Black Lion Audio Bluey: Everything You Need To Know: Shootout/Demo/Review
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- Опубліковано 14 лип 2024
- To purchase the Black Lion Audio Bluey: amzn.to/46nCxic
To purchase the Black Lion Audio Bluey 500 Series Module: amzn.to/3Qdc7Kx
Decided to get on reviewing this thing after owning it for close to a year. While I wish I could say I used this way more than I hoped to. It mostly sat in my rack for the majority of the time I had it. There's no doubt my love for Audioscape hails supreme in all of my mix choices when given the chance. However, the Audioscape Rev A is just the perfect amount of everything and therefore it's not just my baby and one of my favorite compressors I own. It's pretty my go-to choice when it comes to needing just a little bit extra. While I did have fun with the Black Lion Audio Bluey, at the end of the day it was just fun, and nothing more. I couldn't justify needing something with this much umph and color.
The grit, girth, gain, saturation, and color of over a million greek gods and all the horsepower to make the Daytona 500 feel like a snail race. It just didn't fit into my workflow as well as I wanted it to. Having the other compressors, and being at the price point that it was at. It just made more sense for me to sell it. I don't think it's a bad compressor by any means, this thing is certainly a heavy hitter if you want to make your vocals, guitars, kick, snare, or bass realllllllly upfront in a mix. It was just a bit too much.
I've seen reviews online where people said this thing can be "sweet and soft", "the voice of an angel", and "forgiving, kind, lush, and beautiful". That's simply just not true, honestly, it can't. The mix knob helps for sure, absolutely. You can 100% dial it back. It won't be as aggressive, but the bite and tone are still there. If I wanted to use this on an airy soft vocal, the vocal would have grit on it, volume and push, and a good stroke of color for added measure pretty much changing the overall vibe of the vocal itself. Once again, it's fun, it certainly can be practical if your mixes want to be front and center. Using this thing on a female vocalist to bring out oomph and power for some sort of ballad or pop masterpiece (think Celine Dion or Whitney Huston), would be awesome. Using this thing on a singer-songwriter whose whole vibe is to relay sadness, probably not so much.
A couple of things I didn't mention in the video in regards to very specifics. From my own personal experience, this is the best-built, and best-sounding Black Lion Audio product that they make that's not a mod. As far as I know, it's one of the very few things Black Lion Audio actually makes fully in the USA. I didn't mention my customer service experience with Black Lion Audio. As I have no comment on that. When my BLA Bluey arrived from Guitar Center used, the VU Meter bulb was dead, and when I reached out for customer service to get it looked at under warranty or even out of warranty. Take that how you want.
I did have fun with this and was very very cool to use and very neat to see the end result on a lot of stuff. I was shocked by the comparison to the Waves plugins. Honestly, it's really hard to justify spending that extra money unless you have it to blow for something that'll get you about 85% of the way there.
If you're a Chris Lord Alge fan then obviously, you're going to want this. You'll absolutely get his tone, his larger-than-life sound, and feel behind every one of your mixes with it. It most certainly is CLA in a box.
0:00 Intro
0:18 A Little Bit About The Bluey
2:05 Black Lion Audio As A Company
2:15 Built In The USA
2:40 Build Quality
3:15 VU Meter Replacement
3:56 Price
4:30 Other Options In Comparison
5:30 Explaining My Demo Process Wet/Dry Bypassing
6:00 Explaining My Demo Process Hardware/Software Comparison
7:47 Front Of The Unit Knobs/Features
10:00 Back Of The Unit Features/Outputs
10:26 Guitar No Compression
11:10 Guitar BLA Bluey
11:56 Guitar CLA-76 By Waves
12:40 On/Off BLA Bluey Comparison
13:31 Snare Drum No Compression
14:05 Snare BLA Bluey
14:38 Snare CLA-76 By Waves
15:13 Snare NUKED BLA Bluey
15:47 On/Off BLA Bluey Comparison
16:23 Kick Drum No Compression
17:28 Kick Drum BLA Bluey
18:34 Kick Drum CLA-76 By Waves
19:39 Kick Drum NUKED BLA Bluey
20:45 Kick Drum On/Off BLA Bluey Comparison
21:50 Bass Guitar No Compression
22:24 Bass Guitar BLA Bluey
22:56 Bass Guitar CLA-76 By Waves
23:27 Bass Guitar On/Off BLA Bluey Comparison
24:30 Aggressive Vocals No Compression
25:31 Aggressive Vocals BLA Bluey
26:32 Aggressive Vocals CLA-76 By Waves
27:33 Aggresive Vocals On/Off BLA Bluey Comparison
28:30 Final Thoughts And Collective Thoughts And Opinions
31:44 ITS FUN!!! More Collective Thoughts
35:12 Outro
It always amazes me how analog units impart so much more depth in a signal compared to digital dynamics processing. Very through and informative content!
Great review my friend I own one! amazing.. the thing is with my test when you use the mix knob on the bluey even at full dry you still have the Transformers coloration.not sure if its only the output transformer or both.. no big deal. but keep that in mind so its not a true bypass.only bypass compression.not color
Bluey all the way
Stumbled upon your channel a couple of days ago. Good stuff and thank you for this review. I'm kinda on the fence on this unit - I think I need something more versatile, but it just sounds soooo good.
Anyway, thanks for doing what you do. You have earned yourself a subscriber, Sir!
Thank you so much! I really really really love the way this thing sounds when you go balls to the wall with it. It's amazing on drum rooms, snare, kick, toms, bass, guitars, screaming, even adding a lot of color to a nice chill voice to give it some umph. It's one of the color pallet pieces that when a studio has, you'll make excuses for it. In my sense it didn't really work for me because I already had something that did exactly what the Bluey did. Eventually I may grab it again down the line as a sure why not piece when things get to a point for me where I can sustain it. I ended up getting the blue stripe from Audioscape and it ended up being more aggresive when driven harder, and more versatile when pulled back. A true recreation of that original revesion. That sounded amazing to my ears. I also love everything Audioscape does and have a lot of their products. You can certainly dial back the Bluey, and make it a bit cleaner for sure, but there's going to be more color than your standard 76 blue rev, in my opinion.
Thank you again for subscribing and if I can help in anyway, let me know!
@@lemonlimecola No, thank you and thanks for such a lengthy answer. I ordered the Bluey about an hour after I wrote the above. We'll see if it's a good fit, but as you say, it's another color on the pallet and it is reasonably priced, so I'm fairly certain I won't have major regrets.
I've looked into a lot of the audioscape stuff - I think a STA-level is in my future, but we'll see :)
Take care.
@@lemonlimecola Hey man,
Checking back in 6 months later with an update. Not for any reason in particular and I fear you've shut down your channel - hopefully this message reaches you anyway.
I've been using the bluey for 6 month - it's mostly been on the back end of a vocal/acoustic guitar chain consisting of a Luke Audio tube mic and a Chandler TG2. There's a lot of character in that chain as you can imagine. I'll often use the same chain as a room mic for drums as I'm working in a single room setup. I'm very happy with it for all things rock and beyond. Basically the CLA thing; stuff with a lot of energy or even aggression. I've been back and forth considering something like a STA-level or an LA2A as an alternative - something with character, but perhaps not as much aggression, if that makes sense.
Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with my bluey, but everything you stated above was on point.
I hope you're well. Thanks again.
@@jesperjacobsen2463 I’m still around! Just been living in a place that makes it hard to do content until probably the end of this year. I have been working on things but with work and other avenues I just haven’t been able to fully dedicate. That should change when I move though because ideally I’d like to go full time on UA-cam again.
Thank you for the follow up and kind words.
One of my close buddies bought two like right after I did and he uses them on a stereo room setup for live tracking and loves them for that. Also really loves them on metal and rock bass and guitar as well as screaming and more aggressive vocals.
The LA2A and the STA Level are both great tube optical compressors that sound gorgeous on vocals. Usually what I do for a vocal I want to pop is run parallel compression. My blue stripe (not the bluey) that’s vintage and got that character (just not as much as the bluey) turned down to just before it gets super aggressive. Going into the LA-2A. As well sometimes I’ll run my LA-2A into my other 1176 (black face) for some experimental vocal tones depending on what I’m going for. Then of course vice versa. I’m lucky enough to have a magnitude of compressors to blend and put into each other. The results vary and could be super fun to hear in a tracking situation which changes the performance of the singer. After the fact when it comes to just mixing stems coming at a vocal with different hardware ends up being something I spend a lot of time on. While I do love me some parallel compression. I will a lot of the time just go in with a single 76 (black or blue) or sometimes just the LA-2A if it’s a big thick wide vocal with lots of sustain. Smoothing things out is really nice and the warmth and air that the LA-2A brings is awesome especially on female vocals.
I’ve always said having a palette of colors is the best way to go and I feel like a tube optical compressor is a must. Plus on bass and kick and overheads oh man is it awesome.
@@lemonlimecola Thanks for the reply! Glad to hear you're still around. I feel like I have enough versatility in my hardware selection to warrant the Bluey. I've got both the LA3A and LA2A from Golden Age. The GA2A comfortably beat the WA2A and Klark Teknik when I auditioned them. People seem to be sleeping on them, probably because they don't look like an LA2A... I have several different 1176-clones as well and I feel like for "stock" 1176s we've come to a point where they are really hard to pick apart from each other. The Klark sounds like the Warm which sounds like the UK Sound... I have all three and use them interchangeably without ever noticing a difference in the recording once the mix is playing. I mean - I could probably find minor differences if I went looking, but why would I. Anyway - the bluey has a place in my studio, but I'm on the lookout for something tubey to either add in series or use stand alone. I'm tempted by the Audioscape 2A - which certainly looks the part.
Lindell has an 1176 now called the LN76
I did see it. I was trying to get one cheap just to demo. I’ve heard mixed things on it so far but I haven’t actually taken any time to look into reviews.
Lo siento mucho desgraciadamente no hablo inglés, quisiera saber si hay mucha diferencia entre ese que estás presentando tú, o su hermano de color negro, pues es el que yo he comprado hace un mes, realmente no sabía cuál de los dos comprar no había mucha diferencia de precio de hecho ahora en Toman una página de Europa una empresa alemana hace un mes lo vendían por 999 € y ahora casi 1200, en verdad ahora me arrepiento, pero mi pregunta es, hay alguna diferencia entre los dos? Gracias😊
Pude tener un amigo que me ayude a traducir. Hay una diferencia, entre las dos unidades. El azul es muy agresivo, tiene un sonido vintage y es más una copia de la unidad propiedad del famoso productor musical Chris Lorde Alge. El negro, es un poco más moderno, y más cercano al compresor Universal Audio 1176 que se vende actualmente. Sonido pulido menos agresivo y más moderno. Tiene el sonido de producciones más recientes. Ambos tienen diferentes usos. Azul, mejor para música rock y sonidos de tipo "en tu cara" más agresivos. Negro, mejor para sonidos pulidos y modernos, pero aún le brinda el sonido directo y contundente que emiten los 1176. El precio es extraño en todas partes actualmente. Muchas empresas están subiendo los precios. $ 900- $ 1200 USD es un gran precio, GBP y euros se ven afectados en el mercado de USD. ¡Espero que esto ayude!
the price has gone up $100 since its release. mine was $899. i have a pair
Ya, sadly everything is skyrocketing. This is pretty much every pro audio piece of gear. $100-500 more now than six months ago even, depending on the brand and location the item is made. It's nuts. America's inflation is one thing but it's affecting everything. I personally wouldn't spend more than $700 on one of these and while I did get mine for an absolute bargain, buying a pair at $2000 after tax and shipping with a hookup is steep for a lot of people. Yet it's going to be the new modern.
Cant decide between the Bluey and the Mimas
They’re totally different compressors but I’d say snag the Mimas all day. It’s going to be way more versatile and it doesn’t take up a lot of room. As well the recall. It’s just overall a much better sounding compressor in my experience.
@@lemonlimecola I just grabbed an Elop+ and the Wes Ngbuscomp, and Prometheus for EQ. I think i will be pretty set after getting the Mimas
@@JLP-333 all great gear. All solid pieces that sound really excellent. The Mimas can do the 1176 thing really well. You’ve got all your grounds covered! Awesome to hear!
@@lemonlimecola Looking back on it now, do you still think of the Bluey as more of an aggressive color box compressor and the mimas as a solid all-around 1176 choice?
@@LightWthoutTheStatic I do still see the Bluey as exactly what it is Chris Lorde Alges modified blue stripe. Aggressive and full of color. If you want color that’s got it. If you want that more universal 1176 compression that does the aggressive and in your face but not quite as much as blue. The Mimas is it. The Mimas is very nice.
You did know the attack is reversed on this unit, correct?
Yup, the pots are backwards. CLA's classic blue stripe unit and they made it truly 1 to 1. Attack and release are actually both backwards and everything. I forgot to mention it in the video when i made it, but as it was the footage that I used was mostly out of sync, so I just put it in and tried to guesstimate anyways. While dealing in that frustration I did skip over that and a few other things I wanted to mention.