Louder Than Liftoff Announces Three New Colour Modules August 6, 2014 16:51
Way back in January '14 (five months before Colour kits even shipped!) Brad McGowan announced that his company, Louder Than Liftoff, would be releasing three Colour modules. But Brad has kept us in suspense as to what he's been working on until now. Earlier this week, Louder Than Liftoff revealed their "RGB Colour Series" and announced a pre-order in their newsletter. The Colours are:Implode:
- An entire 1176 Rev F preamp and compression circuit pre-set to either 4:1 or "All Buttons In" mode
- A gritty tape echo and
- A tube saturator built around an actual NOS sub-miniature tube
After months of hearing about Brad's design process, I finally got to see and hear the modules myself last weekend at the Potluck Audio Conference. And what's immediately clear is that Brad hasn't been sitting on his duff the last seven months: these Colours are serious business. Take Implode for example—the module is an entire 1176 Rev F preamp and gain reduction circuit squeezed down to the size of a Colour. It's not an "emulation of" or "inspired by" the 1176 circuit, it is the circuit. The entire top and bottom of the board are covered in parts, over 100 of them all told. That's almost 10x as many as the entire Palette circuit! 
The care and painstaking effort Brad has put into these modules was clear the second I patched in Pulse, the tape echo Colour. I had been a bit skeptical about the idea of a delay Colour. A delay just has so many variables that finding a useful preset seemed impossible. Brad brought up a track he'd recorded with a 60's girl group feel and put Pulse on the vocal without any other effects. The sound was perfect, as if he'd spent minutes tweaking the slapback time, filtering the wet signal, and driving the tape head for just the right amount of dirt. I was sold. 
The care and painstaking effort Brad has put into these modules was clear the second I patched in Pulse, the tape echo Colour. I had been a bit skeptical about the idea of a delay Colour. A delay just has so many variables that finding a useful preset seemed impossible. Brad brought up a track he'd recorded with a 60's girl group feel and put Pulse on the vocal without any other effects. The sound was perfect, as if he'd spent minutes tweaking the slapback time, filtering the wet signal, and driving the tape head for just the right amount of dirt. I was sold.
Louder Than Liftoff also gets the distinction of being the first to put a real tube in a Colour. 'Nuff said. Because of their incredible complexity, Brad has decided to release the RGB Series Colours only as completely assembled and tested. Louder Than Liftoff is funding the first production right now with a limited time pre-order. You can pre-order all three modules for a discounted price until 8/30/2014. Check out Louder Than Liftoff's store to read more about and pre-order their Colours: Louder Than Liftoff "RGB Collection"