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Black Lion Audio Bluey | Audio Examples

Hear For Yourself By Neil Rogers
Published June 2020

These audio examples accompany the review of Black Lion Audio’s Bluey FET compressor in SOS June 2020

The Bluey is a recreation of producer/mix engineer Chris Lord-Alge’s favourite UA 1176 ‘Blue Stripe’ compressor, a device that Black Lion’s engineers discovered had been incrementally ‘modded’ by the various technicians who’d serviced and repaired it over the years. You can read my full review here:

www.soundonsound.com/reviews/black-lion-audio-bluey

These examples are of the unit being used in some typical applications. I’ve provided the unprocessed 'raw' audio, the same audio processed with the Bluey, and the same sources processed using my own, more modern, 1176LN.

The SoundCloud MP3 versions below are purely for convenience but we recommend you audition the 24-bit hi-res WAV files in the downloadable ZIP file to get an accurate guide to the sonic differences.

Package icon blacklionblueyaudio.zip

Male Vocals

01_Male Vox_RAW

This is the vocal before any mix processing. It was initially recorded with some light compression, but it is otherwise unprocessed.

02_Male Vox_Bluey

The same vocal going through the Bluey, with the attack knob at ‘3 o’clock’ the release as fast as it would go, and about 7-8 dB of gain reduction being applied.

03_Male Vox 1176LN

The same vocal going through my 1176LN, with the same settings and amount of gain reduction.

Female Vocals

04_Female Vox_RAW

A ‘dry’ female vocal, again treated to some very light compression at the tracking stage.

05_Female Vox_Bluey

The female vocal through the Bluey. Again, I had the release set at three quarters to the right and with the fastest release. This is quite a typical 1176 setting for vocals. About 6-7 dB of gain reduction is being applied.

06_Female Vox_1176LN

The female vocal going through my own 1176LN with the same settings.

Kick Drum

07_Kick Drum_RAW

Kick drums are often processed with this style of compressor. This is example is an inside kick mic without any mix processing.

08_Kick Drum_Bluey

The same kick clip, run through the Bluey with around 3dB of gain reduction, medium attack and fastest release.

09_Kick Drum_1176LN

The same kick through my 1176LN, with the same settings.

Bass Guitar

10_Bass Guitar_RAW

A bass guitar recorded through an amp using a Flea FET 47 microphone.

11_Bass Guitar_Bluey

The same bass through the Bluey with 4-5 dB of gain reduction, a medium attack and a slow release.

12_Bass Guitar_1176LN

The same bass part through my 1176LN, with the same settings.