Black Lion Audio Seventeen Compressor

About: Black Lion Audio Seventeen Compressor

The Seventeen is Black Lion’s spin on what the classic ’76 should have been. Designed in conjunction with hitmaker Tobias Lindell and featuring a redesigned and improved IC based front end, the Seventeen shows incredible detail and nuance normally not possible with this style compressor. This new front-end circuit provides a clean, punchy, modern sound under light compression and a more colorful vintage character when pushed. This front-end, coupled with our custom-designed, made in Chicago output transformer, give this unit a huge bottom end that balances out its open top end very nicely. We also include our proprietary Black Lion style power decoupling for an incredibly low noise floor. The Seventeen also uses high grade nichicon signal capacitors, widely considered some of the highest quality caps available.

Never the ones to settle for “good enough,” we have added features that users normally consider as upgrades or mods including, a frequency adjustable side chain, separate selectable high and low pass filters, a wet/dry mix knob to allow users to blend in dry signal into their compressed signal, the Seventeen has a palette of tones not available to anything else on the market today. It also includes the all important stereo link function for linking together two units.

Features

• Inspired by the classic ’76 FET compressor/limiter
• Designed in collaboration with pro audio and plug-in guru Tobias Lindell
• Improved and redesigned IC-based front end delivers:
• Clean, punchy, modern sound under light compression
• Colorful vintage character when pushed
• Proprietary power decoupling for an impressively low noise floor
• Employs high-grade Nichicon signal capacitors
• Frequency-adjustable sidechain
• Separate selectable high-pass and low-pass filters
• Wet/dry mix knob
• Stereo link functionality

Specifications

• Type: FET Compressor
• Number of Channels: Single
• Controls: Attack, Release, Comp Mix, Input, Output, HPF/LPF switches
• Ratio: 4:1, 8:1, 12:1, 20:1
• Inputs: 1 x XLR
• Outputs: 1 x XLR
• Sidechain I/O: Frequency adjustable High Pass Filter side chain
• Other I/O: 1 x RCA (link)
• Rack Spaces: 2U
• Power Source: Standard IEC AC cable
• Height: 3.5″
• Depth: 6″
• Width: 19″
• Weight: 14.5 lbs.
• Manufacturer Part Number: Seventeen
• A note on the Attack control:
  • The Attack control on the Seventeen works a little differently than you may have encountered on other ‘76-style compressors. Turning the Attack knob to the left (counter-clockwise) will yield faster attack times; slower times result when turning to the right (clockwise). We’ve found this control scheme to be more intuitive; akin to a volume knob decreasing level to the left and increasing to the right. 
    • Attack: Continuously variable 20uS to 800uS
    • Release: Continuously variable 1200mS to 50mS