Did you complete your Presonus survey?

[Shane_B.]

I got an email the other day offering me $10 bucks to take a 20 minute online survey for Presonus, if I were one of the first 2,000 people to take it. Or something like that. I don't remember the exact details because I deleted it.

But now I'm curious if anyone else got the email and did you do the survey and get paid?

[craigb]

I don't fall for phishing attempts. ?

[Jeremy Oakes]

Why on a Cakewalk forum would you ask that ?
 

J

[Shane_B.]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Oakes said:

Why on a Cakewalk forum would you ask that ?
J

Because the Coffee House is a non-'daw'nominational music related discussion forum. Almost all of the people I communicate with here use Studio One as well as CbB (as well as most other major DAW's) and we talk about all of them openly here a lot. It is extremely rare that I frequent the Presonus forum and to be 100% honest, I never even considered going there to ask.

But if the powers that be want to delete, no biggie. Feel free to do so. I'm cool either way.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot to say, I apologize if I ruffled any feathers with this thread. Wasn't my intention. 

 

Edited April 16, 2022 by Shane_B.

[jesse g]

Just some coffee and a chat, that's all.  

 

[craigb]

Some coffee is better than others though...  (This isn't one of them! ?)

[Shane_B.]

So glad I popped in to check out the replies while having my morning insulated travel mug of coffee. ?

I stopped using those Freddy Krueger machines or whatever they're called and the fancy drip things with the timers and the super thin glass pots that break when you  look at them and the filters and all that shtuff.

I just use a good old fashioned stainless steel electric percolator pot. I make that stuff so strong and hot you could strip paint with it. Never need filters either.

[jesse g]

2 hours ago, Shane_B. said:

So glad I popped in to check out the replies while having my morning insulated travel mug of coffee. ?

 

Shane,

 I have been looking at getting another hardware compressor and I was looking at the ART Pro VLA II,  How do you like using it ?  I saw it listed in your signature, so I figured I ask about it's performance.

If I don't get that, then I will move up to a B-Stock Warm Audio WA76.  I like the ART Pro VLA II because it's a 2 channel compressor. 

Have you done any modification to it yet?

[Shane_B.]

2 hours ago, jesse g said:

Shane,

 I have been looking at getting another hardware compressor and I was looking at the ART Pro VLA II,  How do you like using it ?  I saw it listed in your signature, so I figured I ask about it's performance.

If I don't get that, then I will move up to a B-Stock Warm Audio WA76.  I like the ART Pro VLA II because it's a 2 channel compressor. 

Have you done any modification to it yet?

I've never used any other hardware extensively like I have the VLA II and MPA II gear so I can't compare how they sound and react to anything else. I looked up the WA76 and it says it's a Limiting Compressor so it's going to react different than the VLA II.

ART's description of the VLA II on their website is 100% accurate. "natural sounding and sonically transparent compression ..." and "Mastering Quality Audio Signal Path.". That's how I would describe it too. Very natural and transparent and absolutely no line noise at all when using balanced cables. I use balanced cables through my entire signal path including the monitor cables. I only recently started using the VLA II for mastering and I'm sorry I never took the time to set it all up and do it years ago.

I run my bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar (DI) and vocals all through the chain. Less is more with this though. You can easily overdo it without realizing it because it's so transparent and then things start to sound a little squished when you mix. I'll take more time and really kick in the VLA's compression when I do vocals but I'm a lot more conservative with the instruments and in some cases I just have them turned on for a cabinet emulator effect without compression kicking in hardly at all if at all. It all depends on the song, feel, and sound I'm shooting for. Just running everything through their analog path makes everything sound so much better to me. They remove the digital harshness like you are using a really good cabinet emulator.

I think you'd be happiest if you paired it with an MPA II. It's an excellent mic pre/instrument input device. It feels like they designed them to work together and both are dual channel. The MPA II has an adjustable impedance knob to really hone in your mic's impedance. It makes a night and day difference on some of the mics I have compared to just going DI in to my audio cards pre's. I'm surprised I don't see the adjustable impedance control on more gear because it makes a huge difference, at least on the handful of mics I have. The other thing that is nice about these is all the knobs are segmented so you could take notes and put them back exactly how they were to recreate a sound.

I've taken them both apart and they are very well made. The tubes are very easy to replace if you want to, but I never have. Before I plug in any tube based gear that is shipped to me I open it up and make sure everything is seated and hasn't been broken during shipping.

As for modding or upgrading them, in spite of what you see on the net I don't believe changing the tubes on low powered gear in this price range will make a difference. In the very expensive gear with large power tubes maybe but not in low power driven tube gear like this. You'll more than likely get more of a change by swapping out the caps, diodes, and resistors for different values and I don't like modding stuff to that degree so I've never attempted it.

Can you find other hardware that's the same price or more expensive that has a different sound? Yep. Is it better? That's up to the person using it. Will it have a cleaner signal path and be more silent like these units ... 100% no. I've detected zero background noise at ear destroying levels with both of these units activated and chained using balanced cables.

When I got my very first VLA II it came from the factory with a bad tube. I asked Sweetwater or G.C. (can't remember which one I got it from now) to just ship me a new tube and they said they had to ship me a whole new unit and send mine back to the factory. They overnighted me a brand new unit and I've had it ever since. Well over 10 years. Probably close to 14 or 15 now. Still no crackle when I turn the knobs and it sits out in my portable rack unit uncovered 24/7. Still no problems with the jack inputs or the tubes, the VU lights still work.

Hope this helps in some way. If you can, get it from some place you can return it just in case there's something about it you don't like.

[jesse g]

14 minutes ago, Shane_B. said:

I've never used any other hardware extensively like I have the VLA II and MPA II gear so I can't compare how they sound and react to anything else. I looked up the WA76 and it says it's a Limiting Compressor so it's going to react different than the VLA II.

ART's description of the VLA II on their website is 100% accurate. "natural sounding and sonically transparent compression ..." and "Mastering Quality Audio Signal Path.". That's how I would describe it too. Very natural and transparent and absolutely no line noise at all when using balanced cables. I use balanced cables through my entire signal path including the monitor cables. I only recently started using the VLA II for mastering and I'm sorry I never took the time to set it all up and do it years ago.

Hope this helps in some way. If you can, get it from some place you can return it just in case there's something about it you don't like.

Shane,

Thank you very, very much.  Your description and review was better than most that I've read and seen on the Internet.  MIX BUS TV gives a great non sponsored review of the compressor, and the presenter gives his honest opinion and his experience using the compressor and how it worked for him.  I've seen great reviews of the Art Pro VLA II and since the current compressor I have is part of a channel strip, I just wanted one that was a stand alone device.  I will be inserting the Pro VLA II compressor after my Warm Audio_ WA73-EQ PreAmp  to use on vocals to tame the dynamics a little while tracking.  I just needed something reliable for to use for this, as well as bass tracking and a little on my Keyboards.  

Thanks for your review and your assistance, ?

[jackson white]

4 minutes ago, jesse g said:

inserting the Pro VLA II compressor after my Warm Audio_ WA73-EQ PreAmp  to use on vocals to tame the dynamics a little while tracking.  I just needed something reliable for to use for this, as well as bass tracking and a little on my Keyboards. 

should work quite well for that. the VLA II needs some level going into it, expect the WA-73 is more than up to the task. 

[jesse g]

1 minute ago, jackson white said:

should work quite well for that. the VLA II needs some level going into it, expect the WA-73 is more than up to the task. 

Thanks Jackson ?

[Shane_B.]

1 hour ago, jesse g said:

I will be inserting the Pro VLA II compressor after my Warm Audio_ WA73-EQ PreAmp  to use on vocals to tame the dynamics a little while tracking.  I just needed something reliable for to use for this, as well as bass tracking and a little on my Keyboards.  

It's really good on bass. That's what I initially bought for iirc. It wasn't until a few years later that I got the MPA II to pair with it.

That's how I discovered the tube was bad on my originally one. Electric guitar was fine but bass sounded like the VLA II had a built in fuzz unit.

Good luck with whatever you choose.