Bluey 500 Series

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA: having previously worked with Chris Lord-Alge to commercially create the 2U rack-mount Bluey F.E.T. LIMITING AMPLIFIER, actively reverse-engineering what made the American mix engineer extraordinaire’s beloved ‘Bluey’ FET (Field Effect Transistor) compressor central to working his hit musical magic after many mods, component replacements, and upgrades, boutique audio company Black Lion Audio is proud to announce availability of Bluey 500 — formed perfectly to take that unmistakable blue-striped compression mojo into 500-series racks the world over as a two-slot space-saving device without sacrificing its bigger brother’s sought-after sonic attributes — as of February 9…

As American mix engineer extraordinaire Chris Lord-Alge always relied on a rack of original blue-striped true peak limiters to work his hit musical magic, he hitherto encountered one little issue in doing so. Simply put, one golden-eared example exhibited a certain something that the others did not. Needless to say, this resulted in Black Lion Audio being invited to study his beloved ‘Bluey’ — taking pride of place in that all-important rack — in order to gain an understanding of what made it sound so special, especially when applied to lead vocals where it always achieved incredible grit. Get this, though: the boutique audio company’s diagnosis revealed that the ‘happy accidents’ and odd-fixes applied to the unique unit in question over the years just to keep it in working order had ultimately — unwittingly, even — created a monster 1176! But by analyzing this singular and unique piece of studio ‘unobtanium’ in exacting detail, Black Lion Audio ably succeeded in recreating that beast of a compressor, commercially making it available to everyone as an appropriately-named 2U rack-mount — namely, Bluey F.E.T. LIMITING AMPLIFIER. And all with Chris Lord-Alge’s hands-on blessing.

Fast-forwarding to today sees Black Lion Audio applying its talented team’s technical know-how to bring that same blue-striped compression mojo much loved by Chris Lord-Alge to the production table as an appropriately-named 500-series unit, unbelievably shoehorning in everything that made its Bluey F.E.T. LIMITING AMPLIFIER bigger brother sound so amazing — all the same (INPUT, OUTPUT, ATTACK, RELEASE, COMP MIX, RATIO, and METER) controls, features, and I/O are intact, in other words, while also including a convenient front panel-positioned RCA jack to allow a stereo LINK option.

Far from failing to stop there, though, in order to get the exacting detail that Chris Lord-Alge has enjoyed from his beloved ‘Bluey’, Black Lion Audio not only used custom Cinemag transformers but actually recreated his console’s insert path and built it right into Bluey 500 to provide its users with that same console feel. For anyone seeking some True Blue — Without 2U, to quote from the boutique audio company collectively, they now know where to turn. After all, everyone deserves a li’l’ ‘Bluey’ in their life!

Bluey 500 is available to purchase via Black Lion Audio’s growing global network of dealers/distributors (https://www.blacklionaudio.com/dealers) with a MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) of $699.00 USD and an SSP (Suggested Selling Price) of €932.00 EUR (including VAT).

For further information, please visit the dedicated Bluey 500 webpage here: www.blacklionaudio.com/store...0-fet-limiter/

I'd said that I would never put anything by BLA in my signal chain. Well, I might have to take back my words. That demo, feature set, and price are outstanding.

The only thing is that the Sweetwater demo where they A/Bed the BLA 19" with the real Bluey was pretty underwhelming. The BLA Bluey character had nothing in common with the real deal.

However, if one isn't looking for an exact recreation, this unit has a beautiful character, it seems.

Now that the circuit has been reverse-engineered (it's just a couple of resistors in a different place), I hope others such as Stam add it to their units to get a more authentic recreation.

Blend knob, I recall someone saying a blend or gain reduction would be nice, so while adding distortion level stayed constant ?

Tempting

Damnit

100%. The Bluey is magic on lead vocals. It doesn’t really sound like an 1176, IMO. It has an almost tube-y sort of character to it. Damnit I miss that thing!

It is like an 1176 on steroids. Much more pronounced tone and speed which is why the wet/dry blend comes in handy 👍🏻. Also, it will saturate easier and the saturation is glorious 🔥

Same question.

Curious to know about the noise in this and the rack version. The OG blue-stripe is far from quiet.

I just looked on the Stam website and it looks like a brilliant idea an AD&G version all in the same box!

It says on their website next batch March 2022 (which passed almost a year ago) so maybe it's discontinued?

Did you have to wait a famously long time to receive yours?

+1

I'm with you on that.

I'll keep my eye open on the second hand market :-)