Chris Lord-Alge lends his LA-2A to Waves, and this is the emulation they come up with! But…
It seems to me that a lot of Wave’s plugins have this almost perfect harmonic distortion pattern. Mathematically perfect. Which admittedly sounds good and adds an “analogue-ness” to the tracks being processed. But are they really modeling any tubes or transistors accurately?
Now, is this a bad thing? Probably not. There are a number of developers who have this kind of generic analog “method” to their plugins. Is it completely ethical to say you model a specific hardware when you really don’t? Well, marketing is very rarely concerned with the nuances of ethics. And at the essence, they do what they say—they add that non-digital vibe.
Maybe a handful of people in the world can hear an emulation and say “hey, that’s not the harmonic distortion I hear with a real LA-2A.” So, does it matter? Nope. I only brought it up because it’s an interesting observation. (At least, I think it is. You might be like, “meh”.) This works just fine and all that. It even has (an attempt at) the slight high end bump of the LA2A. It sounds good, regardless of my rant.
Compare the Waves CLA-2A to the UAD versions, the Plugin Alliance NEOLD U2A, and the IK Multimedia White 2A.
Hint:
- Check out the hints on the UAD version.
Have you ever tried the Cakewalk version? I love that one. Much better in my opinion that the Waves.
Never had a chance to take a look at it. In what ways do you think it’s better?