Congratulations, have fun experimenting! :love:

Thanks audiokid, the first takes sound nice already. Can't wait for the next contract ;)

I had a chance to work with one of these recently at a studio in Cleveland... and while I didn't spend a whole bunch of time on it, one of settings I found useful was to gain up on the tube stage to +10, which will give that "classic" tube tone/coloration. On the compressor side, you'll have to work with gain structure to see what works the best for what you are working on at the time. You could start with a setting of "2 + 2" which is where you'll get similar results to an LA 2's classic easy-over compression settings, and go up or down from there. It's really hard to tell you what to do because it's all very song related, and a certain setting you used that sounded good on one track might not work for another track.

If you're limiting, try setting your peak GR between 3 and 4 - you're really looking for that magic "glue" that all LA series seem to provide.

Back in the days when everyone was using LA2's as a standard form of GR (every studio seemed to have at least two in those days) - there were times that I would bus signal through an LA2 at unity gain, no actual gain reduction at all - and I would run it this way just to pick up that slight "coloration" it could offer... although the coloration seemed to vary in tone and intensity between various different LA2's - I'm not sure I ever heard any two that sounded alike, but one thing is for sure is that none of them ever sounded bad. You don't get that with digital, ITB or OB. All the data and parameters are stored on a chip, so that you could put two Roland SRV-2000's together and they would both sound identical to one another.

So, there was a magic in that, too, in that because the internal circuitry varied, so would the sound. You never really knew what you were going to get...but that was part of the fun, because while they were all a little different sounding, I never ran into one that ever sounded "bad."

That's a really nice toy ya got there, pal. I'm sure you'll find various little settings on your own... and then you can share them with us. LOL

Have fun, PC. :)

d/

yes, don't slam the GR needle.
use the filters.
you have a nice bit of kit there buddy. All your vox can now sound like 'sex on a stick'.

You can use it when you aren't using it as a signal processor.

a mono bus processor? for Guitars or something? i ve smashed acoustics and vocals w la2 emulations from waves w good results. 'dont slam the GR needle' is kind of a blanket statement, which i guess would be good advice for a noob asking for general starter tips on compression.

one of the first things i would do if i had a tube compressor would be to slam the crap out of it to see how it overdrives! particularly for vocals and bass.

Enjoy PC, let us know how you like it! ive heard recordings done w it and it was very full, w some nice sheen on top. i dunno anyone whos sorry they got one.

i leave the nuking for an 1176, the la2a gets noisy and feedsback at full GR ;) and assumed asking the question at all implied nubile perspective

not bus...sry corrected

Donny :
I had already catched the role of the preamp gain and yeah +10 makes the warmest sound of the unit. Also the impedance makes it's way, depending on the mic.

Kmetal :
I have yet to try reamping via the line in. I'll get to it and expend my posibilities. I also have the 4-710 who's very easy to overdrive (nearly too easy), I'll compare both
Josh :
I rarely compress more that 3db at the time but this compressor is far more forgiving that others I've used. I wonder how it will sound on a drum's room mic and heavy compression

I have a lot of experimenting to do, I guess it will depend on the next customers, if they let me take time to make some tests... ;)

Thanks for the good words

I've always loved the sound you get just sending signal through an LA-2A without compressing. Thats a sweet circuit. I'm with Josh on this. All Buttons in on the 1176 for smashing the crap outta something. LA-2A is more for smoothing and enlightening the overall picture of a source. Especially vocals.

I had time to make a few tracks. Wow .. it sounds good.. Money well spent !! ;)

I have a LA 610 signature edition.. It's pretty much idiot proof. As it is tube you can get cool sound differences driving the input stage. For a clean sound don't use much input and drive more of the output. The opposite for a dirty gritty sound. It's really very hard to get a bad sound.

Thanks Chris, the LA-610 is a very nice unit, I've made a lot of tests (even used it as OTB processor) and I'm ready for the next project ;)

The basic idea with a lot of these vintage items is to do everything wrong, exactly the right way. That's where the magic is. That's where the magic happens. Otherwise they are just good and clean when you want good and clean. So the idea is to get them to sound slightly raggedy in the best way possible. To soft clip your tubes. Saturate your input and/or output transformers. Play with the gain, in all ways. That's what ya do.

Enjoy!
Mx. Remy Ann David