Hey Labfans, this is the third time i’m starting to type this post, since the amazing chrome just likes to crash…..so: Waves CLA-2a
Let me give you a point of whats up with the CLA series. Waves decided to model CLAs Compressors in order to capture their sonics & behavior, why would they do that ? , and not use any LA2a ?
That is because in the analogue domain, two units that share the same production line, will never be identical they can be close but they can also be far apart! this creates a variety of different sonics & behaviors withing the same range. This fact has been abused by Producers for ages…
Now lets get to it! (and hopefully chrome won’t crash again)
Settings of messurments (image on top)
If you are new to the lab post ,read this https://www.gearevu.littlefishaudio.com/must-read-welcome-to-my-lab-updated/
FR
Right away we can see a high end attenuation that’s less than a dB…
[update content]
This is a new graph I have added, demonstrates the gain reduction interaction to the FR.
FR:GR
Top blue is no GR., bottom blue is extreme GR
Phase
No phase issues.
THD/THD+N
As we can see here the distortion is normal for a analogue modeling, the distortion character based on its behavior and harmonic orders can be considered Smooth & full.
Q: Why didn’t you use the noise button ?
A: Because not much will have changed in the way THD and FR are. Analogue has the noise sideeffect which is considered a bad thing. and is a bad thing. Aslong as we can abuse the digital system to turn off noise from any emulation this is to our advantage!
DSC
For DSC I used a higher gain reduction setting, to demonstrate the following.
Here the compressor knee is very soft and gentle…
Remember, DSC is strongly interconnected with FR. A near linear flat response would only most likely have the effect to make DSC near linear aswell. Wich is not the case here.
Intresting Fact 1
If we use the limit option, the knee just bends to a harder setting approaching closer to a contemporary compressor design. Bellow is how DSC looks in limit mode.
Consensus
This is a complete emulation model of analog.
Q: Is this really close to CLAs compressor ?
A: I can’t know, get me to test CLAs unit and I’ll let you know.
Hey and if want to support me, In making more reviews like & share 🙂
Fab