UAFX 1176 and LA-2A compressors

[AJ567]

Looks like these have recently been released! Digital emulations of those classic compressor models, in a stomp box

 

Not much out there in terms of how they perform on bass. 

 

Does anyone know anything?

 

https://www.uaudio.com/guitar-pedals/teletronix-la-2a-studio-compressor.html

https://www.uaudio.com/guitar-pedals/1176-studio-compressor-pedal.html

[SumOne]

Nice!

 

Seeing as the Origin Effects Cali 76 (about £280) basically replicates the original 1970's Universal Audio Urei 1176 in pedal form (http://www.ovnilab.com/reviews/cali76.shtml), and now Universal Audio themselves are making a 1176 in a  pedal available at GAK for £178 it seems a bargain........However, that's if it works as hoped and a company isn't just trading off the good name of past glories. It isn't analogue, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but there are plenty of digital emulations about so it all depends on how good the emulation is.

 

Unfortunately, the Universal Audio Max Compressor (which I assume uses the same software) has this negative Bass review: https://www.compressorpedalreviews.com/post/universal-audio-max-compressor-review but perhaps that is because of the preamp making Bass signals clip, the 1176 and LA2A don't have that preamp so perhaps don't have the same  issue. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/universal-audio-max-dual-compressor-preamp-pedal.1603504/page-8 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by SumOne

[AJ567]

@SumOne Great info, thanks!

 

I'm particularly interested in the LA-2A. I have the Cali76, and I think it's taught me that I like the prefer the more subtle fattening style of compression that LA2A type circuits are potentially better for.

 

LA2A in the same form factor as a Cali76 would be ideal for me...

[Paddy777]

I watched a YouTube video the other day with the 1176 being used on bass - it didn’t sound anything special to my ears but I was listening on airpods rather than my studio headphones so I dunno if I missed the nuances, it certainly won’t be usurping my cali76 anytime soon but YMMV

 

 

[AJ567]

@Paddy777 nice one. Compressor review videos are a funny one, I find it hard to get a sense of whether I'll like the pedal from videos. Even with good headphones!

 

Weirdly, I find written compressor reviews really helpful. Which is totally the opposite for other FX where videos and sound clips tell you much more! 

[fretmeister]

Youtube compressor vids are pretty much useless in my experience.

 

The YT algo does loads of compression anyway and the review NEVER sets it up for equal volume, so we have a natural tendency to think louder = better.

[thisisswanbon]

At the risk of being "that guy"... I can't work out why they've gone the digital route with these!  Surely a recreation in pedal format would've had more appeal (and better results I can imagine) than a digital interpretation .

[fretmeister]

1 hour ago, thisisswanbon said:

At the risk of being "that guy"... I can't work out why they've gone the digital route with these!  Surely a recreation in pedal format would've had more appeal (and better results I can imagine) than a digital interpretation .

 

There are good and bad analogue pedals and good and bad digital ones.

One or the other does not indicate whether it will have better results or not - not these days. And 99.9% of people cannot hear the difference anyway, even if they think they can.

 

And it's an awful lot cheaper to do it digital now so they have a lower overhead and can make more money.

[AJ567]

I was "that" guy for years, ie. generally sniffy about digital stuff. Then started experimenting with more recent digital gear (Meris stuff, Eventide H9, Source Audio's latest offerings etc) and my mind's been well and truly blown!

 

Never actually tried a dedicated digital compressor, but I'm open minded.

[fretmeister]

I've got one - the Boss BC-1X. All I can say is that it caused me to sell my Cali76 / Empress / DG / Keeley Pro etc.

 

I think a lot of people tried a Mk1 Line6 pod and have decided that the tech couldn't possibly have developed further over the last 25 years!

All of the current gen modellers (Kemper / Helix / Fractal / QC) and smaller stuff like the Source Audio have come so far from those humble origins it's quite astonishing.

[AJ567]

1 hour ago, fretmeister said:

I've got one - the Boss BC-1X. All I can say is that it caused me to sell my Cali76 / Empress / DG / Keeley Pro etc.

 

I think a lot of people tried a Mk1 Line6 pod and have decided that the tech couldn't possibly have developed further over the last 25 years!

All of the current gen modellers (Kemper / Helix / Fractal / QC) and smaller stuff like the Source Audio have come so far from those humble origins it's quite astonishing.

 

Haha, it's exactly the original line6 pod that sent me running away from digital all those years ago!

 

Bought it to go ampless on a tour, cried the whole time, sold it as soon as I landed back 🤣

Edited November 1, 2023 by AJ567

[thisisswanbon]

Personally I've had digital stuff (Line 6 HX stomp, Hotone Ampero II Stomp, various zoom iterations, Ampeg SGT DI with digital IR loader, source audio aftershock and bass OFD, TC Spectracomp etc) and they always lack a certain body and harmonic content.

 

That being said, I may love it if I try it; I know local players who are far better than me who have this and love what it does... I currently use a Source Audio Ultrawave and C4, so am not 100% anti digital; I just think it lends itself to certain application, and this is one of those where I can't understand why they haven't stayed true or closer to the source material.

 

 

[krispn]

For an LA-2A type comp you have to try the Effectrode PC-2A. 

Edited November 2, 2023 by krispn

[SumOne]

9 hours ago, thisisswanbon said:

Personally I've had digital stuff (Line 6 HX stomp, Hotone Ampero II Stomp, various zoom iterations, Ampeg SGT DI with digital IR loader, source audio aftershock and bass OFD, TC Spectracomp etc) and they always lack a certain body and harmonic content.

 

That being said, I may love it if I try it; I know local players who are far better than me who have this and love what it does... I currently use a Source Audio Ultrawave and C4, so am not 100% anti digital; I just think it lends itself to certain application, and this is one of those where I can't understand why they haven't stayed true or closer to the source material.

 

 

 

Yeah, I've had similar - digital overdrives/distortions and compressors (and octavers and envelope filters) never quite match up to their analogue counterparts for me, digital modulation and delays are great though. To just listen to two sound clips A/B it's be very had to tell the difference with many, but actually playing them there seems to be a very slightly different feel - something a bit uncanny, perhaps too uniform/predictable without subtle quirks, perhaps a tiny delay due to processing time, sample rates not being high enough to completely fool you into thinking it's the same as analogue, or perhaps that the emulation just reacts and sounds a bit different? Or probably the most likely is my personal bias and preconceptions! 

 

I thought the Source Audio Atlas was really good - the thing that let it down for me wasn't the sound, it was the hardware (fiddly 'alt' button to access controls for a few seconds - wait a second too long and you end up adjusting the wrong thing, not great for live tweaking), so I'm certainly not against digital compressors in principle.

[Dood]

On 01/11/2023 at 08:17, fretmeister said:

Youtube compressor vids are pretty much useless in my experience.

 

The YT algo does loads of compression anyway and the review NEVER sets it up for equal volume, so we have a natural tendency to think louder = better.

 

Comparing my 4k raw video and WAV audio with the YouTube version always makes me a bit sad. I get it and the reasons why it is this way, but having put so much effort in to the nuances of the sound and visuals, viewers aren't getting the full "effect" if you excuse the pun! 

[Ramirez]

I’m assuming this is essentially the UAD 1176/LA2A plugins in a pedal.
Top level mixing engineers have been using those plugins instead of the real hardware for years.
 

I’ll bet they sound closer to the ‘real deal’ than any analog ciruitry anyone could fit into a pedal enclosure…

[SumOne]

9 hours ago, Ramirez said:

I’m assuming this is essentially the UAD 1176/LA2A plugins in a pedal.
Top level mixing engineers have been using those plugins instead of the real hardware for years.
 

I’ll bet they sound closer to the ‘real deal’ than any analog ciruitry anyone could fit into a pedal enclosure…

 

Is that how it works though? (Genuine question, I don't know). Can a company basically put a digital VST plugin into a digital pedal? The pedal doesn't have the same processor, RAM, digital architecture etc as a computer (although I guess some of the expensive multi fx might). Isn't it equivalent to 'Mercedes make good F1 engines so the new Mercedes van will have a good engine'. 

 

As far as I know, the Cali 76 gets very close to the real deal in analogue pedal form. 

[Ramirez]

10 minutes ago, SumOne said:

 

Is that how it works though? (Genuine question, I don't know). Can a company basically put a digital VST plugin into a digital pedal? The pedal doesn't have the same processor, RAM, digital architecture etc as a computer (although I guess some of the expensive multi fx might). Isn't it equivalent to 'Mercedes make good F1 engines so the new Mercedes van will have a good engine'. 

 

As far as I know, the Cali 76 gets very close to the real deal in analogue pedal form. 

Well, the code would need to be ported over to whatever hardware’s in the pedal. But the hardware in the pedal would have been chosen for this task.
 

But I don’t think they’d code a new emulation from scratch when they already have such a good one!

 

These digital pedals are all computer codes running on a chip, and they’re usually available as plugins too (Helix, Tonex etc) that are cross-compatible. The car engine analogy doesn’t really work.

 

Not saying the Cali76 etc isn’t good! But the UA is probably more accurate to a real 1176. But who cares about accuracy really.

[SumOne]

1 hour ago, Ramirez said:

Well, the code would need to be ported over to whatever hardware’s in the pedal. But the hardware in the pedal would have been chosen for this task.
 

But I don’t think they’d code a new emulation from scratch when they already have such a good one!

 

These digital pedals are all computer codes running on a chip, and they’re usually available as plugins too (Helix, Tonex etc) that are cross-compatible. The car engine analogy doesn’t really work.

 

Not saying the Cali76 etc isn’t good! But the UA is probably more accurate to a real 1176. But who cares about accuracy really.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. £159 at DV247  looks a good deal. 

 

I'm still on the fence though. A bit of a negative guitar review here, good reviews here and here. Negateve Talkbass thread about the UA Max clipping issue, but someone on a Talkbass thread that has a Cali 76, and Hyper Luminal, AND two of the original 1176 and highly rates the new UAFX 1176. 

Edited November 3, 2023 by SumOne

[fretmeister]

2 hours ago, SumOne said:

 

Is that how it works though? (Genuine question, I don't know). Can a company basically put a digital VST plugin into a digital pedal? The pedal doesn't have the same processor, RAM, digital architecture etc as a computer (although I guess some of the expensive multi fx might). Isn't it equivalent to 'Mercedes make good F1 engines so the new Mercedes van will have a good engine'. 

 

As far as I know, the Cali 76 gets very close to the real deal in analogue pedal form. 

 

 

Task specific equipment always beats general stuff.

 

You need 8GB of RAM just to write a letter in Word using a PC.

But the moon landing guidance system only needed 128K of ROM.

 

A digital pedal can't run Word and it doesn't need to, or any other general use. It only needs to do 1 thing exceptionally well.

[Dood]

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.  

[krispn]

I suppose if they can do it in software they would have the engineering capability to do it in a pedal using whatever digital trickery that would entail without it being a "plug-in in a pedal".

 

If it sounds good and works then...

Edited November 3, 2023 by krispn

[Ramirez]

On 03/11/2023 at 13:18, krispn said:

I suppose if they can do it in software they would have the engineering capability to do it in a pedal using whatever digital trickery that would entail without it being a "plug-in in a pedal".

 

If it sounds good and works then...

Well, I don’t mean that they build a hardware pedal than can host VST plugins. What I meant is they probably port the code over to the hardware platform.

I can’t imagine they would create a brand new digital recreation of an LA2A when they already have arguably the best one in existence.

[terocious]

UAFX 1176 pedal looks interesting. Any new reviews or experiences how it performs with bass? So little information available in the internet at the moment.

[AJ567]

Well, a french bass players has left a positive review of the LA2A on Thomann:

 

https://www.thomann.de/gb/universal_audio_uafx_la_2a_studio_compressor.htm

 

 

Looks like they're in stock now so I might have to take the plunge and see for myself!