SAME COMPRESSOR, 4 BUDGETS (Can you hear a difference?)

foreign [Music] this is a 2600 compressor but what you were actually hearing was a 350 clone the 1176 is one of the most iconic compressors of all time there have been dozens of clones that keep coming both in the hardware world and in plugins it's one of my favorite vocal compressors when I'm mixing and I also use it all the time on bass guitar and drums especially room mics now here's the same song again this time with a real UA 1176 [Music] I want to find out how close the lower priced clones come to the flagship 1176 from universal audio so I got the real thing plus three clones ranging in price from 350 to 18.50 and to keep things Fair we're only comparing newly made units here not testing something made today against a vintage unit made 60 years ago all right it's time to get started [Music] this one feels significantly lighter is the cheapest version The Clark Technic KT 76. [Music] here it is this is purple mc77 so this is the 1176 Ln from universal audio foreign quality the UA and purple units are heavy and solid almost identical in feel and weight whereas the warm audio and Clark Technic are both smaller lighter no doubt they just have a cheaper feel to them it's not really a surprise though given that you're saving 75 and 85 percent of the cost and hey if you got to save money somewhere hopefully it's on the outside and not the inside on the back the UA looks very much like a vintage 1176 with the wire connectors and all and everything else is pretty standard except the purple adds a side chain option all right I had to dig out a whole bunch of old cables and wire this up through my old patch Bay which I haven't used in years but I've got it all set up going through my carbon interface and it's not pretty but we're ready to test so let's get a baseline first using the actual UA version the most expensive version here and on their website they claim of course that this is true to the original so they're saying it's hand built a faithful reproduction of the original design and if we scroll further down here one of the most critical aspects of recreating the sound was Faithfully reproducing the original output Transformer and they found extensive design notes that enabled him to recreate and improve his father's original design so pretty cool so let's check out how it sounds so I've duplicated the vocal track here and in place of the plug-in 1176. there's something on my mind let's get rid of that and let's go to the UA Hardware there's something rainbows guys all right so let's compare that to the original vocal mix that I had which again is just with the waves plugin there's something on my mind I'm burning Paradise before the steps of Heaven's Door all right so I think we need a little more compression of the hardware here there's something on my mind I'm burning Paradise before the steps of Heaven's Door a dream of Rainbow Skies all right so that's the most expensive 1176 here so let's see what happens if we switch to the cheapest one there's something on my mind a burning pervert's eyes before the steps of Heaven's Door there's something on my mind a burning pervert's eyes before the steps of Heaven's Door okay that that Clark technique actually sounds like almost identical to the plug-in I'm kind of surprised by that let's see what happens when we double the price of the Clone which is going to be the warm audio never wanted more to see y'all know we can win this fight Heavenly conference calling for tonight okay that that one sounds different definitely sounds like it's just more distorted more saturated okay let's double that price again which is the purple mc77 never won yeah so that sounds cleaner than the warm audio as compared to the plug-in again all right I'm going to print this vocal down through each of these compressors and then we're going to come back to this let's hear how these sound on some transient materials so let's check out the drums here's my original drum mix foreign it on a waves 1176 [Music] let's start again with the UA version okay interesting these sound fairly different let's see if we find the same thing on the purple yeah okay either of these Hardware units release a lot faster than the plug-in is capable of then again this is probably modeled after a different unit a vintage unit so you know maybe apples to oranges a little bit here [Music] every one of these Hardware pieces responding very similarly I kind of like how the faster release gives me a little bit more tone of the drum see if we can get something similar on the other guys [Music] all right I'm going to print these down and then move on to base [Music] I'm liking this these all sound pretty great print it all right I'm going to listen to each one of these and solo now and switch back and forth and see if I can pick out any differences between these units so let's use the same three hits [Music] I will say the thing that's most surprising to me is that the cheapest version the 350 KT 76 it doesn't sound noticeably worse than the others and once we get effects in I mean let's let's talk about the context of the mix [Music] I mean in that example switching from a 350 unit to a 2600 unit it's hard to hear a difference all right what about the bass let's check that out again I'm switching back and forth between these I don't hear anything changing maybe the warm audio unit is a little more distorted let's bypass the other plugins just to hear it completely isolated yeah so just like when I heard a little bit more saturation or distortion on the vocals I think I hear that on the bass a little bit too with the warm audio version and let's revisit the vocals again there's something on my mind a burning paper a dream of Rainbow Skies yeah so the warm audio version does sound a little more saturated to me but the other three they sound interchangeable okay so those are the main ways I would use this compressor in a real mix but I want to have some fun slamming these and pushing them hard to see if any other differences come up especially the famous all buttons in mode which was surprisingly hard to get right [Music] the sound of Violent Waves the drowned on holy days and flood into the years to come to me the saturation of the cheaper units didn't sound quite as pleasing when pushed hard but you'd almost never be using them like this and still they're all pretty close once again I think the warm seems the most different in character and I think the UA version maybe sounded the cleanest so not much difference when we're listening in Solo I don't think choosing one of these compressors or plug-in over the other is going to make or break your mix or make it any easier or harder to get the sound that you want but I'm wondering did the differences start to become more apparent if we stack these up in a mix so I'm going to do one final test and what you're going to hear is different versions of the mix with the different versions of the compressors on the snare and the base and the lead vocals so all pretty prominent parts of the mix let's see if we put them all together if we hear any difference so I've got them laid out on the screen here I'm going to cycle through them as we listen to the song [Music] I mean there's hardly any difference at all let's hear the course [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay one more one more section yeah [Music] [Applause] I think it's absolutely crazy I to be honest I was expecting to hear way more difference between these especially between the UA 1176 and the Clark Technic there especially you can feel the difference in the build quality but sonically I mean wow let me listen to this now here's the kicker one more test let's hear my version with the plugins mixed in with the others [Music] [Applause] so this is interesting I actually do hear a difference between the plugins and the hardware mostly in the low end and the snare I think I could definitely get a very different snare sound out of these Hardware units compared to the plugins the release time was a lot different and it just sounds more 3D it pops more it's it's actually a little bit choked sounding on the plug-in compared to the hardware I did really enjoy dialing these compressors in on the base it it seemed a little easier to control those little frequencies than it feels with the plug-in well there you go I'm a little surprised I actually wish there was more of a difference between these units just because it would be a little more interesting I was even pretty biased coming into this against the the cheaper version I assumed that it would sound significantly worse or at least be a lot different or harder to use and to dial in but the more of these tests I do whether it's tape versus digital or analog versus Plug-In or expensive gear versus cheap gear look I've never been much of a gear snob to begin with but I'm even finding that it matters less than I thought so I guess I like them all I'd be happy to use any of these compressors in a tracking or mixing situation and I also still feel fine about my plugins too except that 1176 plug-in on the snare I I think I've got to try something else there because I liked what I got out of all of these a lot better so hey maybe you can let me know some suggestions in the comments below and also let me know your opinion on this test and what differences you heard which of these you preferred if any and if you want to watch another fun Studio experiment like this one check out this video here [Music]

Channel: Hardcore Music Studio

Views: 63,949

Keywords: jordan valeriote, hardcore music studio, compressors, 1176 compressor, 1176, 1176 plugin, 1176 clone, purple mc77, warm audio, 76-KT, klark teknik, 1176 compressor clone, wa76, audio engineer, home studio, home studio mixing, how to become a pro mixer, how to mix better, how to mix music, how to mix music like a pro, mixing, mixing music, mixing techniques, mixing tips, mixing tutorial, music production, producing heavy music, recording studio, ua 1176 compressor

Id: eHqVD8A4ldk

Length: 15min 16sec (916 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 17 2023