Your Very Own Bluey
Experienced recording engineers are familiar with the concept of “happy accidents” — those once-in-a-blue-moon moments that ignite spontaneous magic in your recordings. You can’t plan them — they’re organic, comprised of sheer randomness or even bone-headed mistakes. It’s the guitarist getting caught in the wrong key (“modal jazz!”); the wrong track patched into the sidechain (“Grammy-winning engineering!”); singers riffing when they thought it was just a run-through (“pure poetic brilliance!”). The same audio gods sometimes smile down upon a piece of vintage gear. Through decades of repair and maintenance, some units seem to improve with time.
The scarcity of original parts forces techs to deviate from the original design, unwittingly creating a one-of-a-kind mod that sounds amazing. Such is renowned mix engineer Chris Lord-Alge’s prized 1176, which he affectionately calls “Bluey.” Chris wanted more channels of this very special limiter, and he reached out to the modification geniuses at Black Lion Audio. The result sounded so spectacular that they decided to share it with the world — now available as a 500 Series unit! Sweetwater is pleased to present to you the Black Lion Audio Bluey 500. Trust us — it will rock your world.
Related Videos: Bluey 500 FET Limiting Amplifier
A very special Blue Stripe
With his gifted ears, decades of world-class experience, and an arsenal of coveted vintage gear, acclaimed mix engineer Chris Lord-Alge came to identify one of his four Blue Stripe–revision 1176 limiters as being especially wonderful. Based on the faceplate cosmetics featuring a section of blue paint around the VU meter, 1176 revisions A, A/B, and B are all referred to as “Blue Stripe” units. This particular unit, dubbed “Bluey,” has that special je ne sais quoi that makes vocal tracks shine like no other dynamics processor.
Bluey gets the BLA treatment
Intrigued by Chris’s effusive praise of Bluey, Black Lion head design engineer Jesus Ortiz and modification tech Preston Whiting took a flight from O’Hare to LAX to find out what gave this Blue Stripe its edge. Their diagnosis uncovered a series of modifications done to the unit over the years to keep it working that miraculously created a monster 1176. BLA analyzed the unit in meticulous detail and has, in cooperation with Chris, re-created the beast — first available to everyone as the 2U Black Lion Audio Bluey, and now in a 500 Series form as the Bluey 500.
The mod squad
Since 2006, Black Lion Audio has helped musicians and engineers improve the sound of their equipment, and they’ve built a solid reputation for coaxing world-class sound out of modestly priced gear. As an outfit that cut its teeth doing acclaimed mods, Black Lion, unsurprisingly, produces innovative audio equipment of their own design that consistently outperforms its price range.
Black Lion Audio Bluey 500 FET Limiting Amplifier Features:
- All the “Blue” without the 2U — the same character as the 2U Bluey, now in a 500 Series unit
- 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
- Hand tested for quality control and calibrated in the USA
