Colour
The Sound is a project for Ryerson Universities Media Production
Masters program that was concieved for the purpose of creating an
online environment to process audio through an analog tube compressor.
The physical portion of the site including server, ADL-1000 analog tube
compressor, phidgit servo controllers and webcam are housed in
Ryerson's Rogers Communication Centre. A user can then upload audio,
control the device and then recieve their sound back after it has been
processed through the device. 
The
Anthony Demaria Labs ADL-1000 is a mono analog tube compressor/limiter.
It was chosen not only because of its simplicity, but also because it
is an entierly tube driven compressor, containing no solid-state
components of any kind. It uses two 12AX7A vaccum tubes for
preamplification, a 12BH7A vaccum tube for amplification, as well as a
6AQ5A vaccum tube for gain reduction. Because of the way that tube
amplification works it is known to give a very warm response, with an
even-harmonic tone for over-driven recordings, as well as very subtle
and clean compression and limiting with very little 'pumping' sound. 
A Windows 2003 server with Apache, PHP, MySql, a video and audio broadcasting service, Max/MSP, a Phidgets Webservice has been set up in the installation space as a web broadcasting service as well as a human control interface and an analog to digital audio convertor.
A MOTU 896 ADC/DAC converts the sound from digital to analog and back again in up to 96khz/24bit quality automatically through Max/MSP, an object oriented programming language for audio interface design. A user uploads an audio file through a PHP script, which renames the file with a timestamp. Max/MSP has been programmed to automatically cue and setup the most recent file for processing. Through an external Flashserver implementation, a Flash interface online communicates with Max/Msp through XML and allows the user to control and play their recently uploaded audio file on the sever.
At the same time, two
Phidget USB Servo MicroControllers are hosted by a microcontroller
webservice to allow control over IP through a Flash based frontend.
These are connected to two RC Servo Motors which turn the two Gain and
Reduction knobs of the compressor, allowing users to control and
manipulate the device. 
Response is given through both a low-quality realtime audio preview and video webcam broadcast of the VU meters on the device, allowing the user to view and hear their audio recording and control over the device.
The uploaded audio file is then processed through MaxMSP and a PHP link of the full quality download is provided to the user, which is available for the next hour until deleted by a script. The audio file can then be reimplemented back into a digital workstation environment.
The purpose of this installation project was to test the viability of creating a virtual and digital extension for analog tube equipment, so that they exist as an extension of the digital enviroment, to give access to these devices from any remote location so that any user can utilize them, and to experiment with realtime control, interaction and response of a physical device over an internet based system.
More information about this project can be viewed through a downloadable .pdf of the written thesis of this project, as well as the larger proposed business plan of this beta project.