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Thank you for checking out our Weekly blog.

In this blog I will be discussing

Universal Audio’s Leveling Amplifiers: LA-2A Grey, LA-2A Silver, and the original LA-2

Here's an illustration of what the plug‑in looks like.

Developed in the 1950’s, The LA2A family soon became an industry standard in every major recording studio!

The very first version of the LA2A was the “LA-2”. Its output created a warm silky sound. The ease of operation and the ease of use in controlling gain staging and compression also made this unit a must have in every studio and every producers lineup of gear.

Integrity and design

As with all Universal Audio’s products and designs, they have once more taking the time, the effort, and the research, to make these compressors sound like their hardware versions.

“True to the original design, UA’s famed tube-amplified T4 electro-optical compressor.”

Source: Universal Audio

Now you can:

  • Dial-in legendary optical tube compression textures for vocals, bass, drums, and more
  • Record your tracks through vintage UA, "handmade in the USA," circuits
  • Easily add iconic warmth and tube limiting with simple, easy-to-use controls
  • Track and mix with a piece of audio recording history

Source: Universal Audio     

The birth of the optical limiting amplifier

Created by Jimmy Lawrence, born in 1924. His passion for radio and broadcasting along with his frustration of having to ride the gain fader to maintain a constant signal level, was the engine to his invention of the "leveling amplifier"

How The LA-2A Works

The LA-2A Leveling Amplifier has only one gain stage. Its simple function which operates via two knobs, control its gain and peak Reduction. Its powerful 40 dB gain available from input to output at the gain knob, also allows it to be used as a preamp and compressor.

The following Teletronix compressors to come on board were the LA 2A Silver and the LA-2A Grey. Although both of these two models created a cleaner sound, they still managed to keep their presence in every recording studio world wide, again because of their sound and ease of use.

The sound that these two new units gave most recordings, (vocals for the most part) was so unique and pleasing for Recording and mixing that they also maintained their place in all studios and also became industry standard Recording and mixing compressors in most recording studios worldwide.

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I hope you have all enjoyed my review on this plug-in and how it can help us in our Daisy mixing and production needs and techniques. I personally use this plug-in to record everything but mainly vocals.

In my experience as a producer/engineer I have learned in the past never to commit a compressor to a recording. This technique is a danger one is a dangerous one, and one that you should consider once you know on your compressor.

Once you learn your compressor’s behavior, how it works, how to achieve the sound you're looking for, and precisely trust that you Will not ruin a wonderful take by committing the compressor to the recording, you can and definitely should consider this technique. I do it now with Universal Audio's LA2, and with great results.

This technique can help you in the way your recordings are captured, prevent you from clipping from outsources, give you an overall great sound, and help you in your mixing due to the characteristics it gives the source that you are recording. They recorded compressed sound is actually helping with the maintained level control of your Channel strip’s average level.

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Feel free to email us with your questions and we will be more than happy to try and answer them. And please do not forget to subscribe to our blog so that you can receive updates and reviews, you will also receive discount coupons for our (scitscat)internet store. https://www.scitscat.com

Truly Yours

Diego L.

 Links of interest

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https://www.ebay.com/usr/scitscat?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

https://www.uaudio.com/audio-interfaces/arrow.html

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