Bluey FET Limiting Amplifier

Description 

The “Bluey” is a modified “Blue Stripe” compressor based off of the “golden” unit owned by Chris Lord-Alge. When certain components became unavailable, techs were forced to change the circuit, creating a one of a kind compressor that has been heard on countless hits. Any audio engineer worth their weight in gear will tell you about the special moments that occur on records by chance. We’re talking about the magic you can’t plan. It must occur organically, being comprised of sheer randomness or even flat out mistakes. For instance, the spontaneous banter from a vocalist in between takes that adds character to a track, or a radical new audio effect discovered through a simple routing mistake. 

The same good fortune sometimes shines upon a piece in the vintage gear world. Through decades of maintenance and repair, some units, like wine, get better with time. The scarcity of original parts leads technicians to diverge from the original design, creating an improved, one-of-a-kind, modified unit. 

Armed with an impeccable ear, decades of experience, and an abundance of coveted gear, legendary mix engineer, Chris Lord-Alge, was able to recognize one of his four 1176 Blue Stripe units as firmly sitting in this distinctive category. The particular unit, dubbed “Bluey,” has a special “mojo” to it that shines on vocal tracks like no other. 

Chris desired more channels of this golden unit, and reached out to the guys who know modifications best – the team at Black Lion Audio! Intrigued by Chris’ praise of the unit, head design engineer, Jesus Ortiz, boarded a plane from Chicago to LA to discover what gave this Blue Stripe its edge. He found a series of mods done to the unit over the years to keep it working that miraculously cumulated in a uniquely beast-like 1176! BLA analyzed the unit with pain-staking detail, and has, in conjunction with Chris Lorde-Alge, recreated the monster, now known as the new Black Lion Audio “Bluey!” 

• Fully discrete design

• Through hole components

• Polyester capacitors

• Vintage inspired one-sided PCB layout

• Cinemag remake of original UTC transformer

• Wet/Dry mix feature

• Linear power supply

• Precise meter calibration

New features, new sounds

To get the exacting detail that Chris Lord-Alge has enjoyed from the original Bluey, we not only used custom Cinemag transformers, we actually recreated his console’s insert path and built it right into Bluey — giving everyone the same console feel! But we didn’t stop there: We also added an active wet/dry mix for easy parallel compression, as well as a stereo link! Bluey was designed with a vintage-inspired PCB layout, 1% resistors, polyester capacitors, and a linear power supply — meaning that Bluey is built to last! And like all Black Lion products, Bluey is hand assembled and tested in the USA.

Blue is the new gold.

“I THOUGHT I’D NEVER BE ABLE TO REPLACE MY #1

LIMITER, BUT BLACK LION HAVE CHANGED THAT. I FINALLY

HAVE ANOTHER CHANNEL OF MY PRIZED “BLUEY”, AND

NOW EVERYONE ELSE CAN ENJOY THIS LEGEND TOO.”

-CHRIS LORD-ALGE

Legendary mix engineer Chris Lord-Alge’s record credits are endless — as endless as his love for his 1176 Blue Stripe units. Out of all of them (and he owns quite a few), one unit stuck out with a certain mojo that the others just didn’t quite have. He named this prized 1176 “Bluey”. Chris desired more channels of this golden unit, and reached out to the guys who know modifications best – the team at Black Lion Audio! Intrigued by Chris’s praise of the unit, head design engineer, Jesus Ortiz, boarded a plane from Chicago to LA to discover what gave this Blue Stripe its edge. He found a series of mods done to the unit over the years to keep it working that miraculously cumulated in a uniquely beast-like 1176! BLA analyzed the unit with painstaking detail, and worked closely with Chris Lord-Alge to recreate Bluey.

A Blue classic — reenvisioned for today

Happy accidents can’t be planned; they happen on their own. And sometimes those magic moments hit the gear themselves. Recording engineer to the stars, Chris Lord-Alge, depends on a rack of original Blue Stripe limiters, but there’s been one little issue: one of them has a certain magic that the others don’t. That’s why Black Lion sent our team to study Bluey and learn what made this unit so special. The diagnosis: years of “happy accidents” and odd-fixes were made just to keep it working — but had accidentely created a monster 1176. Black Lion analyzed Bluey in exacting detail to recreate this beast of a limiter, and now we’re bringing it to you. Black Lion Audio’s Bluey: engineered and built in the U 

Black Lion Audio Bluey FET Limiting Amplifier Features:

·      Fully discrete, Class A circuitry

·      Through-hole components

·      Polyester capacitors

·      Vintage-inspired 1-sided PCB layout

·      Cinemag remake of original UTC transformer

·      Wet/Dry mix feature

·      Stereo-linkable

·      Linear power supply

·      Precise meter calibration

Tech Spec 

Type:

FET Limiter

Number of Channels:

Single channel

Controls:

Attack, Release, Mix, Input, Output

Ratio:

4:1, 8:1, 12:1, 20:1

Inputs:

1 x XLR

Outputs:

1 x XLR

Other I/O:

1 x RCA (stereo link)

Rack Spaces:

2U

Power Source:

Standard IEC AC cable

Manufacturer Part Number:

Bluey