March 1st marks the end of instrument FX pedal production for Lightning Boy Audio and signals the start of a new era for LBA.  I will be building pedals for the next week or two as I complete the last orders and get them shipped out.  After that I'll be starting on some long awaited projects.  The very first thing I'm going to work on is a new plate reverb for my recording studio.  The new reverb will take all I've learned from working on vintage EMT 140 reverbs and all I've learned from building hi-fi tube amps and combine them into the most badass analog plate reverb to ever grace the Earth.  I am literally setting out to create the best sounding reverb processor ever.

After I conquer the reverb, which will be no small feat, my next project will be a stereo passive EQ.  This is something that I've wanted to do for many years.  Thankfully I held off for as long as I did because now I have spent over 4 years of R&D on my prototype, which is so impressive sounding its just plain ridiculous.  I'm very excited to finally be building this equalizer because I know how epic it will be.  Words can't describe how beautiful the prototype sounds AND the crazy thing is the prototype is made out of spare parts and salvaged junk.  It looks ugly as hell, but it works great and sounds even better! 

After the EQ is complete I will be building a very limited run of super high-end rack mounted studio guitar amps.  I'm probably only going to make 5-10 amps. I already built a prototype which blows away anything I've heard before.  Its a 30 watt singled ended class A hand wired tube amp.  Its going to have a killer tube powered spring reverb (which may be optional, but I haven't decided yet). I already built a standalone rack mount tube reverb for a very faithful LBA customer, which this amps reverb will be based on.     

Last night was the first test of my first guitar amp build and it was a massive success!  I'm building a tube amp for Benjamin Wade and the only requirement is that it be a studio amp of Lightning Boy quality.  What we have here is a head that puts out 20 watts of pure class A single ended tube tone.  Its a low gain amp with controls for input gain, bass, mids, treble, output gain.  Its currently powered by a 5U4 rectifier tube, an EL34 power tube and a 12AX7 preamp tube.  In the coming days I will be converting it over to a 6L6 power tube and I'll be adding some simple tweaks such as a jewel lamp, which its currently missing.  It has outputs for 4, 8 and 16 ohm speakers.  

Hows it sound?  Well, on first listening the very first thing I noticed was a significant amount of headroom.  Thats always a good thing!  It can get really clean and "nashville" sounding, but you can dial in a raw and angry crunch with both gain knobs cranked.  With the gain pegged, it has almost a wild sounding purr to it, like a lion.  The breakup is pretty unique sounding in a very hip kind of way.  The EQ controls are buttery smooth and very gradual, unlike the EQ on most amps I have played through over the years.  I may mess with the EQ points a touch because the bass is so deep that its not all that useable for guitar and the low mids are a little too low for my taste, although they sound really nice!  

Next update will include photos at least, but also some sound samples!  I think I shall call her the "Custom 13."  

I am planning to make my own inductors by hand for the Tube Buffered Bypass option (Opti-Mu Prime) and for the Mikey Q sidecar for Soul Drive IV. For the time being, I am using some vintage Yamaha inductors scrapped from PM1000 Mixing board channel strips for Opti-Mu Prime (tube buffered bypass version), but I only have a very small number of these.  I ordered some ferrite cores to start building my own mini inductors, so it will soon be possible for the "Mikey Q" Sidecar to become available again.  

Also, I updated the Opti-Mu Prime page -  the Tube Buffered Bypass version is available for ordering.  The price is higher than the True Bypass version because there is some added electronics which are pretty serious.  The tube buffered bypass was painstakingly tuned to provide the purest tone possible for long cable runs when the pedal is bypassed.  Opti-Mu Prime

I'm currently working on developing a new line of products to fill the niche of studio gear.  One of the main products currently under development is a line of tube powered microphone preamps.  Hopefully, these new products will be available sometime around the New Year.  

Currently tweaking the output stage.  I'm trying out different transformers looking for the "right sound."  Just ordered some Carnhill transformers, so we'll see how they perform soon enough.  I have already tried Sowter, Jensen and Cinemag.  Jensen transformers work, but sound a little to "plain" for what I'm looking for.  More updates to follow!

NOS tape head cleaner (buffing tape) came in today so I took a cleaning to the Marantz. Took a look at the heads first and realized one was very dirty, so I busted out the Alcohol and swabs first. Then I ran the buffing tape through and now the heads look like they're brand new. I can tell this machine has very low mileage. won a box of blank hi-bias NOS tapes this morning. Getting ready to get a bit more creative :)

Mike Here with an update... "Estate Sale Gems" (ESG)... I found some really killer NOS 12AU7 tubes at an estate sale. Super low noise and super warm fat tones. If you want to upgrade your purchase with an ESG tube, shoot me an email at sales@lightningboyaudio.com. There is an additional charge of $20 per tube. The tubes normally included with Soul Drives are tested on a tube tester and tested by ear for microphonics, but they are not screened for normal tube noise unless it seems higher than average. However, our ESG tubes go through more significant testing and are compared against other 12AU7 tubes to find those that exhibit less tube noise than average. I have developed a noise rating system (A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-). Any tube heard as a "B" or worse in terms of noise will always get rejected in any Soul Drive pedal. A- and B+ tubes are average NOS tubes. The ESG tubes are hand selected when they exhibit noise low enough to be considered A+ or A rated. ESG tubes are also fatter sounding in terms of tone, IMHO.

Gallery Acoustics 100% ANALOG DEAL! Gallery Acoustics is now offering for a very limited time an interesting deal for friends on our facebook page. Get a 6hr "Live" session Recorded & Mixed entirely in the analog realm (absolutely no digital involved) for just $160. Walk away with a hi-bias 60 minute cassette Master recorded directly from GA's Midas console to a professional Marantz cassette recorder (CD version available for extra $10). Send off your cassette for Mastering or rock it as is. Cassette duplication also available. 
*6hr Analog deal means no computers or digital FX are used. Analog mixing, analog FX, analog Master. This 6hr deal requires appx 2hrs of prep time... 1-1.5hrs for mic placement and levels & .5-1 hour for Mixing... then we press record and when you are done tracking you have a brand new cassette (which is actually quite great sounding).
Email info@galleryacoustics.com with ANALOG DEAL in the subject.

Got probably one of my best recordings of drums tonight at Gallery Acoustics. We spent about 15 minutes trying out different cymbals to find the ones that were in key with the music. Then I spent almost an hour tuning the tops and bottom heads of the toms so they would be in key with the music, but also somewhere within their natural sweet spot. After a quick tuning of the resonant and beater heads of the kick drums we set up to record. I got a super clean recording and we didn't need to use any dampening materials on any drums or even inside the kick. Everything was really well controlled and sounded like one giant instrument instead of a bunch of parts that add up to a drum set... all thanks to a very thorough tuning. It worked tremendously well for the music and is definitely the "right way to do things" from a recording standpoint. I don't need to gate the toms or do any processing really because we didn't get much bleed on the close mics and the drummer (Nick) had impeccable control over his dynamics. Ribbon overheads, beta 57 snare, N/D868 on kick, Floor tom got a Beta 52, Rack tom had a Beyerdynamics MC930, used a Pearlman TM1 set in omni as a room mic. Lots of time was spent with mic placement.

Altec 438c mic preamp & vari mu compressor. Heavily modified by the hands of Dr. Mikenstein. Added a hand made stepped output volume attenuator, line input (bypasses mic preamp), attack time control, line input volume pad, and a meter adjust control.