DIYRE

15IPS Tape Saturation Colour

$75.00

Full Kit
Step by Step Guide
Supported
$50 Repair Policy
Beginner

Description
Samples
Resources

The compression, saturation, and tone of analog tape. (Everything but the hiss.)

For decades analog tape was the sound of records. Then the technology changed, but our ears didn't. Things tracked on tape just sound fuller, warmer, and more "finished" by default than things tracked digitally. Bring the sound of tape back to your recordings with the 15IPS Colour.

The sound of tape comes from three things—compression, harmonic saturation, and filtering—and the 15IPS does all three.

Compression

Tape has a "built-in" compressor; that is, it can only take so much signal and anything above that limit is compressed. The 15IPS' ladder of germanium and silicon diodes recreates this soft clipping, making sounds fuller and more present in the mix adding more volume.

Saturation

The "warmth" of tape comes from the harmonic saturation of both the tape itself and the electronics of the tape machine. The 15IPS' germanium diodes emulate the harmonics generated by the tape, while the discrete transistor circuitry creates the complex harmonics of a vintage tape machine.

Tone Filtering

Part of tape's distinctive sound is its non-linear frequency response: a low-end roll off with a "bump" at the cutoff frequency. The 15IPS features a 40Hz resonant high-pass filter that simultaneously makes the low-end tighter and larger-than-life.

MKII Improvements

In 2019 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Colour Format, we redesigned the first three Colours, the 15IPS, CTX, and JFT, to use only discrete, class-A transistor circuitry. You could think of this as the opposite of an update—we’ve reversed the technology of the Colours back to the late 60’s. The result is an authentic vintage character that’s more nuanced and refined.

For the 15IPS we also re-tuned the amount of saturation on-hand in order to widen the sweet spot of the Colour. The 15IPS mkII can still provide aggressive tape saturation when pushed hard, but is now much easier to "set and forget" than before.

FEATURES

Tape-like soft limiting with NOS germanium diodes
Multiple class-A transistor stages for richer, more complex harmonic saturation
Resonant high-pass filter simultaneously clarifies and magnifies low end
Compatible with the Colour format
Yellow PCB
Full, step-by-step assembly instructions and support

What the Pros are Saying

"Even a little bit of the 15IPS adds a warm vibe and a huge low end. Just switching it in can thicken up a kick drum, bass or even a whole mix. With more drive, 15IPS gives a great saturated tape-like squash."

-Paul "Willie Green" Womack
Wiz Khalifa, The Roots, Donnie McClurkin, Billy Woods

A Delightful Way to Warm Up Your Tracks

The 15 IPS definitely adds the smooth warmth and the low end bump reminiscent of analog tape, but with the added flexibility of dialing in only as much as you need. Unlike most tape emulation plugins, which I've found don't add very much, this actually makes an audible difference. Plus, you can dial in even more to dirty up your sound in a not-so-pleasant way if that's what you want to do. Great module. Just like analog tape channels, the effects are cumulative as channel count increases. We use five of them in our DIYRE preamps. Be careful when building this one because the NOS glass diodes are fragile. We found a couple defective ones in one of the modules we built. But you can be sure that Peterson always makes it good and if anything is amiss, he will make it right and send out the parts you need.

Rad

Using pretty much always on to track through. Sounds not exactly like real tape (only real tape does) but does what I expect it to. Similar to fatso tape sim. Compresses very naturally and nicely. Pretty much always on at least a little for tracking so far, have a stereo pair for busses. Love it!

Yeah this sounds nice!

Only had the kits assembled for a quick test so far, but the CP5 is my new go-to pre for vocals. Can't wait to try some drums through the 15IPS module!

Beautiful!

Love the 15IPS module. I often use it to add a little grit to vocals, but it's very good on just about anything really. Wonderful little module and I might need to get another Palette to put it on buses or ever the master bus. Fun!

Awesome tape compression

This module is very cool - it acts as much like tape or tube compression as saturation to my ears. In fact, you can see the output level go down as you add the color effect. Very fat and warm. Thanks Peterson!