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Elysia Karacter 500 Color Box 500-Series - Used From Elysia

A complete analog color pallate at your finger tips! The Karacter 500 gives you access to everything from subtle saturated enhacement to full-out sonic distortion. The mix knob provides built-in parallel processing to dial in just the right amount of analog tone for every application!

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What We Think

Building off of the incredible success of their Xpressor, Xfilter, and Nvelope 500, the powerhouse team at Elysia have just announced probably their most exciting and unique 500-series processor yet, the Karacter 500. As stated in their product release, “Gone are the days when only racks full of outboard gear could achieve these elusive and highly desirable styles of tonal coloration…”, so essentially, get ready to have full access to a huge variety of different types of saturation, distortion, and sonic enhancement to make your instruments and mixes shine.

Just like all of their other 500-series processors, the Karacter comes standard with a Mix knob, which really opens this color box up to being so much than just a heavy-handed saturator. Thinking practically, blending in 30/40% of a tube-style distortion on drums would retain the original transient punch while adding a fuller, beefier tone. Blending in an even lighter amount of solid-state sheen on a full mix would add a subtle excitement to the mix while retaining the tone of the instruments. Really the possibilities are endless with the controls provided on the Karacter 500, and if it’s performance is equal to that of the other 500-series Elysia units (no reason it wouldn’t be), the Karacter 500 is sure to be one of the most flexible, powerful, and affordable tone control units out there.

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Manufacturer's Description from Elysia

High-end studio processor manufacturer elysia is excited to announce the release of their newest product: the karacter 500. This discrete class-A device covers a complete spectrum of sonic possibilities, including mastering-grade saturation, tube-inspired distortion and glorious destruction. Want more? Add THD generation with a soft touch, wide ranges of asymmetrical low noise clipping, massive sonic mayhem – an incredible range of options are available.

The karacter 500 offers two individual channels that can be used in dual mono, linked stereo and even Mid/Side configuration, making it a remarkably flexible tool for any imaginable studio or live scenario. The karacter’s unique Color filter network allows subtle or extreme harmonics-frequency relation tweaks, while the integrated mix control for parallel signal processing helps to dial in just the right amount of enhancement or grit. Stepped potentiometers ensure a fast and precise recall of earlier settings.

“Gone are the days when only racks full of outboard gear could achieve these elusive and highly desirable styles of tonal coloration...”, says elysia's head of development, Ruben Tilgner. “The karacter 500 is the perfect all-in-one solution: It offers a wide palette of different colors, and all of them sound beautiful, no matter how gentle or hard you drive it”.

The karacter 500 is made in Germany, exclusively using top quality components, gold plated PCBs, a rugged 4mm aluminum front panel and solid aluminum knobs.

About Manufacturer

The beginning was an obsession. Would it actually be possible to build special gear with these features and sound characteristics? Well, since then Elysia has become a union of creative audio enthusiasts who have a clearly defined objective: the development and production of high-quality studio equipment featuring that certain something. We do not want to settle for the status quo and rehash existing concepts time and again. Our objective is rather to adapt our products to current demands in everyday studio life. The initiators of the company founded in Nettetal (Germany) in 2005 are Ruben Tilgner and Dominik Klaen. Affected by countless live and studio experiences as well as by over ten years of pro audio experience they finally created elysia in order to make their personal sound philosophy come true. Ruben looks back on many successful development projects: besides others, he has designed the Transient Designer, the GainStation and the MixDream for SPL. Based on his experience on the marketing sector, Dominik Klaen concentrates on communication, documentation and all topics related to product design. The independence of our enterprise enables us to follow extreme paths in our work. We like to try out a lot and are only satisfied when there is nothing left to improve. Besides, we never discard unconventional ideas airily we test all of them and never form our opinion before doing so. Our most important rule is that the ear always comes first, but we also like to please the eye by reflecting the inner values of our devices on the outside with an exclusive design. This is the basis on that our audio equipment is built. We set value on highest sound quality, exclusive use of top grade components, perfect operability and reliability, appealing product design, exemplary documentation and implementation of innovative features without any Voodoo, but with real profit for daily usage.

Specifications

Discrete Class-A Topology

The input and output stages as well as the complete audio path are fully discrete designs running in constant class-A mode. The result: Signal coloration, high-end style.

Mastering-Grade Saturation

In this mode, the karacter 500 generates gentle Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) with a soft characteristic curve,resulting in very musical symmetrical clipping.

Tube-Inspired Distortion

In FET Shred mode, the behavior of the karacter 500 changes drastically. The sound instantly reminds of tubeamplifiers, with a wide range of asymmetrical distortion.

Glorious Destruction

Now, this is pushing the envelope. The Turbo Boost shifts the operating point of the distortion circuit in FET shredmode and generates even more asymmetrical wave forms.

Color Filter

The Color control changes the harmonics-frequency relation with tons of interesting variations. Middle is flat; turnleft for more dub and right for more shred.

Integrated M/S Matrix

As an alternative to standard stereo operation you can process the mid and side signals, opening up completelynew options for your work!

Dual Mono/Stereo Link

For ultimate flexibility, the karacter 500 offers both true dual mono and linked stereo operation, while in M/S modethe channels can be linked or unlinked as well.