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 [email protected].  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!  

Dad needs a vacation.  That's what I've been telling my wife for the past 6 months.  Business has been increasing, but its still just me.  Trying to stay ahead of the game has become more challenging... well, nearly impossible.  Exhausted is the word. 

​The weather has been a bit unforgiving lately.  The past two days were snow days since the Erie County was in a state of emergency and there was a driving ban.  I was forced to not work.  Maybe that was a good thing?  My body thinks so.  Today was a 12hr day in an effort to make up for lost time.  Going to the Florida Keys to warm up and relax.  Its much needed. 

Orders placed during my break will be handled in the order received upon my return.  I'm not bringing my phone on vacation and I'm not checking email until I get back.  I will respond to every email and phone message once I return.  I hope this short break poses no inconvenience for you.  I'm sure you can understand - everyone needs to unwind from time to time.  Thanks for visiting my site.  Please check back soon for some exciting new developments!  
​-Mike  

You may have noticed this website was crippled for several days (at least).  I'm not exactly sure how long, but its back now and sorry for any inconvenience.  That was my fault and I wasn't aware of the issue until yesterday.  I have been preoccupied by very much work.  I'm bouncing between pedal builds and a channel strip I'm building for a studio owner.  The channel strip is eating up most of my time and my brain.  Its about 2/3 complete.  I haven't started on the vacuum tube part of the electronics yet.  Its mostly relay routing.  switches controlling relays, timers controlling relays, relays controlling relays... my brain hurts.  I think this might be considered a basic analog computer! lol.  Its certainly the most complex and sophisticated thing I ever designed.  Looks like a mess right now because I'm right in the middle of building it, but here she is (phone camera shots):  

If you're following me on Instagram, you likely heard about this several days ago, but to be official, here it is again:  

In this update the big change is more headroom, but there are other minor updates as well.  I changed the switch for the Thunder to a new setup that uses simpler and more reliable switch to trigger a relay.  This setup is a little more expensive, but I was able to shave those pennies off in other areas.  The larger switch I was using before broke during shipping twice and one customer experienced failure after a month.  I can't have that bad behavior going on with my children!  The new switch is much higher quality, so its far less likely to fail.  There's a new PCB, well a couple new ones, which speed up my assembly and provide improved rigidity of the internals.  I also decided to upgrade the vacuum tube slightly.  Before was the bog standard JJ ECC83 (12AX7).  Now I'm using JJ's ECC803s, which basically is a higher quality 12AX7.  Another added expense, so I had to reduce cost somewhere else to maintain the same price for the pedal.  My thinking was the vacuum tube and the B+ are the two most important factors in the sound of the pedal.  Get those right and the rest is icing on the cake.  The new PCB design allows me to use unshielded wire exclusively, whereas before there was about 5" of super expensive shielded silver plated avionics wire.  I found further savings by replacing one low significance paper in oil capacitor with a silver mica version for about half the price.  That cap is responsible for attenuating some upper high frequencies when the Thunder switch is off. 

All in all, the new version of the Thunder Knob sounds better and is more robust, and I did it without having to increase the price of the pedal.  If you have an older version of the Thunder Knob and would like it updated to this new "Revision B," I would be happy to perform the mod for $55 plus shipping.  The mod does not include a tube swap.  If you'd like the ECC803s tube installed with your mod, the mod would cost $65 plus shipping and you'd get the old 12AX7 back too.  Please email me to setup mod work at [email protected].  

Yesterday I came up with better compression circuit for the Op-2.  Today I improved on it a bit and made another update.  The new update of today is I decided to run the Op-2 on 24V DC instead of 12V DC.  Double the headroom makes for a cleaner/more high fidelity sound.  Since I was already including a 12v adapter before, now I will include a 24v adapter instead.  The new 24v design will not work on 12v.  

To my ears, the sound of the new compression circuit paired with the higher headroom of 24v makes for a much smoother and detailed sounding pedal.  These changes have prompted me to name this as "Revision B."  I decided to maintain the same price, despite a slightly higher build cost.  Owners of older Op-2 pedals can send their pedal in for the full Revision B update (new power adapter included) for $40 USD plus shipping.  Contact [email protected] for details.  

First off, this is amazing.  Second, the tone of the pedal has not changed.  What's new?  The range of compression.  There's a wider range with the new update and a side effect (and bonus) is a slightly lower noise floor.

My notes indicate that I released the Op-2 in April of 2016.  I remember for a couple months before then I was struggling to come up with an all-tube compression circuit that operated on 12v.  The struggle was creating a lot of compression.  It was impossible with just 12v.  That was the same issue I was dealt with Op-2's predecessor, Opti-Mu Prime.  I will stress that no one ever asked me to make either pedal compress more.  I am a studio producer and engineer, so under the microscope of the studio I always wanted a studio compressor in a pedal.  I felt the Op-2 came a lot closer to that than the Opti-Mu Prime, but for me neither one had the range of compression that I wanted.  Before and ever since the release of the Op-2 Comp I have been trying to figure out how to get it to compress more severely without altering its tone, physical size, price, or a variety of other parameters.  Its now been over 2 and a half years and many times I said, "this is as good as it gets."  But, today everything changed.  I felt a stoke of genius hit me today.  A feeling I rarely have, but when I do I feel very fortunate.  An idea came into my mind that would essentially triple the compression range of the pedal without compromising the tone people have come to love (especially bass players).  I decided to put my scheduled work aside for the day so I could experiment and try out this new idea.  BINGO!  I feel like there are so very few times when an idea comes to mind and it actually works flawlessly... unicorn moment.  Basically, the original design split off a portion of the signal to drive the light element of the compression circuit.  It was essentially directly coupled to the audio signal.  While this worked to a noticeable degree, it also created a subtle amount of distortion and introduced a minor amount of noise.  The new design is much better for several reasons, but first because it isolates the audio from the "light drive."  It then takes the isolated signal and converts it to DC to drive the LED, but not before boosting it 3 times.  It does all this in a super simple and cost effective manner, which means the price of the pedal shouldn't change much at all.  It takes about 15 minutes to build this new "light driver" circuit, but that could potentially be reduced.  The 15 minutes of added build time is a cost that I will try to figure out how to minimize.  I was playing my bass through the new design today and comparing to the old design.  Its a no-brainer. 
If you already own an older Op-2 and would like to get the compression expansion mod, fret not.  Its just $15 plus round trip shipping. I don't have sufficient parts on hand at this particular moment to do a whole ton of mods at once, so depending on the demand it may take a couple weeks.  Definitely not months!  Email [email protected] for details.  Thanks for your time!