Black Lion Mod, Project Mix I/O

[Curtis Franklin]

Beware of Black Lion. I won't smear them in detail on this forum, but contact me for a detailed description of what happened to a close friend.

To be fair, the units all sound great now.

[chrisp2u]

No issues with BLA here... though there seem to be stories around with people having probs with delivery on mods to products that fall outside their listed mods.
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c

[Phrygian]

The mod sounds good. The workmanship is questionable though. The pots are noisy and scratchy if up by 3:00. And the re-assemble wasn't too in-line. The headphone jack inserts crokked and the knobs don't turn like they used to. All these things aside, I love the sound of the unit. I just have to work around these flaws.

[chrisp2u]

Originally Posted by Phrygian

The mod sounds good. The workmanship is questionable though. The pots are noisy and scratchy if up by 3:00. And the re-assemble wasn't too in-line. The headphone jack inserts crokked and the knobs don't turn like they used to. All these things aside, I love the sound of the unit. I just have to work around these flaws.

Hmmm, maybe I got lucky. The only issue I had that you mention are the knobs not turning like they used to, but that was just because the knobs themselves were pushed on too far and rubbing on the faceplate of the unit... pulled them back a bit and smooth again. Maybe they used pots with shorter posts or something.
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c

[whoriental]

That sounds kind of ruff, I would like the knobs to still work. Anyone know of any other mod places?

[skindogdms]

I just got two units back and I'm happy with what they did. Originally the 2408 MKII I had modified wasn't compatible with my PC, it would crackle a lot. I called them up, they attempted to help me, they were nice and actually listened to me, but their suggestions weren't helping so they said I needed to send it back so as to fix the problem. They were going to send a return label to me, but I get really cheap shipping from my company so...a little off topic but the point is, they take care of you.

Of course, in a perfect world, I would get it back and everything would work perfectly and my recordings would sound like a million dollars. Black Lion Audio, from what it looks like, is a fairly new company and they are working out the kinks. I believe they are going to start selling their own stand-alone clock because I'm not the only one who has had compatability issues with PC (mac however works fine).

So now I have a 1224 and a 2408MKII analog only stages modified. It has only been two days, but the initial sound checks I've done are real positive. Working with the same equipment for close to 4 or 5 years you get used to what things generally sound like. When I recorded my voice, or acoustic guitar, or tambourine with an sm57 it sounded different than what I'm used to. Also, when using plug-in compression like waves compressors I could actually hear the subtle changes when adjusting attack and release at a ratio of 2.5:1, before I really couldn't hear much of a difference at all when I would tweek the compressor, and as a result would use a lot more compression.

The only other things I've noticed so far is noise level. There wasn't as much noise as what I'm used to. So I had to put on my headphones and crank it to see if there was much noise and there really wasn't. Usually there is something going on in that department. Also the bass seemed more "there" BUT and this is a big butt, I have only had this for two days. Things DO, though, sound different from what I'm normally used to.

So my listening environment is decent: HR824's and Sony 7506, and Beyerdynamic 770s. So I should be able to hear something. I haven't done anything extensive yet, but I did a simple recording of kick, snare, tambourine, two electric guitars, a bass, and 4 vocal parts for this school project and it was easier to get the sounds I wanted.

Anyways, girlfriend is buggin me, gotta run. I'll eventually post a little more soon...plus on the p.s. side I just gotta Lucid Genx6-96 from a fellow Gearslut so I'll see if that helps more.

[chrisp2u]

Originally Posted by whoriental

That sounds kind of ruff, I would like the knobs to still work. Anyone know of any other mod places?

Actually, in my case, there's nothing wrong with the knobs/pots... they work perfectly fine. The knobs just slide on and off (as most do)... they just happen to be pushed on a tad too far. Just had to slide them back a tad and all's well.
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c

[Mikeren]

I'm a fan of Black Lion. Had a Digi 002R modified and the improvement is clear. Pun intended.
They're a small company that saw a wealth of 'almost there' low-cost recording gear and decided to do something about it.
The current buzz created by this and other boards--and the resulting orders, must be crazy growth-wise for them. Keep an eye on them, they've got a great idea, excellent service and know their circuits.
A google search will tell you who else is out there and what they'll mod. If your Mix I/O isn't on the menu, expect a wait or DIY.

[Chris]

I had a delta 1010 modded by them and it came back within a week of the scheduled upgrade.

All okay in my experience.

[taxirecs]

I just had the analog stage and clock redone on my 2408mk3 and it really sounds great. I live in Chicago, so I dropped my unit off and got it back pretty quickly. The unit made brief hissing noises until I configured the smpte to the correct setting.

Overall the mixes of old tracks sound better, but the real difference in in the tracking. I can no longer pretend that my room doesn't sound small. All of the reflections are clear and the decay is remarkably clear, especially w/ cymbals.

Granted, I'm not mixing through Genelecs or Adams or whatever, but i could really hear a difference.

In fact, check out my dogs metal collar on the mix below.