Lightning Boy Audio Introduces the Opti-Mu Prime, Tube Compressor

Lightning Boy Audio (LBA) has announce a whole new breed of compressor pedal with the introduction of Opti-Mu Prime.

Lightning Boy Audio has announced a whole new breed of compressor pedal with the introduction of Opti-Mu Prime.

This new pedal delivers the distinctive qualities of a vari-mu studio compressor in a stomp box format. Opti-Mu Prime pushes the limits of natural sounding compression by employing a unique circuit designed by Lightning Boy Audio. A pair of 12AU7 tubes power Opti-Mu Prime. One tube drives the optically controlled vari-mu circuit, which constantly readjusts the plate voltage of the preamp tube, based on how loud the instrument is being played. The second serves as a preamp, and is the only tube in the audio path.

This is the only pedal on the market that employs actual vacuum tubes to achieve the compression effect. There are some vacuum tube powered compressor pedals, but they are optical compressors, which use vacuum tubes simply for makeup gain. Many Mastering Engineers prefer to use vari-mu compression for it’s transparent and organic sound quality.

As with all Lightning Boy gear, paper in oil caps are utilized for their ultra-transparent sound and smooth tone. Like all of our other builds, the Opti-Mu Prime is hand wired point to point with silver plated Teflon insulated wire. To prevent any unnecessary resistor noise, all Lightning Boy equipment is made with low noise Vishay/Dale metalized film resistors.