UAFX 1176 and LA-2A compressors

[AJ567]

Well, I bought one. 

 

First impressions: it's good. 

 

Noise level is very low. 

 

Does an excellent job of "compressing without sounding compressed". 

 

Might be a keeper. Need to play with it some more!

[krispn]

1176 or LA2A

[AJ567]

2 hours ago, krispn said:

1176 or LA2A

 

La2a

[krispn]

I’d like to try both comps. I’d imagine either would be great with bass. 

[ratticon]

Just picked up and tried both the UAFX 1176 and LA2A.
 

The controls on the LA2A were a bit confusing, but after an about 15 mins of fiddling I found a setting that I really like. Originally was trying the limiter side , but when I switched to compressor I found that nicer blended in.

 

Here’s what I landed on for my Sire M7 4-string, fingerstyle:

 

On the 1176:

 

Bass:

 

I think the LA-2A is the keeper for me. The 1176 is a great comp but the dual and sustain modes are useless for my playing, and it was more challenging to decide which ratio I liked.
 

Once I figured out each knob, the LA-2A was simpler to tweak and I got a sound that I liked - one that mixes well with backing tracks I use for practice.

Edited December 25, 2023 by ratticon

[Killerfridge]

5 minutes ago, ratticon said:

Just picked up and tried both the UAFX 1176 and LA2A.
 

The controls on the LA2A were a bit confusing, but after an about 15 mins of fiddling I found a setting that I really like. Originally was trying the limiter side , but when I switched to compressor I found that nicer blended in.

 

Here’s what I landed on for my Sire M7 4-string, fingerstyle:

 

On the 1176:

 

Bass:

Is the Ratio knob on the 1176 knotched or free moving? I.e. can you have it somewhere between 20/All In, or are they 6 distinct positions?

[ratticon]

37 minutes ago, Killerfridge said:

Is the Ratio knob on the 1176 knotched or free moving? I.e. can you have it somewhere between 20/All In, or are they 6 distinct positions?

It’s notched, so you can only use the preset ratios. 

[Killerfridge]

1 hour ago, ratticon said:

It’s notched, so you can only use the preset ratios. 

Cool, that's what I was hoping

[Osiris]

Bass the world have got a new video up demoing both units, both sound good to me, especially the 1176 😎

 

 

 

[AJ567]

5 hours ago, ratticon said:

Just picked up and tried both the UAFX 1176 and LA2A.
 

The controls on the LA2A were a bit confusing, but after an about 15 mins of fiddling I found a setting that I really like. Originally was trying the limiter side , but when I switched to compressor I found that nicer blended in.

 

Here’s what I landed on for my Sire M7 4-string, fingerstyle:

 

On the 1176:

 

Bass:

 

I think the LA-2A is the keeper for me. The 1176 is a great comp but the dual and sustain modes are useless for my playing, and it was more challenging to decide which ratio I liked.
 

Once I figured out each knob, the LA-2A was simpler to tweak and I got a sound that I liked - one that mixes well with backing tracks I use for practice.

 

LA2A controls certainly are confusing... Not least because the instructions are printed wrong! It's corrected if you download the manual online. "Mix" knob is actually dry level, which has up to 6db gain above unity. "Peak" is peak reduction (i.e. more knob = more compression) and "Gain" is output gain of the compressed path.

[ratticon]

On 26/12/2023 at 00:51, AJ567 said:

 

LA2A controls certainly are confusing... Not least because the instructions are printed wrong! It's corrected if you download the manual online. "Mix" knob is actually dry level, which has up to 6db gain above unity. "Peak" is peak reduction (i.e. more knob = more compression) and "Gain" is output gain of the compressed path.

Yeah, this is why it took me a while to get started with it! I was trying to A/B it on/off at unity but because of the gain on the mix knob, that’s almost impossible. In the end I had to drop the input gain on my amp and do it by ear. 
 

The easiest way to hear the difference, for me at least, was to play over a backing track and see how well the bass sits. The LA-2A gives me just enough boost to avoid needing to really dig in during heavier passages, but not so much that string noises (sliding, clanking etc.) are noticeable.

[Baloney Balderdash]

On 03/11/2023 at 12:51, Dood said:

This is an interesting discussion and, to muddy the waters further in regard to running plugins on hardware (or indeed running any firmware on dedicated hardware):

 

I had a long discussion with a brand a while ago about two pieces of hardware they were selling. Both devices appeared to have the same menus system and library of effects. The more expensive device could run three effects at once (a physically larger unit too) whilst the cheaper and much smaller device could run five. Did this make the cheaper device the better unit? Despite the architecture being similar, the "programs" running were less detailed and presented less load on the processor in the cheaper device, thus it was able to run more "effects" at once. To misquote Mr Malmsteen, sometimes "more is more" is, well.. not.. 

 

My take away..

Early hardware just didn't have processing power to do the work and the software algorithms (such as Neural learning) just didn't exist to the extent that it does today. This resulted in lower quality effects in comparison (but let's not forget this was cutting edge at the time!!)

The best hardware in the world doesn't guarantee a faithful reproduction of the analogue world, the software on board is as important, if not more so.

Trying to squeeze a big processor in to a little box is difficult and costly. I am sure there's an equivalent to Hoffman's Iron Law when it comes to DSP, "size", quality and cost! Eventide's H9000 springs to mind.

 

That said I am truly astonished at what is being created in open source world. "Steve Ack";s Neural Amp Modeller plug-in is absolutely incredible.. the developers around this desktop application aren't taking any payment for it and the Neural models people are creating are just superb.  

True...

 

That ancient digital Lexicon rack reverb is still praised and sought after to this day, and plenty of digital units with many times the original's processing power fails to do as good a job.

 

A digital effect is only as good as the programmer, and even then it will still also depend on how well that programmer actually knows how to effectively make optimal use of whatever specific processor it got, that is how experienced the programmer is with the specific system used.

 

And yes, plenty of genuinely amazing all free VST effect plugins for DAWs around too, my all time favorite delay and distortion for one are both all free VSTs.

 

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[Ramirez]

9 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

True...

 

That ancient digital Lexicon rack reverb is still praised and sought after to this day, and plenty of digital units with many times the original's processing power fails to do as good a job.

 

A digital effect is only as good as the programmer, and even then it will still also depend on how well that programmer actually knows how to effectively make optimal use of whatever specific processor it got, that is how experienced the programmer is with the specific system used.

 

And yes, plenty of genuinely amazing all free VST effect plugins for DAWs around too, my all time favorite delay and distortion for one are all free VSTs.

 

 

 

The H9000 is a fairly recent product from Eventide - I think you might be thinking of the classic H3000 rack.

 

But your point still stands - it's not all about processing power. If they sounds good, they sound good - the old Eventides ar a good case in point, as are the high-end digital reverb of their time such as the AMS RMX16. We have an RMX16 at the studio (and an old H3000!) and it sounds absolutely fabulous. To the point where they're able to charge £1000 for a modern version with exactly the same limited processing power in a small 500-series chassis!

The UAD plugin version also sound brilliant.

 

Digital processing has so much flexibility that it's hard to objectively quantify the cost sometimes. I think the new Eventide H9 is an interesting one - if you look at it as a guitar pedal, it's extremely expensive (about £1000). On the other hand, if you look at it as two of their wonderful old SP2016s reverb in a box with line-level I/O, it almost becomes cheap (I think a new single SP2016 in a reverb in a rack is around £2k!) - and that's before you consider all the other effects!