I have been hunting for a low noise 12v power adapter with a negative barrel center for a long time.  Up until now the best solution for someone looking to power their Op-2 Comp off a single wall adapter (not a multi-pedal supply) has been the TC Electronic adapter we have been offering.  I was not entirely satisfied with the noise performance of this adapter, but it was better than average.  The main reason I had to look harder is because one customer had a problem with their TC adapter not working sometimes.  Lightning Boy can not back a shoddy product and thankfully we don't have to thanks to the new adapter option I'm about to tell you about.  We're now offering a new adapter for sale with or separate from the Op-2 Comp.  This 12v adapter was designed for computer applications, so it has super low noise.  The main problem with adapters like that is the barrel jack's center is positive.  To remedy this, we are including a polarity reversal adapter jack that plugs onto the DC barrel jack of the power adapter.  The combo ships together for one price of $24.95 USD.  I'm happy to say I finally found a low priced low noise 12v solution for Op-2 Comp.  This power supply offers a whopping 2A of current. Its plenty of juice if you wanted to daisy chain a few 12V tube pedals off one low noise supply.  

Customer concerns about powering the Op-2 Comp:

Question:  what are you planning to offer or recommend as a power supply for the Op-2 Comp now that you've switched over to 12v?  
Answer:  We have tested a number of wall wart style 12VDC power supplies for low noise and selected the one we feel performs the best.  We are now offering a TC Electronics branded supply for optional purchase with the Op-2 Comp.  
 
Question:  What if I don't want a wall wart?  I want to power all my pedals from one power supply/brick.  Not a wall wart and no daisy chains.  
Answer:  There are many products on the market that supply at least 400mA at 12v and also supplies 9v to multiple jacks.  Some examples are the Voodoo Lab 4x4, Voodoo Lab ISO-5, Eventide Powerfactor 2, Cioks Big John, AC10, DC10, TC10, Ciokolate and the upcoming DC10 Link. Additionally, the TRex Goliath has 12vdc at 450 ma outputs. While a bit more obscure, Yankee Power has several power supply products that can supply 12 vdc at 400 ma minimum. 

Question:  But I already have the MXR Iso Brick.  I need something that can power your 12v pedal(s) and the Iso Brick, which needs 18V DC @ 2A regulated.  
Answer:  I'm not aware of anything that does exactly that.  In this situation, the only solution I can think of is a custom power supply that I could build for you.  It would have 3 regulated DC outputs.  Two 12v 400mA outs and one 18v 2A out, all isolated.  Not an inexpensive solution though!  

I have been working closely with Cyrus from Ovnilab to make improvements to the design of Op-2 Comp.  He has been playing with the pedal and gave me some valuable recommendations for improving the product.  I did not take what he said lightly.  Since Op-2 Comp hasn't been released yet, I made all the changes he suggested.  Here's the list of changes:

• The pedal will sell for just under $380 instead of $400, but the first run will be sold for $360 each.  Read on to learn more about that.  
• The pedal now runs on 12v at 400mA instead of 9v at 1270mA.  Less current draw is a big plus, but the added voltage was much needed to create more headroom.  This change also created more volume, more compression, and a cleaner tone.   
• The on/off power switch is no more.  The unit powers on as soon as you turn on/plug in your power supply.  The on/off switch is still on the pedal, but now it does something different.  Its called "Turbo."  When the turbo switch is engaged, it gives you more "Tube tone" and more volume.  Technically what it does is increase the THD slightly, it modifies the frequency response super slightly, and it boosts the volume.  Basically it sounds thicker and warmer.  
  

Since the first run of pedal cases have already been made with the original nomenclature, they will be discounted.  Every Op-2 Comp we release will be this new Revision A.  The first run will be hand engraved on the back to indicate Revision A and 12v DC @ 400mA.  There is a limited supply of 1st run pedals, so they are first come first serve.  
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Unfortunately, Gearmanndude reviewed the pedal before the revision A update, so we're working on putting together a shootout video of the original design vs Revision A.  The difference is massive, so that's why we decided to go with Rev A for the official release.  

Since Op-2 Comp is an evolution of Opti-Mu Prime and I feel its a massive one, I wanted to share this cool little A/B comparison I put together with a youtube playlist.  Both the Opti-Mu Prime and Op-2 Comp pedals are demo'd by Gearmanndude.  I think the difference between the two is pretty obvious and it says a ton about how far LBA has come and where LBA is going.  You can check out this cool little 2 video playlist by clicking right here.

It has been a difficult decision to make, but I have decided we will do a greater degree of tube selection for Op-2 Comp.  Basically, we will be selecting tubes that exhibit high gain and low noise for use in Op-2 Comp.  This accounts for about 17% off all the NOS 12AU7 tubes I buy.  Its going to be an expensive practice, but I find the benefits outweigh the costs.  With high gain low noise tubes installed in Op-2 Comp, it is able to boost your signal by about 10-15% after the compression is turned up all the way.  Now, that's pretty cool!  But, with these tubes the pedal also creates significantly more compression... in the realm of about 15-20% more!!!  Now we're talking.  I feel like this makes the pedal more desirable overall.  Instead of just offering some special version of the pedal as option, we'll just make all the pedals the same badass premium quality.     

Now that everything is up and running, work has continued on getting the new products ready for their releases.  Op-2 Comp has a product photo shoot scheduled for this weekend with Bryan Wray.  Two pedals are going out for review this week.  Jon Clarke started training, learning the craft of P2P wiring and the art of LBA pedal building.  Today, the first batch of official pedals are coming off the CNC and Laser Engraving machines.  We're hustling to get everything done in time for the product release.  Stay tuned and keep a look out for Op-2 Comp... the tone of this pedal is inspiring!      

Today is moving day, a day I have been working towards and anticipating for a while.  Today is the first day of the new lab at a new location.  The last few large items are being moved out of my basement lab this morning and transported over to the new lab, which is in the same building as LBA Studios. It makes so much sense to have everything under one roof, but there was never enough available space until now.  Not only does it makes sense to have everything under one roof, but I also outgrew my old basement lab.  It would have been impossible to bring on new help with LBA unless I moved the lab to a larger space.  The room for the new lab is going to be a work in progress for a little while, but it is move-in ready now.  Its the upper level of a two story pitched-roof warehouse-style building.  The level LBA Labs is on has a very high ceiling, around 18-20' in the center.   This particular building is connected to the studio building through an added-on lobby.  The lab's building is super old - originally constructed in the 1800's as a hardware store where they made all their own hardware in house (the manufacturing of hardware items was done in the new lab area).   There have been crews of Amish men at the building over the past couple weeks working on the walls.  They put up all new steel siding on the outside of the building, but also on the inside walls.  Its a white baked enamel coating on the steel siding.  It makes the lab space look very industrial.  The newest member of LBA, Jon Clarke will be meeting up today to help with setting up the new lab.  Jon's going to be the man assembling and wiring up all the Op-2 Comp pedals I recently designed.   

I said I was done building pedals in March of 2014.  Today is no different in that sense.  I will still maintain that status, but Lightning Boy Audio will begin producing pedals again.  I'm bringing on some skilled help to build the pedals for me, so I can remain focused on Trinity and and the Flux Bender.  I'm bringing on one man, who I will personally guide and instruct in my old ways of pedal building.  Jon will be the sole producer of the pedals.  Stay tuned for more updates on that.  

The laboratory is moving to a bigger and better location to suit the added space needs of another person working with me.  The new location of the lab is going to be in an unused area at LBA Studios.  For those that have been there before, the space I'm talking about is the large upstairs attic of the barn.  Its currently being insulated and finished off.  Move in date is planned for about 2 weeks from now.  

New business model will begin after Jon comes on, which is the plan of having all products in stock, ready to ship upon order.  We're going to build up some inventory before opening day of the impressive new pedal, Op-2 Comp and of the mind bending Trinity system.      

I was originally going to build an Opti-Mu Prime pedal for Danny Imig (The Elektra Kings).  Its been a few years since looking at the schematic, and in those years I learned/developed/evolved so very much.  I decided to redesign the pedal to perform exactly the way I had originally dreamed.  Yes, I fell far short from my original dream when I released the pedal.  Honestly, Opti-Mu Prime was a very good pedal, but it always had me feeling like it wasn't good enough.  I sort of swept it under the rug, but some moment of fate brought me to take another look.  

The new pedal is very different, but is based on the original design to some extent.  On the outside it looks very similar... 2 tubes, and all the same controls.  The tubes function differently now, the range of compression has been expanded by 75%, the noise floor has been lowered by 50%, the output volume has been increased by 35%, and the pedal has a great deal more clarity than ever before.  Its so much better and so wildly different that it really needs a new name... thus, the "Op-2 Comp."  It is now a straight up vacuum tube powered optical compressor.  It has an ultra fast attack time from its LED light source, but with the beautiful and legendary auto-release characteristics of the much famous LA2A studio compressor.  The soft and hard knee controls are also more obvious sounding than in the original Opti-Mu Prime.  You can now distinctly hear a significant tonal difference between the two different compression attack slopes.  

Its a seriously badass pedal, which I promise to released in the future.     

A gentleman, who's band I'll be recording soon, asked me if I would build an Opti-Mu Prime for him.  I normally would decline to make any pedals, but since he's planning to recording with me I decided to make an exception.  This is the first exception I've made since the end of pedal production in 2014.  

I took a look at the schematic for the first time in a couple years and almost laughed when I saw it.  With all the R&D that's been going on with Trinity, I've really learned/evolved a lot in the past year, let alone the past 2 years.  I'm kind of surprised the pedal worked as good as it did.  Let me tell you, there's a lot of room for improvement and I already did it with this new build.

I was able to expand the range of compression drastically, allowing for both less and more compression than the original had.  I was also able to increase the overall output volume considerably, while simultaneously lowering the THD and noise!  There's more components now and the build is more complicated, but this new version is radically superior to the original in every way. 

I'm seriously considering releasing 1 pedal in the future, which will be this pedal.  I will call the new version, Opti-Mu II.  Its probably going to sell for about $500, so definitely not your average cheapo compressor.  My goal here was to make a vacuum tube powered studio compressor in a pedal, but for less than a $3600 tube studio compressor.