Op-2 Update!

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 sales@lightningboyaudio.com for details.  Thanks for your time!