The studio first opened (a re-opening under my ownership) in May of 2010.  A few old timers may remember the location as a semi-shabby studio from the 1990's-2008 by its original owner, the late Greg Switala (pictured below).

Since the day I set up shop in this rural Western New York location, the studio has undergone nearly continuous improvements.  Acoustic improvements to the rooms was paramount right from the beginning, but also elements of client comfort were a priority, such as the new upstairs lounge, air conditioning, and the vibe of the studio.  Technology is the heart of any studio and I've been on a long mission of turning this studio into a special place of rare pedigree by loading it with the finest of my hand-made recording equipment.  Some of the equipment is based on legendary equipment, but much of it has been self designed to facilitate my unique approach to production.

To celebrate an exciting 6 years in business I am planning to throw a party for the bands and Artists who have worked with me here.  I hope to throw this shindig sometime in May.  In preparation I have a big list of improvements I'm trying to make to the studio.  Many of the smaller items on this list are complete, which leaves just the big jobs.  Starting today actually, I'm beginning work on a complete revamp of the control room.  Its a huge job, which to be honest I have been putting off for way too long.  By complete revamp I mean it will be a totally new room with vastly improved acoustics and a much better layout.  I'm not sure if I will get beyond that room to my ultimate challenge, but here's to hoping!  If you recorded at LBA Studios (or Gallery Acoustics) anytime since 2010, you're invited to attend the May celebration and I hope to see you there.  Please come and check out the great improvements I've made throughout!  

Almost anyone who has recorded at this studio since I first opened the doors back in May of 2010 has probably heard me say, "I will one day purchase a Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum for the studio."   Its been on my dream list for a long time, but today I finally pulled the trigger.  The studio has a new weapon in the arsenal of awesome tone!

(Above center) I got a great deal on a Wurlitzer 140 electric piano.  This particular model was made between 1963-1971.  The reason why the deal was great was because the piano didn't work and the seller wasn't sure why.  Turns out the amp was shot and needed a serious overhaul.  I did some research and talked to Max over at the Chicago Electric Piano Co.  who helped me out tremendously by providing schematics.  The 140 amplifier is old school solid state, dating from a time when transistors were new on the market and Germanium was the dominant style.  Max informed me the 140 is a good Wurlitzer electric piano, but the 140B has a more desirable sound for most and the 145 is a vacuum tube version that is also nicer sounding than the 140 I have.  The main difference between these different versions is the amplifier.  After Max learned about Lightning Boy Audio and my obsession with vacuum tubes, he sent over a schematic for the 145.  I looked it over and realized this is relatively simple, given the right parts.  The main thing I realized about all the amplifiers is they have one primary job, which is to power the internal speaker.  A tremolo effect was also part of the amplifier.  Not all Wurlitzer models had built in tremolo, but this one did.

After going over the schematic for the 145 I decided the amplifier was really not necessary since the internal speaker is one of those crappy 6x9 car speakers.  All I wanted was a way to get a regular instrument-level output like on an electric guitar so I could run the Wurly into a DI box or external tube amp, also through FX pedals.  My main concern was having a really low noise output, which proved to be more difficult than expected.

The Wurlitzer electric pianos have a big pickup that detects the vibrations of metal reeds and converts it to electrical signals through an electro-static pickup system that's similar in ways to how a condenser microphone works.  The electro-static pickup is much different from the pickups in a guitar in that they require DC voltage to operate... a whopping 180 volts!  I was informed by Max that a well regulated power supply is needed.  I found out the hard way why that is.  If the power supply is not insanely well regulated the piano's audio will be noisy.  I went all out and built the most extremely well regulated 180v supply I could.  I even hand-wound my own power choke (inductor), which makes up a part of the complicated power supply.  The supply has neon regulator tubes, and tons of filter caps, but also has a thermal relay tube and a 6CA4 rectifier tube.  That connects to the pickup to power it.  The signal gets split off the pickup and runs through a coupling cap to block the high voltage DC, sending only the audio portion to a 1/4" instrument output on the front panel.  I put a switch on the front panel to toggle between the stock coupling cap value or a much larger one.  The two coupling caps offer different voicings for the piano.  The stock value is the typical Wurlitzer 145 sound, while the larger value creates beefier bass tones.  My power supply took some tweaking to get it to where it is now, which is very low noise.  For comparison to electric guitar, it has about as much noise as a humbucker pickup.     

Yesterday I had local piano tech, Mike Stevens, stop out to give the Wurly a good inspection.  He adjusted the action to get every key feeling like new.  Mike informed me everything looks great.  All the felts are in excellent condition and the hammers look almost new.  The guy I bought it off of said the piano was refurbished about 8 years ago.  It feels and sounds great now.  Hooked up to an Ampeg B-15-N, the Wurlitzer sounds super cool and inspiring.  Its just plain awesome.  I can't wait to track DI with it.  

Just got back from a road trip that took me to the AES convention in NYC and ended with a stop off in Franklin, NY to pick up a Wurlitzer 140 from 1971.  If you never heard of the 140, you probably have heard it.  That was the keyboard of choice for Ray Charles, it was used by Beck, Super Tramp and a ton of others.  Many consider it to be more appropriate for Rock music than the Fender Rhodes due to its slightly more distorted sound and more up-front tone.  

I have to do a lot of work to this guy.  I have a piano tech coming by in a few days to set up the action and replace the felts, etc.  I'm planning to get a different amplifier for it (I really want a 145 amp, which is vacuum tube powered).  The speaker was not working, but I already fixed that.  Soon enough this will be one badass mofo!  

On a less impressive note, but equally as cool (for some)... I also picked up a 1970's Foosball table for the studio!  Its cleaned and set up in the upstairs lounge, where it looks perfectly at home next to the gaming consoles.  The lounge has some nice new furniture in it, as well as a flat panel TV for the NES and XBox 360.  Video tour of the studio coming soon :)

I recently designed and built a new 2 channel microphone preamplifier (mic preamp) with a great sounding EQ on each channel.  When these elements are combined its called a channel strip.  The name comes from the fact that it is literally a channel right out of a mixing board, but mounted in a rack mount enclosure.  This new box is called Trinity and I consider this my greatest engineering achievement in electronics to date.  Its wildly impressive sounding and offers a lot of beneficial features for not only recording, but also for mixing.  I got the chance to try Trinity out when I was mixing the EP "Will the Moon" for the Gills recently.  I'll have one of the songs from this EP uploaded to this site on the 29th of this month.  During the mixing process of the EP, Trinity got a back seat job, serving as the Plate Reverb output amplifier.  I used the onboard EQ on Trinity to dial in the perfect balance of treble and bass from the reverb to best suit the mix.  It was truly impressive hearing what Trinity did for the reverb... far surpassing previous options.  It made the reverb sound EPICALLY HUGE!  Let me fast forward a bit... Reverb is not its intended application - its recording microphones.  I wanted more of these things ASAP, since it sounds so much better than anything I've heard before (I own some well regarded high dollar mic preamps).  I've been hustling and made some things happen.  Parts are ordered and I'll start assembling the second Trinity for LBA Studios in the next month.  My goal is to build a total of 8 Trinity's for LBA Studios (16 channels) and then build a Master module for connecting them all together - for mixing.  That's right, a 16 channel vacuum tube powered hand-made mixing board!!!  

Check out the Examples page of this site on or after August 29th to hear the hot new sounds coming out of LBA Studios.              

Just finished mixing an EP for the Gills, which I also produced.  The Mix was a total joy to work on since almost everything sounded really good to begin with.  The bass was an issue to mix since the instruments tone control was turned down all the way on the recording.  In the future I'll have to ask dudes to keep their control turned up all the way unless its some sort of creative tool to be manipulated during a song.  I was able to get it to sound great in the end, but it was a lot of extra work.  Another issue was the harmony vocals being to lack-luster/dull sounding.  This was because I recorded them using a prototype mic preamp that was still in development.  Thankfully, the Flux Bender saved the day.  That piece of equipment can turn a nugget of crap into a nugget of gold... in a manner of speaking.  Its pretty amazing really and what it did for those vocals is nothing shy of a miracle.  It made a dull lifeless recording sound spectacular.  Another piece of equipment which really transforms sounds is the Transient designer, which is a brand new piece added to the collection at LBA Studios.  I got it just in time for Mixing this project and used it on kick, snare, toms, bass, acoustic guitar, and rhythm electric guitar.  This is something that many engineers love and use regularly on drums to make them sound really punchy.  I was expecting that.  What I wasn't expecting is what it can do for electric guitar.  It made the clean electric guitar parts sound sparkling and articulated in a way that reminded me of Nashville recordings.  I'm very impressed by this box.  Its one of just a few things I didn't build for the studio.  Definitely want another one!  I really had a lot of new toys for Mixing on this project.  Sometime mid-mix I completed my prototype stereo channel strip, which was used to record harmony vocals before it had been completed.  In the mix context it was used at the output amplifier for my plate reverb.  The reverb on this mix is big time upgraded over any mix I ever did.  Not just because of my preamp, "Trinity" but also because it had a massively upgraded driver amp as well.  I modified my monster guitar amp, "Gravitone Nucleus" to accept a line level input for connecting between the mixing board and the plate reverb.  This gave me a really elaborate pre-reverb EQ.  "Trinity" has a nice bass/treble passive EQ as well and that was at the reverbs output stage.  The two sets of equalizers were used to sculpt the reverbs tone into a place that sat abso-freaking-lutely perfectly into the mix.  This mix might actually be my best to date and I have to say its a lot to do with all the cool toys, but more to do with really hard work.  Stay tuned for some audio, which I hope to have on this site in the next few weeks.       

I always try to prepare well before starting a new mix.  I'll start Mixing the Gills EP, "Will the Moon" on Monday next week and will spend 5 days on it.  The addition of an SPL Transient Designer 2 to my analog arsenal will certainly help make the drums sound more awesome than usual, but I'm also going to have a brand new reverb system.  Same plate as before, but new driver and output amps with LOTS of EQ capabilities pre and post for shaping the reverb's tone to suit the mix perfectly... and an ultra low noise floor!  Low noise is always a high priority with my analog gear.  One funny thing about my obsession with ultra low noise...  I own only a few preamps that were not built by me.  They are very high quality name brand preamps, but my Vintech X73i actually has more noise than anything I built for LBA Studios.  If the top shelf name brand gear has more noise than Lightning Boy gear, you can start to get a grasp of the ultra high-level equipment here.  Having the best tools makes my job easier and my work better.  That's why I will continue to build up my analog arsenal well into the future.     

Gills coming back in today for additional recording because I'd like to hear some organ on their tunes.  Production will be done at that point and editing is already done, so we'll soon move on to the Mixing phase.  In other news, Ronan Chris Murphy of Recording Bootcamp finished his review of my Flux Bender EQ.  He shipped it back yesterday so I should have that in my hands by Friday and his video will be up on youtube in a few weeks.  Mixing the Gills EP will start when it arrives.  I also purchased an SPL Transient Designer 2, which will be coming in tomorrow.  This will also be used for Mixing, as I plan to use it to dial in some tighter drum sounds.

If you've been to LBA Studio's, you know about the crazy guitar amp I built.  I added a line input (and line input transformer) to it so I can use it for other purposes.  With the line input, I could re-amp guitar without the need for an external re-amping box, but that's not why I made this mod.  I took out the KT88 power tube and rebiased the amp for a 6L6, which has less power (~42 watts compared to about 25 watts).  I also replaced the 12AX7 preamp tube with a low gain 12BH7 tube (gain factor of 100 compared to gain factor of 16.5).  Why would I want less power, less gain and a line input???  Plate Reverb driver amp on steroids!  That's right, this not a permanent thing, but for mixing I can now quickly and easily repurpose the Gravitone amp as a plate reverb driver amp with a very elaborate EQ and tone shaping interface.  Its now sitting in the control room, connected to the plate reverb.  I'm really looking forward to the impressive tone and ultra low noise of this amp paired with my analog plate reverb.   This next EP is going to be nuts!!! :) 

An SPL Transient Designer 2 is on its way!  I love analog and I definitely love punchy drums.  The TD will definitely deliver super tight punchy drums during the mixing phase.  Almost bought the plug in, but after hearing audio demos of both I really couldn't resist the analog version.  This creates a slight problem, but definitely not a bad one - I ran out of rack space before buying this.  The time has come to add a third rack.  I'm planning to build it right into my desk.  There are some tools I would prefer to have right at my finger tips.  ie. Equalizers :) Go Analog!  

Soon enough my beloved Flux Bender will be back from its review with mix engineer, Ronan Chris Murphy, which will be featured on his youtube channel.  Then I can get to Mixing on a few pending projects.  Meanwhile, as I finished up the editing phase of an EP by the Gills, I thought of some last minute hammond organ parts that could fill out some of the tunes in key locations.  Sounds like the group is interested in doing this, so I'm really hoping we can pull it off.  All we need to do is find a hammond player and there are a couple people in mind.  If it doesn't work out, I might be able to pull it off myself.  There has been a few occasions where I've played the organ on tracks for people.  I'm not an organist and have limited keyboard abilities, although I can certainly find the right notes to make it work.  I always have a backup plan, but hopefully I won't need it.

In other news, I'm designing a stereo mic preamp (channel strip to be exact).  The goal is to make something that outperforms mic preamps in the $2000 price range.  Failure is not an option.  Upon success I plan to make several of these for the studio.  They will not be used solely for recording, but also for Mixing since there is an onboard equalizer.

Finally, the upstairs lounge area is now complete so now its time to start thinking about the next big studio improvement.  This next job will be a massive undertaking both financially and physically, so it may take some time before starting.  I would prefer to keep this one hush-hush till it gets underway.  Think big!