MN-50 Smash Compressor Colour Module

Aggressive FET Compression

for Chroma, Mister Focus, & DIYRE Colour

Overview

Sometimes you need a compressor to smooth the dynamics of a track in the cleanest, most transparent way possible. The MN-50 is not for those times.

The MN-50 is an aggressive, grabby, dirty compressor that colors everything it touches. It excels at smashing drum room mics into oblivion and turning peaky bass tracks into a thick, flat lines of crunchiness.

The Avenson Audio Smash Compressor Colour is a simple FET compression circuit based off the built in 6:1 ratio compressor in the MN-50 Mixer made by Fostex Corporation in the 80s. This cheapo mixer/compressor combo unit is much loved in the inexpensive gear world for it’s ability to acheive some explosive, trashy, and dirty drum compression sounds. The team at Avenson decided it would be a great idea to redesign this circuit for the Colour 500 Series format with a few small improvements for ease of use in the modern recording envirornment. Thanks to the format, the unit is easily implemented in an XLR balanced line level system, unlike the original which used unbalanced RCA ins/outs. They also fixed an overall volume loss on the output by adding a set makeup gain stage in their circuit. The final addition was an input pad selectable via a 2 pin jumper (High & Low) for getting more range of compression out of this unit.

Features

Louder Than Liftoff is proud to offer a special edition of this module that kicks things up a notch.  The threshold and release have been modified for optimal flexibility and even more explosive gut punch.  This hotrodded unit is sold as a fully assembled and tested Colour module, modded to our specs, and only available in our store.

• Adjustable release via onboard trimmer
• Adjustable FET bias fine tunes compression amount and distortion
• “High” and “low” input gain selectable via solderless jumper
• Exclusive threshold mod for optimal gain staging
• Exclusive release time constant mod for more explosive compression and more flexible range
• Exclusive IC upgrades to enhance punch and transient response
• Compatible with Chroma, Mister Focus, and DIYRE Colour 

Fully assembled, calibrated, and tested by Avenson Audio.

Chroma 500 Series module, Mister Focus 500 Series module, or DIYRE Colour Palette must be purchased separately.

Documentation

About Colour

Colour is an exciting new modular platform for creating your own custom analog signal chains. The ever-growing family of modules allows you to bring multiple stages of high end analog processing to your setup a la carte. These are real analog plugins.

The Colour platform consists of Colour modules and hosts like Chroma and the DIY Recording Equipment Colour Palette. Colour modules are ultra-compact, swappable analog circuit blocks that snap into Chroma and impart various types of analog color such as distortion, saturation, compression, EQ, and even echo. Chroma provides drive and wet/dry mix controls, power, and support circuitry for one module.

The Colour Palette is a 3-slot host available as a 500 Series unit from DIY Recording Equipment. In the near future there will be rackmount version of the Colour Palette as well.