Vintage-Flavored Preamp and Program EQ from Industry Wunderkinds Black Lion Audio Famed gear modding company, Black Lion Audio, has been building an impressive arsenal of unique studio gear, with variations on classic designs alongside wholly original creations. Joining that roster is the Black Lion Audio Eighteen channel strip. Something of a chimera, the Eighteen combines a transformer-based preamp with a 2-band passive induction EQ. Now, you can’t get more old school vibey than that! Sweetwater’s studio engineers found dialing up clean sounds on the Eighteen was no problem, but it really shines when driven into gooey analog saturation. Add just a little to make a vocal sit in the mix or crank it up on a mono drum overhead for bashy, Bonham-esque flexing. Spill the preamp into the program EQ for even more tonal control using the simultaneous boost and cut functionality to carve a thick but focused low end