Lightning Boy Audio Bolt Bender

The Lightning Boy Audio Bolt Bender is a tube EQ pedal, announced in December 2012 as the latest addition to the company's pedal FX line. It sits in the equalization pedals family: rather than adding drive or modulation, its job is shaping the tone of electric instruments, and Lightning Boy Audio describes it as "the ultimate in transparent equalization for electric instruments."¹

What it does

The Bolt Bender is built around a passive Baxandall EQ circuit with bass and treble controls. A Baxandall design is a classic approach to tone shaping that works on the bass and treble ends of the spectrum, and in this pedal those EQ stages are driven by a NOS (new old stock) 12AU7 tube. Lightning Boy Audio says the tube is there for "the most organic sounding equalization ever offered in an instrument FX pedal."¹

Because the circuit is passive on the EQ side, the pedal is aimed at players who want to cut or boost lows and highs without changing the fundamental character of their instrument, which is what the maker means by transparent equalization.¹

Inside the circuit

The pedal's parts list leans on old-school components:

• 4 paper in oil capacitors¹
• A handmade "Thunder Cap," a Lightning Boy Audio signature part¹
• A NOS 12AU7 tube driving the EQ stages¹

Paper in oil capacitors are an older capacitor construction that some players seek out for tone circuits, and the "Thunder Cap" is a handmade component of that type built by Lightning Boy Audio itself.¹

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