If maximum control and more aggression is what you desire, you’re probably more likely to reach for the 1176. It is the type of unit that is designed to warm up a sound, without applying to much squash.
It’s not exactly set and forget – in fact, there’s a whole spectrum of colours available to dial in with its interface consisting of two simple knobs: Gain and Peak Reduction. The “Levelling Amplifier” moniker of the LA-2A is also instructive. This ingenious piece of engineering yielded a natural form of compression that works harder as the signal increases. A second element, a photocell, decreases resistance as the light shines brighter, bringing the output gain of the circuit down. His background knowledge of optical sensors led him to design a compressor that reduced level according to the program material.Ī light source would get brighter as more audio was fed into it. Lawrence’s approach to compression was born from a frustration of having to ride levels constantly to create a consistent level of volume in a signal.
And if the 1176 was the precocious punk, full of attitude, the LA-2A was its refined, more restrained sibling. And while the 1176 surged into the future with its embrace of solid state technology, the LA-2A kept it old school – based on tubes, but with a twist.
This unit was invented by James Lawrence, the founder of Teletronix, a company that was eventually acquired by UREI. Universal Audio UAD-2 Powered Plug-Ins Universal Audio UAD-2 Powered Plug-Ins Full Cracked The industry’s most respected collection of audio plug-ins The UAD-2 library now features over 90 plug-ins, co-developed with the biggest brands in audio including Studer, Ampex, Lexicon, Neve, Manley, Roland, SSL and more. The LA-2A emerged in the same era, but in a slightly different way. “ Distortion increases, along with a plateaued slope and a lag time in response to initial transients, creating an explosive sound on drum room mics, fuzzing-out bass or electric guitar sound, or squeezing a vocal to bring it front and centre of your mix.” Smooth Tubes Here’s how Universal Audio describes this unique setting: It involves activated all the ratio switches at the same time. The ‘all buttons in’ mode was popularised by British engineers in the ’70s. Speaking of which, the 1176’s most idiosyncratic feature was made famous by studio types who did away with the manual. There’s up to 45dB of gain available, so some serious crunch can be dialled in if desired. Careful massaging of the input – which can be thought of as the threshold control – and output can offer up a range of different colours.