Color Audio releases Cassette Preamp, its first pedal

July 24, 2025 · 3 sources

Color Audio, a Finnish company, released its first product, the Cassette Preamp, covered by Pedal of the Day on July 24, 2025¹. The pedal is a reproduction of the channel strip of a vintage Japanese cassette recorder¹.

Pedal of the Day describes the circuit as "a part-for-part reproduction of the original unit," using NJM2068 and M5218 op-amps¹. The review says the pedal was originally designed as a mic/line preamp and works with guitar or bass plugged straight in, producing tones from compressed cleans to blown-out fuzz, and serving as a preamp in front of an amp¹. It lists Neutrik jacks, Alpha potentiometers, a rugged aluminum enclosure and knobs, reverse- and over-voltage protection and soft-touch relay switching¹. The review says modern manufacturing and added features reduce the noise floor without compromising the character of the original design¹.

Guitar Pedal X, writing on October 17, 2025, lists the controls as Gain, Low Pass Filter, Level, Bass, High Pass Filter and Treble, with a variable LPF and a three-way HPF, in a black enclosure with black knobs and a red accent². It gives the US price as $249². Delicious Audio, in a piece updated October 10, 2025, says the pedal reproduces a vintage Japanese cassette recorder, "reportedly, the Porta 2," and describes clean, overdrive and fuzz tones³.

The accounts differ on the source unit. Pedal of the Day calls it a vintage Japanese cassette recorder without naming a model¹; Delicious Audio names the Porta 2 as a report³; Guitar Pedal X calls the machine unspecified².

The Cassette Preamp sits among preamp pedals built around tape-recorder circuits. Guitar Pedal X compares it with the JHS 424, saying the Color Audio unit has one extra control and "a little more of a Channel Strip sensibility about it"².