Sometimes when I receive  a mix to master I can hear that the attack setting is incorrect on some of the instruments. If not used correctly it will eat your low note. Too much attack on a kick drum will make it sound smaller. And maybe sometimes you need that, but, if you are wondering where your thump went? it’s likely the problem. Setting your attack too fast won’t let the transient naturally come through as intended. Compression is one of the hardest things to get your head around. Some units have different settings that either work the same or have other options suited for many applications of uses.

Just the other day I was trying to figure out a way to explain to a friend how attack works. And this is how I proceeded to explain it.                                                                                        

I asked my friend to sit behind my studio drum kit. While standing next to him I request him to hit the snare in the center with a typical good hit. Then I asked him to hit the snare with the 2  sticks    with one in each hand at the same exact time. Once he did he noticed the snare was choked or dead sounding. IMO this would mimic the fastest attack possible. I asked for another hit  but this time to  be a flam. Right away the snare had tone again. Ok so a 2 stick hit on the same drum head at the exact same time will make the drum sound very dead and emulate a fast  attack setting. The reason?  Because one of the 2 sticks will stop the drum from vibrating correctly.

Review the snare drum pic during a flam hit, the first stick that hits in a flam is the transient of the note when micing. The second hit is a little delayed in milliseconds and creates the well known  term flam. But more importantly this is  how you can look at how or what attack does. Load in a kick drum or snare hit, set a fastest release and attack, 2:1 – 4:1 ratio and Aim for a reduction  of -3to -6db.

  VU meter works best for this because you can watch the needle react to the transient. while the kick is playing, slow the attack down and watch the needle and you will see that between using you ears and watching the    needle you can actually see the attack doing its thing.  Always turn your compressor off and on during the attack settings. The setting I usually start with is 10ms. Doing this will bring back the meat and potato’s of your    kick.

On another tip, this will work on anything!

Glenn Thomas

www.ituneaudio.com

Truth be known that the loudness war freq live in the 600hz to 3.6k. This is where all the most energy is captured and can translate across just about every playing source. From your mom’s Kitchen radio to your subs in your Car.

The best way to use this is to add the plugin on your master bus. Now I have to be clear, this is not for mastering audio. It is just a great place to have your mix when sending to clients and or your ME. Use the high & low pass filter of your favorite Eq, Setting each at those 2 areas. once in place you can slowly move the lower freq to lower HZ to hear when it all comes to life without the muddiness. Same goes for the K end of the music.

Once those ares are working as desired, using a spectrum analyze watch what freqs shoot above the rest. Once you note the areas, solo tracks in your DAW and see which is creating the over spikes. Keep in mind though the vocals and maybe guitars will be one of the audio tracks creating the spike.  Its a good practice to have caution for that reason since, it actually needs to poke out more then the rest of the tracks.

This is the most exciting piece of equipment I have ever purchased. The WA76 from Warm Audio is outstanding and is the proof in the pudding. Bryce & the Warm Audio team went the extra mile here and I personally think it is changing how us buyers buy. Sure you can have the top name gear and if one can afford the costly slippery slope that follows us, have at it!   But for those of us who have to shop wisely, count nickels, it’s a God send to have such great manufactures like Warm Audio on our side.

Research, Blogs, YouTube, are great ways to find out info on today’s releases before purchases. One can watch a shoot-out of different products and even Gearslutz forum proves the amount of feedback to be helpful.  2 units of the WA76 were ordered and I was on top of the world. I had previously owned a Universal Audio 6176 and loved the 1176 side of the unit. The 610 pre side not so much though.  After selling the UA6176 to a guy in Quebec, I began to somewhat start missing it but not enough to pay $2500us for a replacement.

I was like a kid at Christmas has I opened the packaging in a hurry and there it was, waiting to be used. I rearranged my rack for the install and had cables already tagged. I was up and running in minutes. One of my clients arrived and he could see I was bouncing like a child needing to pee lol. I brought him into the vocal booth and handed him a pair of headphones.  I said sing, sing whatever, I have something new to try.

The mic pre in the chain?  Was the Vintech X73i – WA76 – Apollo Quad.  Wow! I think it sounded amazing on the vocal. It was more forward than anything I have ever used. This thing proved to be a monster after trying the Great River, Rupert Neve Design 511 and others.  Acoustic guitar, Bass guitar all seemed to gel great and beyond. Now I need another pair of these for sure.  I Love em’!

Now for the Bonus idea of the WA76!  It has 1-input XLR, 1-input ¼ TRS. So, connection of 2 Mic Pres or anything else is possible but only one of the inputs at a time can run. This makes for easy access and eliminates using a Patch Bay in smaller setups. I think its genius, and the original 1176 never had that feature.

Anyway regards of happiness for a UA1176 $2500 vs WA76 $600 for a great product and idea? Don’t let the price tag fool ya!

Glenn Thomas

www.ituneaudio.com