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Post by svart on Jun 13, 2022 6:50:53 GMT -6
1176. Nothing else has worked better for me.
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Post by robschnapf on Jun 13, 2022 7:38:36 GMT -6
1176 3A Also Distressor CL1B
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Post by 79sg on Jun 13, 2022 8:07:35 GMT -6
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Post by thehightenor on Jun 13, 2022 8:32:14 GMT -6
1176. Nothing else has worked better for me. All genres, all voices, all mics .... all pre's? Or is it specific to a given singer and given chain in a given genre? Which 1176 is your favourite for tracking? Thanks
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Post by svart on Jun 13, 2022 9:09:53 GMT -6
1176. Nothing else has worked better for me. All genres, all voices, all mics .... all pre's? Or is it specific to a given singer and given chain in a given genre? Which 1176 is your favourite for tracking? Thanks I'm no longer one that thinks that any piece of gear adds an unmanageable amount of tone to anything. What I'm looking for in a vocal compressor is mostly taming the hard peaks. Some can do this more easily than others so I tend to stick with them. The 1176 does this, and I have a handful of them, so I use it! I tried the LA2A and LA3A for years and never really found them to work that well for what I wanted. The LA2A gets too wooly if you push it to useful GRs and the LA3A is just too slow. I'm also losing a lot of interest in different preamps and such too. They just don't matter that much in the mix. I used to want to believe these tiny differences mattered so much but it just doesn't seem to be true. A good API/clone preamp focuses the voice around the midrange where our voices are mostly concentrated and I'm finding that's good enough for everyone. Anyway, I typically use a Rev A or Rev D for vocals. I think my Rev A is patched in right now and might stay that way.
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Post by smashlord on Jun 13, 2022 10:27:38 GMT -6
FWIW, an 1176/LA-3A combo seems to always work for me on almost any vocal, tracking or mixing. I highly recommend the Serpent Splice for the 1176 route, as you get both a Rev A and Rev D in one box, plus the ability to mix there I/O sections to make two other "revisions". With all the tonal options, I've yet to find a situation where I couldn't get something great happening. is that the original la3a ?
or audioscape ?
Either. I regularly track at a studio that has 3 vintage ones and another that has 2 of the re-issues. I have the V3A in a lunch box and I find it to perform like I would expect an LA-3A to perform. Much like any other piece of gear, they all sound a bit different, but still do the same basic thing.
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Post by Chad on Jun 13, 2022 12:07:07 GMT -6
All genres, all voices, all mics .... all pre's? Or is it specific to a given singer and given chain in a given genre? Which 1176 is your favourite for tracking? Thanks I'm no longer one that thinks that any piece of gear adds an unmanageable amount of tone to anything. What I'm looking for in a vocal compressor is mostly taming the hard peaks. Some can do this more easily than others so I tend to stick with them. The 1176 does this, and I have a handful of them, so I use it! I tried the LA2A and LA3A for years and never really found them to work that well for what I wanted. The LA2A gets too wooly if you push it to useful GRs and the LA3A is just too slow. I'm also losing a lot of interest in different preamps and such too. They just don't matter that much in the mix. I used to want to believe these tiny differences mattered so much but it just doesn't seem to be true. A good API/clone preamp focuses the voice around the midrange where our voices are mostly concentrated and I'm finding that's good enough for everyone. Anyway, I typically use a Rev A or Rev D for vocals. I think my Rev A is patched in right now and might stay that way. svart – your post here was an important read for me, so I read it a couple of times. These are things I think about, and it's encouraging to hear someone else coming to similar conclusions. I really need to stop "overthinking" or even "imagining/hearing-into" so many variables (which tend to be ever so slight in the cosmic realm of simply making music I want to listen to). Good stuff! Chad PS: Sorry for the quick interruption. This is a great thread. Carry on!
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Post by svart on Jun 13, 2022 12:21:03 GMT -6
I'm no longer one that thinks that any piece of gear adds an unmanageable amount of tone to anything. What I'm looking for in a vocal compressor is mostly taming the hard peaks. Some can do this more easily than others so I tend to stick with them. The 1176 does this, and I have a handful of them, so I use it! I tried the LA2A and LA3A for years and never really found them to work that well for what I wanted. The LA2A gets too wooly if you push it to useful GRs and the LA3A is just too slow. I'm also losing a lot of interest in different preamps and such too. They just don't matter that much in the mix. I used to want to believe these tiny differences mattered so much but it just doesn't seem to be true. A good API/clone preamp focuses the voice around the midrange where our voices are mostly concentrated and I'm finding that's good enough for everyone. Anyway, I typically use a Rev A or Rev D for vocals. I think my Rev A is patched in right now and might stay that way. svart – your post here was an important read for me, so I read it a couple of times. These are things I think about, and it's encouraging to hear someone else coming to similar conclusions. I really need to stop "overthinking" or even "imagining/hearing-into" so many variables (which tend to be ever so slight in the cosmic realm of simply making music I want to listen to). Good stuff! Chad PS: Sorry for the quick interruption. This is a great thread. Carry on! I think it's important that folks find what works for them. Sometimes that's experimentation like I did. Sometimes that's watching a mentor use something and using it as well. Sometimes it's just using what you can afford but you've learned it well enough. I just suggest not getting caught up in the hype. I was totally guilty of that, buying/building/modding as many different things as I could to try to supplement my lack of skills. Let's just say that there's no amount of gear that can replace skill/knowledge but skill/knowledge can certainly take the place huge amounts of gear. I had heard this many, many times over the years but I still found myself searching for that elusive grail of tone. Sometimes you can truly lose the forest through the trees and having tons of gear allows you to ignore the obvious by saying "my gear isn't good enough to get what I want" when it was probably plenty good enough right from the start. It's so much more fun playing with new gear than admitting that the common point of continued disappointment with your mixes is yourself!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2022 22:00:50 GMT -6
A 1176 doesn't smooth out the top end, it's handy for catching peaks but personally I'd never use it as my only vocal comp. Also I already have a Serpent Splice and a UA6176..
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2022 23:38:11 GMT -6
DBX 160 followed by a limiter is always an option. I like the dirt cheap ART Dual Limiter.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2022 23:45:52 GMT -6
All genres, all voices, all mics .... all pre's? Or is it specific to a given singer and given chain in a given genre? Which 1176 is your favourite for tracking? Thanks I'm no longer one that thinks that any piece of gear adds an unmanageable amount of tone to anything. What I'm looking for in a vocal compressor is mostly taming the hard peaks. Some can do this more easily than others so I tend to stick with them. The 1176 does this, and I have a handful of them, so I use it! I tried the LA2A and LA3A for years and never really found them to work that well for what I wanted. The LA2A gets too wooly if you push it to useful GRs and the LA3A is just too slow. I'm also losing a lot of interest in different preamps and such too. They just don't matter that much in the mix. I used to want to believe these tiny differences mattered so much but it just doesn't seem to be true. A good API/clone preamp focuses the voice around the midrange where our voices are mostly concentrated and I'm finding that's good enough for everyone. Anyway, I typically use a Rev A or Rev D for vocals. I think my Rev A is patched in right now and might stay that way. I agree about the various LAs svart. I tend to prefer the VCA or digital comps that emulate optical time constants sped up a bit more than any opto or opto circuit emulation. The color and distortion is not always wanted and the possibilities of faster attack prevent the typical opto overshot phrases and pumping up of mouth noises. This saves time because less automation is necessary in the stereo mix down. Also the compressors with dual peak and rms paths can do both leveling and limiting in one go, preventing further intermodulation distortion and grittiness. Kotelnikov is the cleanest one, especially with inertia on and about a 1 ms attack.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2022 2:04:11 GMT -6
I've been using 2A's for decades and they've appeared on countless top selling records used by a mountain of professional engineers over the years. I'm not asking about the legitimacy of the product, I know they work (much like many other comps) and every decent rendition seems happy enough to reduce 7-12dB before removing the life out of a track. Although I prefer to leave some for the mixing stage..
The reason I’m asking is 2A’s are a tough sell at the moment, the re-issue (that I’m not massively fond of) is $4.5K on a good day. Stam? You never really know, Audioscape is always sold out and I don’t do pot luck. What I’m looking for is something that can repeat the benefits of a 2A or even improve upon it. Many mic’s seem to be positioned towards the tape days where extra bite was useful. In the digital age the 2A helps in smoothing out said bite.
So, it is a tool for a specific purpose and if said tool does not offer equal benefit it’s of no use to me. I’m after a chisel not a hammer..
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Post by vvvooojjj on Jun 14, 2022 2:56:41 GMT -6
Looking to replace my 2A clone.. On the menu thus far is: Retro Sta-Level Highland BG2 Buzz Essence Chandler RS124 Thoughts? Just to jump in as a company shill but also one of you who actually uses the gear on a daily basis... I use the V-Comp on a daily basis and it’s my favorite (tied with a CL1b) for tracking comp but I also follow each up with an audioscape 76a. I love the crystalline transient shattering sparkle of the 76a but as Johnkenn points out, the 76F is just so smooth at polishing peaks. I’m only saying it cos it’s true. How do you like to set up the CL1b before a 76a?
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Post by sean on Jun 14, 2022 6:33:32 GMT -6
I've been using 2A's for decades and they've appeared on countless top selling records used by a mountain of professional engineers over the years. I'm not asking about the legitimacy of the product, I know they work (much like many other comps) and every decent rendition seems happy enough to reduce 7-12dB before removing the life out of a track. Although I prefer to leave some for the mixing stage.. The reason I’m asking is 2A’s are a tough sell at the moment, the re-issue (that I’m not massively fond of) is $4.5K on a good day. Stam? You never really know, Audioscape is always sold out and I don’t do pot luck. What I’m looking for is something that can repeat the benefits of a 2A or even improve upon it. Many mic’s seem to be positioned towards the tape days where extra bite was useful. In the digital age the 2A helps in smoothing out said bite. So, it is a tool for a specific purpose and if said tool does not offer equal benefit it’s of no use to me. I’m after a chisel not a hammer.. These are much better values on the used market, but have you used a Summit Audio TLA-100 or Avalon AD2044? I prefer either to the UA Reissue I used to have. Compressors I think of that dull top end when they compressor more are ADL-1000's and LA-4. If you are wanting to do more than 12dB of compression without the risk of taking the life out of source, you might want to try the Vac Rac or The Brute. I use my Vac Rac with really dynamic singers...the ones that will just start hollering...and it's a life saver. I'm not sure I'd want to do that much compression going in with any other optical compressor. However, I find them to have a brighter tone than the options above. In the affordable, DIY world, the JLM500A is great, A/B it with some old Teletronix LA-3As at Sound Emporium and is was indistinguishable from one of them, and I've always been interested in hearing the DIYRE OLA5. The Buzz SOC 1.1 I had was a bargain considering what I paid, and I'm assuming it's compression circuit is similar to the Essence. The 1.1 was transformerless so I'm sure the Essence or SOC20 has more color.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2022 7:23:50 GMT -6
These are much better values on the used market, but have you used a Summit Audio TLA-100 or Avalon AD2044? I prefer either to the UA Reissue I used to have. Compressors I think of that dull top end when they compressor more are ADL-1000's and LA-4. If you are wanting to do more than 12dB of compression without the risk of taking the life out of source, you might want to try the Vac Rac or The Brute. I use my Vac Rac with really dynamic singers...the ones that will just start hollering...and it's a life saver. I'm not sure I'd want to do that much compression going in with any other optical compressor. However, I find them to have a brighter tone than the options above. In the affordable, DIY world, the JLM500A is great, A/B it with some old Teletronix LA-3As at Sound Emporium and is was indistinguishable from one of them, and I've always been interested in hearing the DIYRE OLA5. The Buzz SOC 1.1 I had was a bargain considering what I paid, and I'm assuming it's compression circuit is similar to the Essence. The 1.1 was transformerless so I'm sure the Essence or SOC20 has more color. No but the Summit's have crossed my list before, also the Acme Opticom and IGS. I've tried the Warm clone and it's not a bad compressor but it doesn't do what a "real" 2A does IMO. Before the Stam I had two original Teletronix units but sold them for quite a bit of profit when prices went mad, I believe there was a period of time where everyone was selling off their rack gear due to the initial fascination with plugins (sort of 2007 - 2012(ish)). That was a great time to buy, it certainly isn't nowadays..
I usually only do 4 - 7 db max compression on the way in, probably less. The 2A has a sweetspot where it begins to dig but doesn't upset the original material.. Anyway good suggestions, the Buzz is certainly something I'll be trying out soon. I ordered a matched pair for vox bus duties so when they arrive I'll give them a go.
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Post by EmRR on Jun 14, 2022 7:35:51 GMT -6
If you are wanting to do more than 12dB of compression without the risk of taking the life out of source, you might want to try the Vac Rac or The Brute. I use my Vac Rac with really dynamic singers...the ones that will just start hollering...and it's a life saver. I'm not sure I'd want to do that much compression going in with any other optical compressor. However, I find them to have a brighter tone than the options above. Any of the Foote Control Systems will do an insane amount of compression on a vocal with the least tonal shift I've ever heard, and very few artifacts. Better sound than any 'transparent' plugs I've heard also. I only know I've gone too far when the fricatives and other mouth/nose noises get as loud as the words. The Langevin ELOP is very good too, another "bury the needle and not notice it" type. My memory of the original dbx 160/162 is they both make the top darker in a way that feels like breathing, or curtains in a breeze, comes and goes with the amount of GR. Can be cool, or not. Sometimes the 1176 thing is the right in yer face tone. I've not heard a tube comp yet (I've owned and used a lot) that didn't blow up the natural envelope of too many words, beginning way too loud then pulled down, fading parts unnatural etc. Always feels like an effect to me. Love them for rhythmic parts of music. I'm usually tracking vocals through tubes already so the tube part of the comp doesn't do a lot for me.
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Post by Quint on Jun 14, 2022 7:42:21 GMT -6
What about the Sebatron SMAC? Dual mono or linked stereo, solid state class A discrete, 60v rail for high headroom. sebatron.com/sebatron-smac-stereo-compressor.phpI've not used this compressor, but I have been interested in trying it. I have their VMP-4000e four channel tube preamp and I think it's great. Sebatron doesn't get talked about that much but it is great stuff and underrated. The reason I bring up the SMAC is because it has a dual opto thing going on that allows it to react faster than a lot of typical optos, but also apparently can do the typical slower opto thing too. Anyway, it might be worth a look.
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Post by mcirish on Jun 14, 2022 8:43:13 GMT -6
I typically don't compress on the way in but I recently picked up an Audio-Scape 76D. I'm looking forward to using that on vocals; just to knock of ~6dB on the way in. I've always found I could hit an 1176 harder with less obvious artifacts. I still plan do do the rest of the compression ITB as I always have. This might just get me closer to the sound I want a little faster.
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Post by thehightenor on Jun 14, 2022 9:10:14 GMT -6
All genres, all voices, all mics .... all pre's? Or is it specific to a given singer and given chain in a given genre? Which 1176 is your favourite for tracking? Thanks I'm no longer one that thinks that any piece of gear adds an unmanageable amount of tone to anything. What I'm looking for in a vocal compressor is mostly taming the hard peaks. Some can do this more easily than others so I tend to stick with them. The 1176 does this, and I have a handful of them, so I use it! I tried the LA2A and LA3A for years and never really found them to work that well for what I wanted. The LA2A gets too wooly if you push it to useful GRs and the LA3A is just too slow. I'm also losing a lot of interest in different preamps and such too. They just don't matter that much in the mix. I used to want to believe these tiny differences mattered so much but it just doesn't seem to be true. A good API/clone preamp focuses the voice around the midrange where our voices are mostly concentrated and I'm finding that's good enough for everyone. Anyway, I typically use a Rev A or Rev D for vocals. I think my Rev A is patched in right now and might stay that way. Fair enough. I can’t say my experience is similar to yours. As a singer of 40 years standing I find my mic/pre/comp choice to be like an instrument in its own right and it seriously influences literally how I sing. But that’s cool, we’re all different and that difference is to be celebrated. My 1176 wish list choice I’m saving for us the Serpent Audio Splice Mk 2, though I’m not sure yet until I get one if I’ll track with it. Thanks for your answer though, I enjoyed reading about your approach.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2022 9:26:39 GMT -6
Sometimes you can truly lose the forest through the trees and having tons of gear allows you to ignore the obvious by saying "my gear isn't good enough to get what I want" when it was probably plenty good enough right from the start. It's so much more fun playing with new gear than admitting that the common point of continued disappointment with your mixes is yourself! There has been no "disappointment" since I returned to a primarily outboard setup, I'm sure decades of trial and error (mainly error) has a far larger part to play but I do not underestimate the equipments juxtaposing impacts. Sometimes equipment can make huge unmistakable positive changes or even wreck a track, other times it's subtle at best like 1 dB's worth of VCA GR on the MB (IMO of course).
Herein lay's the foundation of the problem, I've never heard one of your mixes Svart but your statement assumes that someone would be happy with your approach, equipment and end results etc. Yep, that works both ways as well. So, what we have left is opinion and that's fine as a discussion but it's prudent to remember sometimes that your way isn't the only way. I'm glad you've come to a revelation that good mixes can be achieved with a limited subset (both fiscally, virtually or otherwise), but this isn't news to me and I've been aware of it long before you posted the realisation.
In fact I was a big perponent of low end theory all the way back in 2005 with my SSL console right in front of me , primary because towards the end I mainly used it to warm my legs in winter.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2022 9:33:12 GMT -6
What about the Sebatron SMAC? Dual mono or linked stereo, solid state class A discrete, 60v rail for high headroom. sebatron.com/sebatron-smac-stereo-compressor.phpI've not used this compressor, but I have been interested in trying it. I have their VMP-4000e four channel tube preamp and I think it's great. Sebatron doesn't get talked about that much but it is great stuff and underrated. The reason I bring up the SMAC is because it has a dual opto thing going on that allows it to react faster than a lot of typical optos, but also apparently can do the typical slower opto thing too. Anyway, it might be worth a look. I'll see if I can get any details on it, I also need to try out my Chandler Opto on vox (which is faster as well). Unfortunately I've had Covid over the last couple of weeks and struggled to breathe / stand up never mind sing so whilst I'm bored out of my skull waiting for it to do one I'm weighing up my three to test / demo.
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Post by craigmorris74 on Jun 14, 2022 9:43:24 GMT -6
If you are wanting to do more than 12dB of compression without the risk of taking the life out of source, you might want to try the Vac Rac or The Brute. I use my Vac Rac with really dynamic singers...the ones that will just start hollering...and it's a life saver. I'm not sure I'd want to do that much compression going in with any other optical compressor. However, I find them to have a brighter tone than the options above. Any of the Foote Control Systems will do an insane amount of compression on a vocal with the least tonal shift I've ever heard, and very few artifacts. Better sound than any 'transparent' plugs I've heard also. I only know I've gone too far when the fricatives and other mouth/nose noises get as loud as the words. The Langevin ELOP is very good too, another "bury the needle and not notice it" type. My memory of the original dbx 160/162 is they both make the top darker in a way that feels like breathing, or curtains in a breeze, comes and goes with the amount of GR. Can be cool, or not. Sometimes the 1176 thing is the right in yer face tone. I've not heard a tube comp yet (I've owned and used a lot) that didn't blow up the natural envelope of too many words, beginning way too loud then pulled down, fading parts unnatural etc. Always feels like an effect to me. Love them for rhythmic parts of music. I'm usually tracking vocals through tubes already so the tube part of the comp doesn't do a lot for me. Have you tried on of the quicker vari-mu comps? I have the IGS Tubecore500, and it’s been fantastic on about everything I’ve ran through it. Of course, I have a high tolerance for color.
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Post by svart on Jun 14, 2022 9:51:37 GMT -6
A 1176 doesn't smooth out the top end, it's handy for catching peaks but personally I'd never use it as my only vocal comp. Also I already have a Serpent Splice and a UA6176.. It's just part of my process. I use it to tame the hard peaks almost entirely. I'm not really going for tone or anything else out of it. During mixing, I edit the vocal into phrases and then peak normalize them all so that I'm getting roughly the same level throughout. I then compress a little more for smoothness and do any volume automation on that output. It uses less resources and I don't have to keep up with so many settings this way.
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Post by svart on Jun 14, 2022 9:53:46 GMT -6
I typically don't compress on the way in but I recently picked up an Audio-Scape 76D. I'm looking forward to using that on vocals; just to knock of ~6dB on the way in. I've always found I could hit an 1176 harder with less obvious artifacts. I still plan do do the rest of the compression ITB as I always have. This might just get me closer to the sound I want a little faster. I didn't either. I tried it once 20 years ago and messed it up pretty badly and swore off doing it for over a decade. I gave in and gave it another try and it worked so well that I could kick myself for not re-trying to sooner.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2022 10:13:43 GMT -6
A 1176 doesn't smooth out the top end, it's handy for catching peaks but personally I'd never use it as my only vocal comp. Also I already have a Serpent Splice and a UA6176.. It's just part of my process. I use it to tame the hard peaks almost entirely. I'm not really going for tone or anything else out of it. During mixing, I edit the vocal into phrases and then peak normalize them all so that I'm getting roughly the same level throughout. I then compress a little more for smoothness and do any volume automation on that output. It uses less resources and I don't have to keep up with so many settings this way. Yeah, you can also use a De-esser and light chorus (the effect / plugin not an actual chorus) to take out some of those pokey upper mid's and then use a clip gain / read ahead "Volumizer" or normaliser instead of compression (works wonders on snare as well, just try it (if you already haven't)). You can avoid comps all together if you wish to but there is an effect with "slow comps" that's hard to achieve otherwise..
When the 2A for example clamps down it has an almost, how do I describe it? Robotic / enhanced effect when you pull back, swing your vocals off axis and put a lot of power into it. Can't do that with a 1176, might be able to do it with a variable opto (not tried yet) and Mu's can go a bit either way. That's why I agree with the thehightenor, used properly comps etc. can actually become part of the instrument chain, as a self proclaimed "singer" it's interesting how different studio singing is compared to sitting down with a guitar and just playing.
As a self tracker nowadays I have to use a 1176 to heat up the amp (if it doesn't have output gain) but protect myself from gain staging issues.
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