I recently bought an ultra low budget ($42 after shipping) manual powered coil winding machine.  Last week I posted a photo on my instagram of an audio transformer I successfully made with it.  I bought the winder to attempt to make some of the transformers I need for my Trinity channel strip.  If it worked, and it did, the next step is to buy a professional computer automated transformer winding machine.  The whole point of this is to try to make 2 of the 5 audio transformers for Trinity myself instead of going through a certain well known transformer company.  I would love to get away from relying on them because I really can't rely on them when my phone calls result in a request for an email, my emails rarely get responded to, and then if I do hear back (after a month if I'm lucky) its a 6 week lead time at best.  There's no way I can work with that and not lose my marbles.  Sorry for the frustrated run on.  Problem solved!!! 

I bought this little Chinese coil winder on ebay with very low expectations.  The device is very simple to understand and to care for.  Before using it, I oiled it well with light household oil.  Next, in order to use it without burning up my fingers I needed a way to control the wire layering, so I made a sliding wire guide (manual control).  The wire needed to be tensioned, so I made a tensioner and the wire bobbins needed a way to freely rotate without getting tangled, so I made a bobbin holder.  Basically this winder won't do much without some additional rigging.  I'll save photos for the video if I make one.  

It wasn't only about making the specific transformers I need, it was also about making them on PCB bobbins so I could easily incorporate them into my channel strip design.  Unless you've done the research and know already, its surprisingly difficult to find transformer core material and bobbins, so procuring a source for the exact materials I needed was a major step in justifying a professional transformer winding machine.  I found a lot of companies that will sell you transformer core material, but only if you open up a line of credit with them and then place a minimum order the size of Maryland.  That seems to be the case if the core material you want has any amount of Nickel in it.  I settled on some annealed grain-oriented silicon steel laminations and I'm very happy I did.  The difference with that compared to a high nickel ratio alloy is the steel has more of a vintage sound due to a higher degree of harmonic distortion an limited frequency response.  To tell you the truth, the difference isn't huge.  I actually prefer the sound of the steel core transformers and I was able to get a flat frequency response that extends beyond 10Hz-22kHz with my first successful transformer, which has a step down ratio of 4:1. 

Leave a comment if you'd like to see a video of me making a transformer and talking about this simple manual machine, or let me know if there's something specific you'd like to see related to this topic.  BTW, I'll be out of town from today until August 17th, so limited to no response from me till then.   Thanks for reading!  ​

It is my goal to slowly phase out the pedals as I inch closer to the release of my Trinity channel strip.  I want to focus all my energy on my pride and joy, especially when its ready for production.  The main reason for phasing out the pedals is because they simply aren't profitable.  The biggest reason for them not being profitable is because there's too much hand wiring involved in their assembly.  Possibly in the future I may redesign them to be more profitable or maybe even just a new pedal that's profitable, but as for these, they are on the chopping block.  The NuVision will be the last to get phased out, since I have enough materials to build quite a few of those and its more profitable than the other 2 pedals.  Probably that one will continue on for a couple years.  The Thunder Knob and Op-2 have about a 1/2-1 year of life left in my inventory.  Both of them are almost no profit.  I will be sad to see those two go for the sake of their tone.  Over the past year they have both developed into rather special devices IMO.  I'm sorry to say, but phasing out the pedals is a necessary step to growing my company.  As a one-man operation, time is absolutely everything and the pedals eat up a lot of time with very little pay.  In order to move forward I have to focus on designs that can generate more profit.  That's not to say designs that aren't as good!  I just need to design things in a way that takes much less time to construct and with components that meet some compromise between quality and cost.  It doesn't make much sense anymore to use the best components possible.  Using the best components and hand wiring makes for a product that either generates next to no profit or is so darn expensive few will buy it.  Sure it might sound better, but if few people are buying it then it was not the right move. 

Trinity.  This is my main focus right now and has been for quite some time.  The channel strip design was roughly completed about a year ago.  I've since been field testing with the aid of other studios, and working on reducing the price and build time.  Trinity number 009 (installed at the Bamboo Room studio) was built a couple months ago and took me 80 hours to build.  That was just an insane amount of time.  I realized then it would only be possible for Trinity to be profitable if I could build it in 12 hours or less.  Since then I have been working diligently on getting custom transformers made and on designing more complex circuit boards for the Trinity in order to get the build time down.  Last month I built #010 for Black Rock Studio in Buffalo, NY.  That took 26 hours to build and was the last to feature one of my hand wound toroidal transformers and 11-position stepped output attenuator.  Trinity #011 was built about a week ago and is the first to have one of the new custom transformers mounted on the PCB and a new low cost fully variable output attenuator.  The new attenuator works just as good, but costs $5 instead of $140 and takes a minute to assemble instead of 2 hours!  It took just 18 hours to build #011!  A ton of hand wiring was eliminated from the design by having it all on printed circuit boards.  There are still 4 more audio transformers that need to be designed for PCB mounting and my PCB design is still evolving, but it seems fully possible that I can get the build time under 12 hours.  Getting much closer to the final product and I'm very excited.  If the build time is under 12 hours, I can set the sale price of a Trinity channel strip at $1600 USD.  Much better than the $3000 it would have cost for the labor intensive original version.  $1600 is a highly competitive price for what you're getting.  I'm darn sure that price tag will spark some interest.  This product excites me, so this is the right thing to be working on.  More to come!      

I've been meaning to revamp my plate reverb for a long time.  I was constantly putting it off because it required a lot of unpaid time to accomplish.  Back in May I began the undertaking.  The list of goals made for an epic journey, which I documented on youtube in a 10-part series.  Yesterday afternoon I uploaded the final installment.  Please, enjoy.

I started a youtube playlist that will continue to grow until I complete the build.  Even if you're not a studio engineer, you might find this device and the build process to be of some interest.  I try to keep it interesting while sharing important learning experiences.  Its 4 videos in so far and I expect at this rate there will be about 4-6 more videos before its complete.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD06U8lFwF5U_6tmUQMC24tv4_0-ypW_U 
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A few days ago I unpublished the "store" page from this site.  Its proven to be too difficult for me to cross manage inventory and orders between my site and Reverb.com.  To simplify things I'll just be selling on Reverb.com.  I can imagine this might be a problem for people who don't shop on Reverb.  If that's the issue, just email me with your request and I'll put together a custom Paypal invoice for you.  Sorry if this poses any inconvenience.  

In unrelated news, I've been working on some new videos.  There's been a decent bit of interest in the analog plate reverb video I posted in October.  I said in that video that it would be a mini series documenting the deconstruction and rebuilding better than ever of my plate reverb.  I'm sure the upgrades will be very interesting to those analog lovers of the studio world.  Yesterday, I made the first big step in following up on my word.  A couple friends came by to help me move my plate reverb out of the basement, up two flights of stairs, into the lab, where I can work on it.  I managed to catch a few video glimpses of the move.  I'm sure it will take me a long time to do the actual upgrade work.  So no new vids will be coming immediately.  I've also been working on some video material for Trinity in preparation for its eventual release.  That's a whole different story for another day.     

Nobody is perfect!  But, I'm trying to make the best darn compressor I possibly can and I'm not stopping till... will I ever? lol.  Actually there has been one thing bugging me about the Op-2 since day one and since Rev B. its become far more obvious.  Strangely, its not something anyone other than me seems to care about.  Distortion.  Its subtle, but its there and certain settings bring it out more.  I have been wresting it lately with various sub-revisions.  It seemed like some pedals would be less "hairy" than others.  I tried everything I could think of to reduce the background distortion.  I can now say that was most likely just variances in vacuum tubes, but the hair was still there to some audible degree.   

Today I had some free time (the rarity akin to that of a solar eclipse).  I used it to tinker with an Op-2 I was building.  I loaded the circuit into a computer simulation, which I never did for the Op-2 before.  That's the sort of program I use for designing high end studio gear.  A wise choice.  It told me why the distortion exists and how to reduce it.  Simple update really.  Only a couple resistor values changed, but the level of THD (total harmonic distortion) went way down.  Serial #045 is the first with this update.  If anyone with a revision B pedal wants this mod, its actually super simple so the cost of shipping will be your biggest expense and its not much if you live in the USA.  One thing I'd like to point out is that the overall tone of the pedal has not really changed much.  It still has the same general tone, but with less fizz/hair in the background.  In my opinion, that makes it sound better.  Its cleaner, but not less toneful - in my opinion.  I think this is a very flavorful device and now more useful than ever!  Can it get better?  I don't know, but my biggest issue with it has been overcome.          

It pains me to have to push back the release of Trinity, but its necessary.  I need to spend a lot more time and money on trying to make it a less expensive product.  After building 3 in a row I realize its impossible to release it as a product for the target price of under $2000.  The cost in parts is nearly the asking price and then the labor... the labor - oh my.  It takes me 60 hours to build a Trinity channel strip, and then because its hand wired there is an additional 20-24 hours of trouble shooting to find and eliminate the errors in my work.  80 hours of labor?  I would need to charge well over $5K per channel for it to be even remotely profitable!  That's just insane.  

I decided the only way to make Trinity a viable product for under $2K is to eliminate as much wiring as possible, which means printed circuit boards.  Also, I'll have to say goodbye to my lovely paper in oil capacitors and adopt the much less expensive and more modern WIMA film caps that everyone else uses.  And no more NOS tubes.  Anyway, I designed some new boards, which I'm working on getting some prototypes of made.  Prototyping is expensive, let me tell you... and I'm not just talking about circuit boards!  The enclosure has seen its fair share of revisions and that's no 2 cent part!  Its really putting a major strain on my bank account.  Its simply too stressful and financially difficult to try to release this by the summer.  I think a more reasonable time for the official release is around December.   

Another thing I'm trying to figure out is the interstage transformer situation.  I made several toroidal transformers by hand, which sound very nice and perform perfectly, but they take 4 hours each to make.  That's also insane.  I can't possibly make a product with such labor intensive parts.  So, I bought an inexpensive Jensen transformer to test in the circuit and it performed very poorly (frequency response looked like a camel's back).  This is not a shot at Jensen.  I'm using other transformers from them in Trinity and those transformers perform excellent.  That particular one did not work out.  Next, I tried a Carnhill transformer and it performed with flying colors, but it rattles when I shake it.  That's odd!  I took the transformer apart (enclosed in a metal can) to see what was up with that.  Looks like they used some brittle glue to hold it in place and the glue broke free - presumably during shipping.  I can't have that in a product either!  Reached out to Cinemag, about a custom transformer after that.  They're usually really cool about doing custom things, but from my experience, a long wait is always to be expected.  Meanwhile, I'm working on "the plan" and I'm thinking Cinemag is my backup plan.  "The plan" is to buy a toroidal transformer winding machine (which I found) and start producing my own toroidal audio transformers in bulk.  I'm in talks with a company about manufacturing custom cores for my transformers.  The type of toroidal transformer I'm making is a style known for being as close to electrically perfect as a transformer could possibly be.  My hand-made jobbies fall a bit short of perfect (not at all bad), but I'm sure the winding machine will ace it.  The bottom line is I need a specific transformer for the interstage job and there aren't a lot of options.  The off-the-shelf options are above average in terms of transformer prices... nearly $140 each.  In theory, I can make a better transformer for less money with the machine I have in mind.  My ultimate goal is to decrease the price of my product so I can sell it at a competitive price and still have room to make some sort of profit.  Where it stands now I'm losing money every time I build one.  My Great Uncle Joe put me on to the toroidal transformers and he thinks I could make a business out of that alone.  That was his business back in the old days.  I'll keep it in the back of my mind for now... one step at a time!        

    Over the past year I received a number of inquiries on the specifics of the NuVision pedal's frequency response and specifically related to the EQ controls.  Most (not all) of these people were bass players.  There were at least two guitar players who said they couldn't hear the low cut switch doing anything.  Something is going on, but their guitars/speakers/amps can't produce the low tones necessary to hear what was actually going on.  A few recent emails got me to work late (again) to take some test measurements of the NuVision with DIFFERENT test equipment.  This is much more accurate equipment than I originally used on the NuVision.  It was a bit of a pain in the ass to set up, but I did it for the inquiring minds!  

    I'll diverge for just a second to say a tiny bit about my musical background.  I'm very much a multi-instrumentalist, but my favorite instrument since before I could even play an instrument has always been the bass.  My first instrument was the lowly flute because it was a hand-me-down.  Then guitar because I found one in my gramps basement.  My first bass came at around 9th grade.  OK enough of that ancient history for now!

    If you're following on Instagram, you might get the the idea that I'm busy (Although, I post less than 1% of my work).  Tonight I forced myself to keep going late into the night (yet again) to double check the EQ measurements of the NuVision pedal with more accurate test equipment.  This test equipment is what I've been using for developing my Trinity channel strip because its super accurate.  Its just a real pain in my ass to set it all up (tedious).  What I discovered is a difference from previous tests.  The new information coincides with what people have said to me about the low cut switch.  Some guitar players can't hear the low cut doing anything.  That's probably because its actually at 75Hz, which is about the lowest frequency a large guitar amp can produce.  It makes sense then that they couldn't hear much happening!  The bass knob is a shelving control, so it will provide a relatively level boost (or cut) across all frequencies below its specified point.  The point that I measured tonight is roughly 100Hz.  An interesting thing I found was when the low cut switch is on and the bass knob is boosted all the way you get a 3-octave bell curve boost centered around 80Hz with a 5dB/octave cutoff at 20Hz.  The boost on the graph looked to be only about 3-5dB, but in real life its very audible.  

    As for the treble control (also from tonights analysis), the pedal naturally has a high frequency roll off, which starts somewhere around 4kHz.  I didn't have time to figure out the specific slope.  It looked fairly steep on the graph... certainly when compared to the very high end channel strip I've been developing (which is flat from 8.5Hz-20kHz).  When boosting the treble knob I found the flattest response on the graph happened at about 2:00, which then bumps the treble rolloff up to about 6kHz.  If memory serves me (I'll have to check back) it was about 5dB down at 10kHz, which is right around the highest frequency from a bass.  Boosting the treble knob gives a bell curve because of the natural HF rolloff of the pedal.  I'll have to check on the octave range of the bell curve, but based on my brief viewing I think it spanned about 2 octaves.  It seemed to be focused somewhere around 2-4 kHz.  Difficult to say exactly without further analysis.  

All of this testing stuff aside, I know I like the NuVision pedal on bass because to my ears it makes my bass sound better.  To me it sounds more lively, rich, and more in the foreground.  I play a 2015 G&L LB-100 through a 1964 Ampeg B-15NB.  I also sometimes play a frankenstein Ibanez SR505 that I converted over to all-tube electronics.    

If you have any questions about the NuVision or my other designs, please email sales@lightningboyaudio.com.  Its me and I'd love to hear from you!  Your input helps me improve and move forward.  Thanks for reading :)

I haven't changed the price of the Op-2 Comp since shortly after its release in 2016.  However, the new revision B is more expensive to build in both parts and time.  Also, USPS recently raised their shipping rates.  Beginning April 1st, 2019, the price of the Op-2 Comp will increase from $360 USD to $375 USD.  If you've been thinking about getting one, now is definitely the best time!  In stock now.    

A week away always leads to some backlog of work.  No problem for me, but you may need to wait a little while if interested in an Op-2 or NuVision.  I need to catch up on work.  The Thunder Knob is in stock and ready to ship.  For those interested in picking up a Thunder Knob for less than the regular price, there's a sale going on right now on my reverb.com store until the end of this weekend.  Stop by for a very sweet deal!