I'm a proud owner of an AudioScape 76F!!!

[James Steele]

Well, I couldn't help myself. Gonna have to sell something off. I previously had bought a Warm Audio WA-2A (LA-2A clone) to use for mainly vocal tracking. I'm keeping that, of course. I then figured that since I have an optical compressor, if I got myself an FET style compressor, I'd have all the bases covered for a good while. I was considering a Warm Audio 1176 clone, but after doing some research, heard about this company called AudioScape that was known for making great stuff that's a cut above. A bit more expensive, but you don't see used units clogging up the Guitar Center website used gear section. People tend to hang onto them.

There's a guy selling one used locally, but frankly I was a little put off by his price (which even for a quality piece seemed unrealistic) and attitude. The discount, even for a lightly used six-month old unit, was not enough for me to give up the whole experience of the unboxing and the "new compressor smell" and the goodies in the box.

So AudioScape is a small company and they hand build these units in small batches. On Wednesdays and Saturdays at exactly 5pm PST / 8pm EST, they update their website and for a brief moment the "SOLD OUT" notice disappears and it's "jump ball" to score one of their most recently assembled hardware units. Anyway... I missed out a couple of weeks ago... not fast enough. They go in seconds. This time, my mouse finger was fast and deft... and I added one to my cart... and BAM! MINE!!! Woohoo!!!




https://www.audio-scape.com/products/76f

76F-FE11.jpg (52.55 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

[monkey man]

Awesome Brother James!

Congrats man. All that guitar-playing exermacise for your fingers finally paid off!

[James Steele]

Thanks Nicky... well, I've gotten curious this year about having a couple pieces of "decent" outboard gear. Not the best... but respectable. Mostly, I want to use this for tracking my vocals for sure... probably tracking bass guitar... and *maybe* tracking guitars also, but I think in the latter situation I'd want to retain flexibility and process via plugins after the fact. I don't plan to hit the vocals too hard, but enough to impart some color and tame some of the dynamics during acquisition.

I'm going to have to stop procrastinating now about finishing up my plan for my patchbay and how this is all going to connect up to my 828es.

[monkey man]

I don't plan to hit the vocals too hard, but enough to impart some color and tame some of the dynamics during acquisition.

Perfect bro'.

Should work a treat.

[Phil O]

Congrats, James. I mostly mix in the box, but like adding some outboard analog gear to the mix for that special sauce. I think the extra effort to incorporate outboard hardware is well worth the effort. Enjoy your new toy!!


BTW, I like to put an 1176 style compressor ahead of an LA-2A style compressor in a vocal chain (particularly on female or tenor vocals). Use the 76 to just hit the higher peaks and tame things a bit before hitting the LA. I like the UAD stuff for this cuz I ain't got the real thing. If you haven't tried that combination yet give it a go and let us know what you think. Also, at some point you'll have to give us a little review of the new unit. ...I'm jealous.

Your friendly neighborhood Phil

[James Steele]

Thank Phil. I wanted a couple outboard compressors primarily for tracking vocals. I know a very popular configuration is to put an opto style and FET style compressor in series. People debate what order to put them in. I'm going to try the WA-2A first in the chain and then the 76F second to catch the initial transients that are too fast and get past the WA-2A. Experimenting will be fun. This piece at $899 was a little more than the Warm Audio 1176D clone, but I've heard really good things about AudioScape.

[Phil O]

Personally I don't see the advantage to tracking vocals with compression. It made sense in the old days with dynamic range issues, but now with 24 bit conversion I prefer to record the unaltered raw vocal and do all processing in post.

With DP, patching in outboard stuff is a piece of cake and you can change your mind at any time. I know, I know, the whole "commit" argument, but why commit when you can have the best of both worlds. Plenty of headroom to go around these days! YMMV.

Your friendly neighborhood Phil

[Rick Cornish]

Congrats, James!

[James Steele]

Personally I don't see the advantage to tracking vocals with compression. It made sense in the old days with dynamic range issues, but now with 24 bit conversion I prefer to record the unaltered raw vocal and do all processing in post.

With DP, patching in outboard stuff is a piece of cake and you can change your mind at any time. I know, I know, the whole "commit" argument, but why commit when you can have the best of both worlds. Plenty of headroom to go around these days! YMMV.

Your friendly neighborhood Phil

Yeah... interesting viewpoint and there are always different schools of thought on that. I may experiment with doing it both ways and see what I like the best. I get the impression sometimes the hardware insert functionality in DP is a bit wonky and I've had inconsistent results with it. One reason I might do it that way is just for perhaps a bit more inspiration and hearing it sound a bit more polished in headphones during tracking... similar to why I pipe in "confidence reverb/delay." Granted, the latter is not being committed to the track. No sure if I could do something similar with outboard compressors? Maybe? Of course, another reason is just to impart some of the character/warmth of analog outboard, but yes you can also do that after the fact.

Again, that *may* be the way I choose to use it after some experimentation. Back to subject of insert functionality... I think I did one experiment when I first got my WA-2A and rather than use MOTU's hardware insert plugin, I chose to send (mono) track to a specific analog output on my 828es and then manually patch with patch cables through the effects I wanted and then patch it back into an analog input on the 828es and recording it to a new track. I wish I could remember why, but that seemed to work better for me that using a hardware insert plugin and freezing.

Speaking of freezing... in one of the videos I posted earlier in the thread, there's a very cool feature in Pro Tools that I wish DP had that lets you freeze or commit (not sure of the difference) a track up to a particular insert. Say for example you have 4 plugins on a track. You can right-click on the 2nd insert and choose to freeze/commit and it renders audio incorporating just the first two-plug ins... leaving you flexibility to further adjust the two after that. Here's the video cued up to that point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVzixCbtR14&t=264s

You can see in the menu it shows "Freeze up to this insert" and "Commit up to this insert." Be very cool if DP had this.

[bayswater]

Personally I don't see the advantage to tracking vocals with compression. It made sense in the old days with dynamic range issues, but now with 24 bit conversion I prefer to record the unaltered raw vocal and do all processing in post.

I assume you mean we should record both, not just the raw signal. Sometimes, particularly with guitarists, they’re not just playing the instrument, they’re playing the effects, and what they do depends on what they hear, not what they think they’ll hear later. Vocalists maybe not so much, but I can see why you’d want to record the processed signal, and why you’d rarely use the raw signal.

[Killahurts]

Speaking of freezing... in one of the videos I posted earlier in the thread, there's a very cool feature in Pro Tools that I wish DP had that lets you freeze or commit (not sure of the difference) a track up to a particular insert. Say for example you have 4 plugins on a track. You can right-click on the 2nd insert and choose to freeze/commit and it renders audio incorporating just the first two-plug ins... leaving you flexibility to further adjust the two after that. Here's the video cued up to that point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVzixCbtR14&t=264s

You can see in the menu it shows "Freeze up to this insert" and "Commit up to this insert." Be very cool if DP had this.

+1
This is one of the very few Pro Tools features that I LOVE!!!! I really, really want DP to have this.. it is literally the last item on my list, to make DP the perfect DAW. For me, rendering of virtual instruments that are still "mixable" is why.

James, congratulations on the very nice piece! I've had my eye on that one, for my own studio. I do have the AudioScape G Bus compressor and I love it. I also have a real SSL G series, and many times I choose the AudioScape over it. The SSL cost 5X more.

AudioScape is a wonderful, small boutique company out of Florida. As James noted, everything is hand-made. I highly recommend them.

[James Steele]

Hmmm... I must have started a reply and lost it. I'll start over. But it involves avoiding repeated A>D and D>A conversions when using MOTU's Hardware Insert plugin.

I'm leaning toward having a few analog output/input pairs on my patchbay as well as input/outputs of hardware on that same patchbay and avoiding MOTU’s hardware insert plugin. One reason, off the top of my head is if, for example, when you put two hardware compressors in series using two of DP’s hardware inserts on a mono audio track, you’re introducing two A>D and D>A conversions. The first hardware insert converts the digital audio to analog… which goes out an analog output to your first hardware compressor and back into the a return analog input… gets converted BACK into digital… then is passed on to the second hardware insert plugin… gets converted ONCE MORE into analog… out an analog output to the next compressor… processed… then back into an analog input... then converted ONCE AGAIN back into digital…

Perhaps that isn’t audible… I don’t know. But intuitively it seems like one would want to avoid extra conversions.

[James Steele]

For me, rendering of virtual instruments that are still "mixable" is why.

Yeah... I can see how that would be a really great application. Render just the audio output of the VI prior to any post processing. Lower CPU usage and still flexibility.

James, congratulations on the very nice piece! I've had my eye on that one, for my own studio. I do have the AudioScape G Bus compressor and I love it. I also have a real SSL G series, and many times I choose the AudioScape over it. The SSL cost 5X more.

AudioScape is a wonderful, small boutique company out of Florida. As James noted, everything is hand-made. I highly recommend them.

Thanks! I'm excited. I don't have a big budget and this is my second foray/exploration of decent outboard gear. My first acquisition was a Warm Audio WA-2A LA-2A clone. I haven't really used it much yet. I'm sure it will be adequate as I explore this workflow. I wanted to have one example of an opto compressor and one example of an FET compressor. Being new to this I at first figured by default I'd just get a Warm Audio WA76 (1176 D clone). But as I've researched more, I've learned that as good as Warm is for the money... there's better stuff to be had if you spend, as always, just a little bit more..

I noticed that there's a whole bunch of used Warm Audio WA76 units on the Guitar Center website. Seems there are a lot of them on the used market. It could be because there are just more of them, but I think it goes beyond that. People seem to outgrow them and upgrade. But I noticed it's rare to see people unloading AudioScape stuff. I've heard from a number of folks that the AudioScape stuff holds it's value and if you ever decide to sell, you get most of your money back. Not so much with the Warm. Brand new the WA-76 is $699 at Sweetwater... and $622 at Thomann (shipped). Right now there's literally a DOZEN used WA76s starting at $449 on the Guitar Center website: https://bit.ly/437hbU0

So... for couple hundred bucks more, I decided to go with a much better quality unit that I won't be trading in or selling in a couple years. Seems the WA-2As hold their value a bit better and only six right now on GC website. I'd love to have an Audio Scape LA-2A clone, but one silly thing that holds me back is they're three rack spaces high like the genuine $4700 UA unit... and I like that the WA-2A is only two spaces.

[monkey man]

Honestly James, I don't believe the multiple A/D and D/A stages would matter in this day and age, especially for individual tracks, however...

I truly believe that the route you've taken is the way to go. You're effectively starting with half the job done, if that makes any sense. If something's gonna be baked-in, it might as well be something awesome.

I almost plunked down for a Neve 10 years ago. Kinda wish I had now, but you know how it goes - budget dictates that more-boring stuff must be bought before I can even make music again. Oh well.

[Phil O]

I've had a method for dealing with round trip latency for outboard gear since way before DP incorporated that functionality. I don't believe DP's implementation is ready for prime time, so I still use my old brute force method which results in near sample accurate timing. The disadvantage is that it does involve printing the outboard gear return...


...but it work perfectly every time.

Your friendly neighborhood Phil