Free glue, innit.

To the best of my knowledge I believe that it wasn't engaged (that is, that the button at the back of unit is not pressed down) but I will check again later tonight when I get home and will report back on with experimenting a little bit more. Thanks.

..and that is exactly what I tried to do originally, I wanted to see how it handles with compressing extremely hard, although I can't even get the needle to hit 20 even when cranking the input and I'm just getting a ton of hiss even with about 7 db of GR.

The switch is supposed to be in the down position for normal use!

Yikes! Did you mean this for just tracking or during mixing also?

Both.

Thanks, will give this a shot along with raising incoming signal with a gain plugin (without pad), and also with pad and with the plugin... I'll report all results back tonight.

Okay, so I gave it a run tonight, and found that the best way to use it with minimal noise would be

- Boost incoming signal to WA76 with gain plugin/external preamp
- Then also having the pad switch engaged at the back of the unit

DEAR GOD! I thought it sounded great already before this, then now it just sounds freaking amazing.

Now, while the WA76 sounds great on its own, for one of my songs, this is the first time I've slapped it on, so it's in conjunction with another compressor. Perhaps I'll post some more examples with WA76 on its own on certain sources/vocals.

Here are some audio clips that I used in conjunction with my VLA II. I tried to recreate the same style/sound with my typical compression settings ITB for punchy transients on rap vocals NI VC2A -> Softube CL1B (med. atk/rel)

With WA76 (slowest attack/fastest release) -> Pro VLA II (going in one channel to the other!)

Some crazy stuff. Here's a pic of the settings, and I attached some audio files to this post.



I hope all of you guys that got the WA76 enjoy it as much as I do. Thanks for everybody pointing out some stuff for me!

Loving it here too!

A couple of bits of gainstaging 101 that might be of use for someone:

Always turn the gain you need up at the first opportunity and then just keep it there through the chain. That means get the preamp to make the level you need to see on the end of the chain right there in the beginning.

Another thing that helps is when setting up a chain with a comp in it, set it without the comp in it first. So you basically have preamp to DAW straight and make it a good level in (like somewhere -18 to -10 dBFs depending on signal). THEN patch in the comp and re-find your previous level while getting the compression amount you want. Now your comp isn't so hissy and you have happy signals.

^^^^^

All the world's a gain stage baby...

...and every gain stage is a tone control, baby.....(or at least in the out of the box world...)

I was unaware of the pad button on the back of the unit. I will have to check that

Nice!

Which is the normal noise floor ?

wow forgot about this thread. Gotta say warm audio is my favorite gear. Thanks to all involved in making these great products. Now only if they can talked into an eq!!!!

I had the same hissing problem at first. After reading this thread it turned out I was the problem. The pad has to be in the down position. I compared it to the waves 76 and the cubase vintage compressor, its a different animal.

Okay so I re-read this thread again to make sure that I'm doing this correctly.
I realize that the first batch of WA76's have a different pad switch on the back.

The original ones have a "flickable" engage/disengage switch (I think off would be down and on is up?)

And the one I have is a button that when it's pushed in (down) engages the pad, and pushed out is disengaging the pad.

I also emailed Bryce, and he suggested that the pad should be off for normal use.

So what's the verdict here? Should it really be on or off?

I thought that (theoretically) if the pad was on, you can drive the input harder to get more of the transformer coloration, right?
It does seem that when I level match the compressor settings when the pad is on or off, it's quieter and have less noise when it's on.

keep in mind these bad boys have cinimag transformers so they can take and output massive amounts of level.

I too am finding the WA76 to be quite noisy, even with the input gain all the way down and the output gain 1/4 of the way up there is a fair amount of hiss (not objectionable but certainly noticeable.) I am interested to know if anyone could do a mod on this unit to rectify this issue?

Talking of mods, has anyone done a transformer swap on one of these yet?

I hold in my hand a UTC ouncer for authentic input and could muster a nice old Stancor for output.....might one day buy one of these to try the transplant and see how 'classic' he ends up, tone wise.......I mean, all discrete and running on 24v all else should be good me thinks......as it stands the tone is the weakest part to me, albeit the ballistics are pure 1176 goodness.

Give us a hollar at [email protected] so we can help. As seen in this video the units are quiet when operated/operating correctly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xHm...7yDoF-7iSb_9cm

I've just bought a WA76 on June 2016. And I found that I have the same issue as you @ ride_the_system . Just tried Mic-> PreAmp -> WA76 -> line input and Mic->mic input (WA76 send/return). Output can pass 2 o'clock. But I bought it in Vietnam, so I don't think I can return and replace with another

What's the unit number? Is your output knob stepped, or free flow?

I had one of the older models, which Bryce explained, had a higher noise floor. He asked me to add 1 resistor in parallel to one of the paths in the unit and it fixed my issue. I've been extremely happy with my wa76 ever since!

Keep in mind that this type of analog circuitry will always produce *some* noise. It's analog

I did the same exact thing, it helped.

Is Unit number you mean serial number? It's WA76: 05602. My output knob stepped. Can you tell me which resistor to add and where to add? Any picture please?

Wow, it's been a year! I wouldn't recommend adding the resistor like I did since you have a stepped output - one of the new models.

You should contact warm audio and ask, mayb send them example files: one without the wa76, and another with the same audio file passing through the unit.

Good luck!

Thanks for reply for a lately post!

@ WarmAudio Hi Bryce, i got 2 wa76 besides an original Urei revG and an mc77. I´m pretty sure they are from your first or second batch. I would love to add the nose lowering resistor they talk about here...


Where can i get the proper information ?

Thanks

btw, whats up with Gearslutz uploading the pictures upside down