I haven’t owned a real LA2a or 1176 but I use the UAD emulations.
Lot of people that do have the real equipment say how accurate UAD are etc.
.
Should be able to get a feel for what they do and how you would use them.
Lot less $.
I’ve owned a real 1176, they’re actually brighter than the plugins and what you solder with does make a difference. I never apply compression in tracking, it’s much better to do it in mixing. If you do it during the mix down there’s more control if you don’t like your initial sound, blowing the meter is a risk that you just have to take.
@Clownpenis.fart, cool! Which one?
Presumably [quote=“Clownpenis.fart, post:42, topic:426”]
it’s much better to do it in mixing.
[/quote] is your not so humble opinion and not a statement of proven fact with correlated evidence.
#justasking
My own thinking is that it’s much safer to do it mixing, which isn’t quite the same thing.
Sometimes risk taking brings rewards. 
c’mon man. Be nice.
Shack, the ~CONTROL~ is greater because you can always change the compression if you don’t commit it to track. I think that’s what he was trying to say.
JK, you KNOW how nice I am.
You also know I’m a stickler for accuracy.
What fascinates me is I WISH I could remember the way to get ITB inbound compression/reverb onto my vocals without printing it.
Someone explained that to me back on RR and , godamnit, it worked. It had something to do with putting the FX onto an aux send bus and monitoirng THAT, so the compression isn’t prinbted but does help your vocal performance.
I’m reading this back and it barely makes sense to me.
Probably going to be dictated by the exact specs of your audio interface. On mine, for example, I have a headphone jack I can use that can monitor the digital signal processing (DSP) that is built in to the interface. I could use its included, limited tools to have compression active while tracking and it would not be printed on the vocal track.
However, I don’t need to do that because I can just monitor directly in the box with so little latency as to not matter-- very easy to get 4 or 5 ms on my rig. Depending on what all else is going on in the mix, I may need to disable some processing, particularly on the master-out if it’s engaged, but that’s a very minor thing, I can still keep the plugins in the signal chain on the vox track active. Obviously that’s specific to each of our own setups.
Finally, I also have been using Izotope Nectar for vocal processing since getting that package a while back, and it has a “tracking mode” option that does a nice job of minimizing the CPU hit while still providing that useful feedback (not the high pitched squeal kind, the good-for-workflow kind) while singing.
Hope that helps!
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Sure.
Vocal to DAW chain:
Mic -> Preamp -> Interface -> DAW -> Vocal track -> Master Out -> Monitors
Concurrent:
Vocal to headphone chain:
Mic -> Preamp -> Interface -> DAW -> Vocal track -> AUX BUS -> Compressor -> Headphone out -> Headphones
Add reverb like this (by modifying vocal to headphone chain):
Mic -> Preamp -> Interface -> DAW -> Vocal track -> AUX BUS -> Compressor -> Reverb -> Headphone out -> Headphones
Both chains are running at the same time and feeding off the same mic.
-So you set up an aux track to feed your headphones.
-Then you insert your compressor on the aux track which is feeding your headphones.
If you are using a hardware compressor, you create a patch point in your DAW and insert said compressor.
That oughta work unless I’m missing details 
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I went through a bunch of comps last year trying to find the holy grail.
imo theres two approaches and groups.
1)the clean and invisible safe 2:1,3:1comp4:1 w/ fast attack fast release invisible method that is safer and doesnt sound like crap the next day or week. classical and purist techno…it does show up in the wave clipping off the peaks.
- the Comp-stortion where people squash it and squeeze it for an effect, often in metal and pop…you can hear it and its not invisible at all and you cant take it off later after the cocaine wears off.
I tried the JoeMeek,RNC, Lindell 1176, Symnetrix, 2 other Joe Meeks new and old and others forgotten about… and setting them up for 1- “invisible” mode you cant hear shit but it is visible in the wave forms. The RNC worked great and was cheap.
I suppose 2-Compstortion is fun, but I never got the holy grail sound. Instead it sounded muddy and muffled and squashed…and I can do that with a plugin too. I didnt have the scratch for the “real ones”.
In the end for invisible-safe tracking going in a clean compressor is the RNC.imo.
It also is quiet compared to a lot of 19" noisy emf hum rackmounts that might need gates and crap added too. The RNC is frkn cheap! $100 used…maybe $80. only $175 new!
but a plug can do that for free too…so I sold the RNC because I have onboard processing that can do clean-invisible just fine and takes up less table space in my 3ft x 4ft studio. ha
shack i dont know what interface you have but on mine, its a 8 channel.
in Reaper I select which channel Im recording from. on my unit the onboard processing is always 9/10 and 11/12…1 through 8 are dry.
So to record wet and dry at the same time I simply tell Repear TRACK 1> Channel 1=Dry
and TRACK 2> Channel 9&10 (wet)
I suppose a person could do the same with outboard gear. if your preamp has a Direct out…run the Dry to the interface input 1/ DAW Track 1 and the Processed output of the preamp/comp/reverb unit into input 2/ DAWTrack 2. ? seems pretty simple.
Shit, sorry Johnny. Didn’t mean to ignore you. I’ve used a Hairball REV A blue stripe (the one for VOX), and a Hairball REV D black stripe. There’s a user here that builds and sells them at a pretty reasonable price and only uses silver solder if you are interested. He’s obsessed with quality, good guy. Sends you calibration photos so you know you’re getting it right. He sells REV A and D for $999.99 each.
That box of tranny’s and boards is still sitting in the original box from over a year ago. I’m never gonna get to this. It just isn’t enough of a priority, and I’ve been putting it off forever 
There was a guy on Produce Like A Pro that offered to buy them off me. I should take him up on that.