This is from the manual:

"Its tube driven electro-optical gain reduction circuit is well-known for a very smooth and natural compression, yet it is very vibey and incredibly musical when driven hard. This character has been faithfully captured in the White 2A plug-in — right down to the accurate movement of the meter — in order to provide you with one of the most useful tools for your compression needs."

 

Hmm then I don't know if we can get to a conclusion..

"This character has been faithfully captured" doesn't exactly specify/tell us if it's only the Behavior/Response,
or if also the "analog tube characteristics" are replicated..

The plug sounds Clean tho, I guess we can agree on that..

And I guess this could be also done with Waves LA2A,
where you can turn the Analog emulation On/Off..

 

You can do the simple trick to see (the sinewave under a spectral analyzer of paramtric eq like ProQ3). It does saturate and it does create harmonics.

 

Are you sure this goes for the plugins themselves and not only for the suite?

Nice list.

Analog (50Hz, 60Hz) is just a low freq noise in which some of the aliasing is drowned.
Additionally, the levels of the first odd and even harmonics are 'swapped' in White and CLA.
Also, for the same input CLA produces less aliasing.

 

According to IK Multimedia, all T-Racks 5 plugins have oversampling enabled by default and cannot be turned off

 

Interesting..
By "swapped" you mean reversed/inverted?
Or shared?

I will have to load Plugin Doctor and see what are all these LA2A/other compressors actually doing..


-But well, from a listener/user standpoint..
I can say I really like the Response of White2A,
and I think it may even be the Best response of all Opto comps I've tried...

However I still think it sounds remarkably Clean,
specially in direct comparison with Waves which has a very apparent effect on the Color/Tone of the signal,
giving it a very unique sound and Character..

Still, I didn't really like/want that particular Waves sound/character/color for the specific application/situation of that moment..
(It adds lots of harmonics indeed, and it's realist, but I found it to be a bit too thin/bright, which can be good for Brass,
but the Brass I wanted to compress was already Bright/Epic to begin with.. not Warm, so I had to pass on it)

And to say the truth I didn't really like the Response of the Waves 2A, as it seems to be a bit jerky..
like, it would do nothing up to a certain level, but then you move the threshold just a hair and it will be Jumping all over the place..
Not the type of behavior I was expecting for an Optical comp in that particular situation..

So after trying all the other opto comps I could find,
I ended leaning towards Softube CL-1B and TLA-100A.. both being quite Colored, and considerably more Warm than Waves 2A.

CL-1B adds some sweet Color/character while still sounding very Natural, (kinda like bx_townhouse actually but in its own "rounder" way..)
while TLA-100A sounds remarkably Warm/tubey... however I found TLA's response to be a bit too slow/delayed for my taste.

So by all means I ended choosing CL-1B for that particular situation..

(Other contenders were..
IK Opto which was quite Good indeed,
but maybe a bit too Round/Ballooney for that application.

Surprisingly, I didn't like bx_opto, as it was kinda a bit too slow and undefined

And well, I still have to try Tone Empire's OptoRed, which I got hold of the other day..
I will try it and see how it compares with CL-1B next time I've got the time to open that project )

 

Yeah, that phrasing wasn't good, sorry. In IKM's the first odd is higher than the first even, in Waves' it's the other way around. And this can make quite a difference in sound.

Me too. But you have to take into consideration that all optos (and their emus) sound different. An extreme example would be the two Black Roosters 2A and 3A. IIRC, they're both at the very and opposite end of opto sounds (in terms of speed).
I must say, I really like the sound of bx_opto but not the timings. When the attack fits, the release is too long and when the release fits the attack is too short.

 

You can try IK's Opto compressor too, is like a White2a but with thicker low end (but note is not a LA2A emulation rather a custom compressor that they built based on Tube Tech - custom i mean custom hardware compressor that they digitally modelled)

 

Didn't know Native Instuments Solid EQ, the plugin and module in Maschine,Kontakt & Battery are based on the same hardware like the IK White Channel. Since it's a 9K Series so, I suppose the SSL Channel Strip in Reason DAW also share the same source.

Been using all of them from time to time, but couldn't tell any sound difference, didn't really pay too much attention. Anyone ever compared those ? To be honest I never really know how a 9K Series suppose to sound, all I heard that it is a more modern cleaner version of SSL.

 

Last edited: Dec 9, 2021

NI Solid Series are great tools, indeed EQ is based on 9000K which is the "hi-fi" EQ of all SSL boards. You can def see a nice sparkle in the high end compared to the E/G series (from the 80's). White Channel also has that nice hi-fi EQ.

Reason's mixer is a SSL 9000 console along with its Bus Compressor but only difference/missing thing is that it does not saturate at all. So it's a super clean version of a already clean SSL.

Edit: did a simple drum test and can say White Channel is brighter in a nicer way than the Solid EQ (brighter in a good way not harsh)

 

Last edited: Dec 9, 2021

I see AmpliTube MESA/Boogie 2 has been released
Hope to get it for Christmas

 

you can get it right now for only 30 usd

 

I hope this is addressed to Santa not AZ because then it would be a warez request.