I caught up!  All the DiVision orders received have been shipped and I have #26/68 built and on the shelf ready to ship.  I plan to build another 3 this week and then focus on some other tasks... Including refreshing my inventory of the 2020S, 2020i, and TI Box.  I'm trying to work through a minor revision to the Trinity design in any spare seconds I can find.  I also have an interesting project on the bench, which is a custom order for 2 giant pedals.  A dual channel all-tube guitar preamp pedal with a DI output, and quite literally, an LA2A compressor in a giant pedal. Yes, the exact LA2A circuit and components... in a huge pedal.  As cool as that is, I have to stop accepting custom orders for a while... I'm getting too backed up.  This order isn't due till September, but I'm spread across many jobs and there's really so little time in life.  I have been thinking about bringing on part time help for the past month now.  I said to myself (and a couple friends), if this keeps up for 3 months I'll have no choice but to bring on some help.  I suppose that's a good problem to have.  I have you and others like you to thank for that problem.  

You may know already, but I recently decided to purchase an Amek Big 28 analog console for my studio.  I was specifically looking for a board that was relatively inexpensive that I could modify to be as good as a board worth $50,000.  The Amek Big seemed like the perfect candidate.  It has automation and full recall just like a high end SSL console.  The tone is where its good, but not great, and that's where I come in.  I can't really take credit for the mods I'm prepared to do that this moment.  Jim Williams of http://audioupgrades.com has been a tremendous help so far.  Most of the great trinkets have come from his posts on the https://gearspace.com/    

As you may know, LBA is a one-man operation.  I'm under staffed and over worked.  The DiVision webpage stated that the DiVision will begin shipping on or before May 4th, which is today.  That is still true.  The first 7 shipped out April 29th.  On May 1st at 6:00 AM I left my little corner of New York on an airplane to Boise, Idaho.  There I rented a minivan and picked up a large piece of equipment for LBA, which I bought online (making a video series about this).  It was far to large to ship, so with the loaded van I drove 2,200 miles across the country in just 48 hours in order to be back to New York yesterday (Monday).  During the trip I barely slept and almost only stopped for gas, so when I got back yesterday I took a shower and went to bed.  Today I'm back to work.  Before I left for this trip I made sure I had a bunch of DiVision's mostly built, so today could have a head start.  I should be able to ship off at least 7 more DiVision's today.  I'm shipping in the order they were received.  Please understand it's difficult for me to build these and get them shipped out quickly if I'm distracted by email.  I thought it would be easier to post this message here than to write to everyone to say sorry for any delays.  If you placed an order, your DiVision is reserved and will ship as soon as it's built.  All the parts are in stock to build these except for the transformers, but that's on me.  I have about 15 transformers built and ready to go into DiVisions.  I will probably need to take all of Thursday to build another 10 transformers, which should be enough to fulfill all the current orders.  Hopefully, by Friday I'll be all caught up on your orders.  Thank you very much for your support and patience!       

First off, the DiVision.  If you don't know about it, check this out. If you are one of the few people on the wait list for one of these, check your email (check spam if you didn't get it).  I sent an email with a special link just for you.  Everyone else, this little box drops Friday and its definitely something to get excited about.  To the best of my knowledge, it's the worlds smallest tube direct box and the first ever nuvistor tube DI.  It weighs less than one pound, which you probably can't say about any other tube DI Box, yet it packs a big punch.  Furthermore, the DiVision is priced lower than the competition, while not skimping on a single thing.  I spend a few months making sure this product was as flawless as I could possibly make it.  It can't be damaged by phantom power and it also does not require it.  The DiVision runs on a standard 9V DC pedal power supply, drawing just under 350mA.  Internally this is stepped up to 250V with a beefy custom designed DC to DC power converter.  There's also a converter that drops the voltage to 6V for the tube filament.  There is circuit protection to prevent damage from accidentally connecting a reverse polarity adapter.  There's also circuit protection from itself.  There are multiple layers of voltage regulation onboard to maintain stability and to protect various components from potential over-voltage.  Everything was carefully designed with a balance of thermal performance and audio performance in mind.  Read more here.    

Lets get into what's got me super excited.  To cut to the chase, I bought a large format mixing console for LBA Studios on Reverb.com.  It will require me to drive across the country to pick it up - 4400 miles round trip.  It's an Amek Big 28, made in 1993 and comes with a bunch of accessories.  I bought it off the original owner, who is a 4-time Emmy award winning broadcast mix engineer.  While the console and automation computer are in perfect working order, I'm planning to completely rebuild, upgrade, and modify the console.  I will be documenting the entire saga starting with the road trip in a youtube series.  I had some email conversations with two renowned electronics gurus on this board.  One of them, Jim Williams, sent me some photos and advice for the project, which was super valuable to me.  I'm planning to buy one of his plug-in-preamp modules to test out on the console.  My goal is to get this board sounding as good or better than an SSL 4000 series console, which is actually possible and the reason why I made the purchase.  Jim said the one mod that makes the biggest sonic improvement is removing the VCA's on the Master section and jumping the pins to bypass the master fader.  I won't have a master fader anymore, but that's not something I need anyway... especially considering how much its supposed to open up the sound of the console.  I'm planning to fully recap every channel, upgrade every single chip and VCA, and I'll look into the possibility of designing and installing input transformers on every channel for some added fatness.  Lastly, maybe firstly, I will need to design and build a custom desk to house the console and some additional rack gear.  It comes with a stand and end caps, but the back is a thin meter bridge that can't support a computer monitor atop.  I'll make something that looks sexy.  In the end I think my total investment will be around $8-10K (a fraction the cost of a used SSL) and several months of my life.  I feel like the end result will be a console that improves the quality of my recordings, mixes, workflow, and provides me with a premium dose of satisfaction for years to come.     

40 in stock as of this post and now shipping.  The 2020S was released earlier this month in case you missed the memo.  I know some folks have my blog bookmarked, so if you didn't see the homepage... here's the official demo:
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DiVision - nuvistor vacuum tube powered direct box with an LBA-MC15 transformer.  There's 14 people on the wait list for the pre-release.  They will get first dibs.  Only 68 DiVision's will be made - each one signed and numbered.  I think I'll have the pre-release ready by next month.  One diversion from the design criteria is the enclosure size.  I wanted the DiVision to fit inside the same size die-cast enclosure as the NuVision pedal (Hammond 1590BB).  However, after completely designing the DiVision electronics I realized it simply won't fit because there's a lot more electronics inside the DiVision.  Here's a screen shot of the circuit board:   

How big is it?  Well, its going to be mounted inside the same enclosure as the TI Box... and it just fits.  There's enough vertical room inside the enclosure to allow for some heat dissipation.  However, there is not much heat produced by this device.  I spent a fair bit of time dialing in its performance to yield the highest possible efficiency.  The exact performance was documented in a previous blog post if my memory serves correct.  I had wanted to make it so you could power the DiVision from either 9V or 12V DC, but in testing I realized there were no benefits from 12V in this design and actually it made the DiVision run hot.  So, stick with 9V DC power.  It steps that voltage up internally to around 250V DC for the nuvistor to operate properly. 

More to come as the pre-release closes in.  I'm expecting this product to sell for $299 USD.

If I had all the money in the world I probably would live on a private tropical island, but I don't so I might as well have as much fun as I can with my limited funds in the snowy North.  There are two things highest on my priority list at the moment.  Releasing the 2020S is the primary goal for the immediate future, but that is pivoting around the secondary goal of buying a specialized high-end 3D printer.  Its currently at a point of not wanting to do one without the other, so I'm trying to figure out how to best proceed.  I'm paying obscene prices for the transformer bobbins to be manufactured from a company who is 3D printing them for me with a 3D file I provided.  Furthermore, it takes 3-4 weeks for my orders to arrive, so its difficult gearing up for a product release based on these two factors.  If I drop several thousand on a specialized machine I can make the bobbins in house whenever I want them and at a price 80% lower.  Based on my sales from last year, the machine should pay for itself in under a year.  That machine is a high priority, but buying it now will put me in a tight financial position.  Contemplating my next move on that one. 

The tube DI Box.  There are 14 people on my list who requested direct notification of its availability.  That exceeds the 10 required for me to move forward with the design.  I worked on it more yesterday and made some final adjustments to the design.  I have a parts list for this project that needs to be ordered, which totals several hundred dollars.  The next step is probably the most difficult and that is to arrange the circuit to fit on a PCB that meets the dimensional constraints of the design.  The prototype is a mess of mini prototype boards and a breadboard connected together with jumpers.  Its powered by a benchtop power supply.  There are multiple pieces of test gear spliced in circuit to analyze performance attributes.  I have a bass plugged into the input and the output is connected to a Zoom H4N for recording samples so I can document the sonic effects of each circuit alteration made.  Its a big pile of stuff on the bench.  It doesn't look like it would fit inside of a pedal enclosure at this point, but I really won't know until I try.  The design currently works best with a 9V DC input.  At 9V it draws about 353mA.  Internally it steps the voltage up to 200V for the B+.  I have the tube biased the best I possibly can, balancing tube life with good tone.  There will be two control knobs on the final product.  One is for "brilliance," which is a high frequency shelving boost of 8dB starting at 10kHz.  The other knob is an input volume attenuator.  Having an input control makes way more sense to me than an output volume.  You can attenuate the output with the mic preamp you'll be plugging the DI into.  The input attenuator allows you to attenuate hot signals before hitting the tube's input if so desired.  I so desired when putting a 2020S in front of the DI.  It was such a cool sound to drive the 2020S hard and control its output with the "DiVision."  Its a sound that instantly reminded me of early 1960's recording gear.  The sound is a little hairy in a light, crisp way.  Its not overly colorful, but certainly has a tasteful amount of "vintage" tone.  That retro quality comes almost entirely from the 2020S, but combined with the 3D soundstage (big tube headroom) of the DiVision - that's what takes me to the early 60's.  Anyway, I'm not sure how much more time it will take to turn this into a product.  Its 3rd on the list of priorities, so maybe in February or March it will become a reality. 

Trinity.  Will this finally be the year?  It sure looks like it from where I'm standing.  Based on the current prototype, the thousands of dollars needed to get it to the finish line, and the amount of work needed to develop the retail packaging, marketing strategies, advertising campaigns, etc, I'm expecting the earliest would be sometime late in 2021.  Hopefully, in time for Winter NAMM, but that might be wishful thinking.  Meanwhile, my friends over at http://kingbuffalo.com/ are recording a new record and they're doing it almost exclusively with Trinity channel strips (prototypes).  I, for one, am very excited to hear the results.  I have been in regular contact with Sean throughout the tracking of this record.  He's been giving me updates along the way on how he is using the channel strips and the settings for each application.  Its fascinating.  I'm going to ask him if I can publish that information in a blog post.  I think it'll be an awesome read.  Stay tuned!       

I figured the likelihood of it working was about 30%, but it was worth the try because the R&D cost would be low.  The only way it could work is if the transformer had a lot more turns of wire than the 2020, so I procured the absolute finest wire I could find in order to fit it on the same bobbin.  The first prototype surprisingly worked well, but I decided to wind another with some variations.  After comparing the two to each other and the original 2020, I decided the second attempt was the better choice because it was the most colorful option.  The first attempt sounded much closer to the original 2020, but I realize people want the maximum color possible - while still sounding good.

After the holiday break (today-January 2nd) I will return to start work on the demo video.  I'll be comparing the 2020S to the original version and demonstrating how it saturates at a much lower volume than the original.  I might even include a chain of multiple 2020S's.
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I have a bunch of these already made and boxed up.  They will be the pre-orders.  I'm accepting pre-orders until they run out.  This is limited to 33 units.  The official release date has not been determined yet, but should be expected for late January.  Pre-orders can be placed here.    

Despite the pandemic, so far this year LBA has seen a growth in sales of 25% over its best year, which was 2018.  I'm beyond words with my great appreciation for the people like you who have helped to support my electrical endeavors during these difficult times.  The 2020 Instrument Transformer has sold 170 units since its release earlier this year (as of this post).  Compared to the big companies that's a drop in the bucket, but for a one-man hand-made operation, I think its not too shabby.  Thank you! 

I have a fair quantity of products built and ready to ship.  Because of this I've been spending my time over the past month working on 2 things.  Number 2 is something the average bassist will appreciate and that's below.  Number 1 is my beloved Trinity channel strip design.  I'm working harder than ever on this and making great headway in all avenues (and there's a lot of avenues).  The channel strip design has been complete in the sense of a working model that I'm 100% pleased with the performance of, as of October.  The primary goal right now is to make it easy to build.  I'll quote myself, "So easy a Grandma could put it together."  The internals will be modular so if anything goes bad a module can be swapped out instead of having to send the whole channel strip in for repair.  I haven't seen a failure from one yet.  My oldest (in my possession) prototype is still performing like new after serving my studio for about 2 years.  The earliest prototypes go back to over 5 years ago, many of which were sold and some decommissioned.  Of those sold I haven't heard of any failures or issues, though I'm aware of some bugs with the early ones.  At this point the design is becoming very mature and nearly ready for market.  I hope to be able to offer the Trinity as a complete system sometime by the end of 2021.  There are a couple other complimentary products that will be offered at the same time.

2.  The past two day's I've been working on a vacuum tube powered DI Box which will be the size of one of my old pedals (Hammond 1590BB enclosure).  Further design requirements are that it runs on 9V DC and draws less than 350mA.  Well, as of today I have a working model that sounds quite special in my own opinion.  It runs a single Nuvistor vacuum tube into an LBA-MC15 transformer.  That's the same transformer as the TI Box.  The system takes a 9V DC input at 320mA and converts it to 231V DC for the B+ to power the tube and drops it down to 5.8V for the heater filament of the tube.  The filament is designed to operate at 6.3V, but with a NOS tube it will operate properly with a supply voltage as low as 4.5V.  I have chosen to run the filament voltage a little below 6.3V to extend life without affecting performance.  Initial testing of the design has shown a THD of 1.25%, which in my opinion isn't super low, but its just low enough to sound clean while displaying the sexy qualities of the "tube sound."  The frequency response is beyond what I can measure in my lab, although I do have alternate equipment in my studio which can give me better insight - in the future when I do that.  What I measured in the lab is a response from 10Hz-25kHz with very little deviation from linearity.  Basically, its a good clean tube circuit with a bit of natural tube mojo allowed through.  A feature of this design that will be unique and borrowed from my Trinity design is the "Brilliance" control.  This is literally the exact circuit pulled from the Trinity.  I measured on my spectrum analyzer a shelving boost of nearly 10dB with this knob starting at 10kHz.  Playing my bass with this knob fully up was preferable to me.  I really liked the articulation it added.  Overall the total amount of clean boost this DI provides has not yet been determined, but it is substantially louder than a passive DI Box.   The noise floor in preliminary tests was inaudible.  More scientific tests need to be conducted to determine exact figures.  Pricing is yet to be determined.  Available quantity is however, very finite.  I will only make 68 of these boxes.  That is because I only have 68 of these nuvistor vacuum tubes in stock and due to current market prices I don't intend to buy more.  I will make a promise right now that I will only make 68 of these boxes.  This is a collectors piece for sure!  
Orders are not being accepted at this time, but if interested please email sales@lightningboyaudio.com to get on the first-come-first-serve email list.