Mike:  Fire those girls up yet?  (Trinity's)
Sean:  Sure did!  I did end up using em on kick and snare to much success (new version on kick and old on snare).  I ended up going super clean with the kick with no EQ or anything.  And a touch of EQ on the snare with a little bit more input gain.  Sounding killer so far.
Mike:  That EQ should come in super handy for dialing in the guitar.
Sean:  Yeah, I'm stoked to try it on other things.  I've been extremely conservative with the EQ simply because I'm monitoring in the same room as tracking.  So it's a little tough to know exactly what's going on.  But, I think I really want to run stuff back through it after tracking to really juice stuff and experiment with the EQ more.
Sean:  Drums are sounding sweet.  Tomorrow we finish drums.  In all my editing work though I've been very stoked on the kick and snare sounds from the strips.  
Mike:  Well, you are one of a few people giving me feedback, so bring it on.
Sean:  Best descriptions so far would be.  Thick.  "Vibe".  Didn't use much EQ on kick (just a little lo boost and mid cut).  Little treble and brilliance on snare.  Really nice.
Sean:  Dude, so the Trinity strip has really been kicking ass on bass.  I haven't A/B'd the 2 units on it yet cuz I've just really been digging the mid control on the newer one.  I've found for my purposes, a small/medium boost of all 3 bands is really sweetening it up.  I experimented with the Thunder control and it sounded super bad ass, but I found with Dan's bass it was a little too much (he plays a Music Man with active pickups, so it's coming in pretty hot).  I actually found there was PLENTY of "vibe and dirt" without needing the Thunder or Ribbon settings.  We ran one song super clean (input around 2.5-3) and it had plenty of spank with a smooth upper mid/highs.  We ran another song on the more dirtier side (input only around 12:00).  It sounded nice with a mild bit of rasp/throatiness when he was in the middle registers of the bass, but really brought out a nice growl when he moved down low and laid into his low D (we tune down to D standard).  It's all been sounding super silky and smooth (even when slightly dirty).  But the way it butters up the low end is suuuuper sweet.
Mike:  What were your favorite frequency selections for Bass EQ?  Still not tasting the brilliance?
Sean:  I know I have a touch of brilliance going (maybe like 2:00).  I think 200Hz for the low boost and boosting the mids at 2kHz.  Again prolly around 2:00.  Just giving it a little bit of clarity and attack.  But nothin crazy. 
Mike:  Have you tracked guitar?
Sean:  Haven't done guitars yet, but should be sometime next week.  I have gone pretty conservative with EQ so far cuz some of the songs are gonna have real thick walls of guitar and I don't wanna get myself in trouble.  I plan on running stuff back through the unit once I have more of the layers in.  Then I'll get more aggressive once I have a better idea of how much room I'll have.  
Mike:  Understood.  Depends on the mics too.
Sean:  I went fully DI so far with bass.  I reamped live and recorded an amp track with a 421 mostly just for reference.
Mike:  Was the bass through the TI Box?
Sean:  Nope.  Straight into Trinity.  Split back out via the interface control with virtually no latency into a reamp box, then pedalboard and amp.
Mike:  I love the bass sound direct into a Trinity.
Sean:  I honestly don't think anyone would need anything more from a channel strip for bass.  It just nails it.  I mean of course there isn't one solution for every audio need in existence.  But it's certainly kickin ass.  It definitely has a vibe and signature which is super cool and extremely useful.  There's a very real possibility that almost every single instrument will go through the Trinity at some point on this record haha.  
Sean:  They sounded great on guitar.  I ended up pushin gain pretty hard to give a little extra dirt.  Ended up tweaking the EQ depending on the sound of that particular section.
Mike:  Nice.
Sean:  For heavy fuzz and distortion I cut the brilliance all the way down and tamed the highs.  That combined with the extra dirt was awesome.  
Mike:  Did you use the Thunder feature for that application?
Sean:  No I didn't.  I just needed a little extra push.  The Thunder was a bit too much.
Mike:  How's the record coming?
Sean:  Good!  I think I finally have all the ridiculous layers of guitars done.  I reamped bass yesterday and it's sounding awesome.  Reamped Trinity strip bass DI into an old Ampeg V4.  Miced with a Warm Audio 87 clone into the Trinity strip with the Thunder function.  Beef city!
Mike:  Excellent.
Sean:  So Trinity squared for bass haha.
Mike:  I'm eagerly awaiting this new record.  Have a date yet?
Sean:  Hopefully wrapping up everything within the next 10 days.  Finally started vocals yesterday.  Did the Thunder function trick... sounded so sick... worked perfectly for what I was looking for.  Super present and dry, but full of "vibe".

There seems to be some confusion out there about my products.  They are not all limited edition.  I understand why people think that.  Its because I have a record of producing products for 1-3 years and then moving on to something else.  However, in the current lineup of products, the only item I consider to be limited edition is the DiVision.  The 2020S is about to become temporarily unavailable, but I assure you it is coming back.  Once I sell out of this batch (I think there are 6 left) it will be several weeks before I have inventory again.  I need to spend a little time altering the circuit board layout to make assembly easier and I need to then order a hundred boards.  I also need to put in an order for more decals.  My time is very limited right now, as I'm spread thinly across many projects.  With your continued support I may be able to graduate to a multi-person company!      

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!