The Colour Box is a tribute to the legend and application of how a great piece of gear like Neve consoles have changed music by simply plugging a guitar directly into a vintage studio console and recording "direct in." It is designed by using 100% analog circuitry true to the design and schematic of vintage Neve* circuitry and works equally well with microphone, bass, keyboard, or even acoustic guitar. We used the same topology and discrete gain stage found in the Neve 1073, but we have two gain stages in series instead of one, for beautiful clean tones but that can also destroy any signal into a beautiful fuzzy mess, full of rich harmonics and body with over 39db of gain on tap. We use a high quality Lundahl transformer that fattens the lows, adds harmonic complexity and richness to the midrange as well as smoothing and rounding of the high frequencies. It also blocks all DC voltages, adds electrical isolation, and blocks RF frequencies ensuring super quiet operation and noise floor. The Gain section in red includes a Pre Volume setting which determines how much signal continues to the second gain stage, it will act as a Drive setting on a typical overdrive pedal, a Master Gain for the volume, a Step Gain to change the gain of each preamp stage in five stages, rotating it from left to right will increase the gain by 18db, 23db, 28db, 33db or 39db. The EQ section in blue is a highly modified Baxandall type that is tuned for more boost/cut capability. The center frequencies are Treble 10kHz, Middle 1kHz, and Bass 120Hz, with +/- 17dB of control. The High-Pass filter section in yellow is activated with the toggle switch and spans from 60Hz to 800Hz with a 6dB per octave slope. The inputs and outputs are both available in 1/4" instrument and in XLR line, so you can use it as a preamp for vocal, bass, acoustic or keyboard. They're independent and can be run in parallel to 2 destinations. 18V DC power supply not included, does not supply phantom power.