the curve. For Transformer the curve is that of the low band. A strip below shows the saturated range on a 20 Hz to 20 kHz scale, for example "saturating 180 Hz to 20 kHz, the rest clean".
Working with it
- Pick a character, turn Drive up until it is too much, then back off a little. The level holds, so you hear only the colour.
- Tape on a vocal or the mix bus for weight and a softer top. Tube on a vocal or a bass for second-harmonic warmth. Transformer on a bass or a kick to thicken the bottom without touching the top. Crunch on drums, usually at 30 to 50 % Mix.
- If the sub of a bass gets woolly, bring LOW CUT up to 80 to 150 Hz. If a vocal gets fizzy on top, bring HIGH CUT down to 5 to 8 kHz.
- Use Tone to take back what the curve added, or to add bite.
Under the hood
With a cut engaged, Linkwitz-Riley crossovers split the input. The band between the cuts goes to the curve. The outer bands are delayed by the oversampler latency and added back, so the three sum flat. The curve runs at twice the sample rate behind a 63-tap half-band filter. All curves have unity slope at the origin, so quiet passages pass clean. Changing character crossfades over 20 ms.
Limits: auto-gain is RMS, not loudness, so on a bright signal the saturated output can read slightly louder in LUFS than the input. At high drive a loud tone near the top of the band can fold harmonics back into the audible range (Crunch on a 15 kHz sine at -20 dBFS leaves an alias at 9 kHz around -51 dB). A HIGH CUT below the problem frequency removes it. Programme material has far less energy up there.
Loudness meter, level-matched bypass and mono handling work the same in every plugin. Common to all plugins