12/01/2026
Alongside our microphone videos we’re going to run a series of vids highlighting our outboard and effects collection at .studios. First up is the mercurial UREI BL40 Modulimiter!
The UREI BL40 is one of several rare bits of broadcast outboard at .studios re purposed for studio work. Part LA3/4A part 1176 (or so they say), in reality I think it has elements of the above but is very much its own thing. It has two parts to its processing, first there is an opto cell based RMS compressor and secondly theres a FET based limiter with the opto feeding into the FET. The idea being that in the broadcasting world your program material would hit the compressor first to massage the level a bit and then the peak limiter to catch any overmodulations.
Like a lot of tech from the broadcast world it wasn’t that great at its day job and without modding it isn’t of that much use in music production either. Enter the our good friend Greg Snow who has modded several of our bits of outboard here at MIZ Studios. He removed the unnecessary broadcast elements, made the front panel controls accessible and added a couple of other fruity mods such as a HPF for the sidechain and a fast mode for the limiter that is AGRO to say the least (the picture on the second slide shows the modded controls).
I love my 1176 but there’s something about the simple madness of the BL40 that I never get bored of. It excels on drums (breaks especially) as well as crotch and room mics, bass (think LCD Soundsystem thunnnk), guitars, vocals. Basically anything you’d throw an 1176 on and think hmm maybe it could be more funky? If anyone sees an un-modded one for sale let us know, we need second for stereo fun!
Drums by at .studios
