CLA-2A style alternative

[jimwilbourne]

I'm looking for a CLA-2A style alternative.
I'm not gonna afford that for a good while nor anything in it's general price range. but I am willing to buy something cheaper.
also, I run a mac. so it has to be mac compatible.

has anyone found/tried anything of the same or similar likeness?

 

[AllanD]

Antress Modeled Plugins, there's an LA2A clone called Lost Angel. It's cool, I use it almost every session.

 

[BLUElightCory]

Get the new McDSP 6030, seriously! It's 10 modeled compressors, all of them sound amazing, and the LA-2A clone sounds better than the CLA-2A.

You can get the 14 day demo on their site.

 

[jimwilbourne]

The antress plugs are out of my options. They only offer windows vst.

Mcdsp looks awesome and well worth the price
Can you tell me how you feel about some of the models and which ones are useful to you?

 

[drew_drummer]

I'd see about getting Nebula 3 Pro.

 

[RiF]

If you're on a budget, try any compressor that comes with your DAW and set it to 10ms attack, rather soft knee, 10:1 ratio and play with the release (which is "automagically" adjusted by the LA-2A, so it's basicall two-stage and hard to emulate. First there's a quick release of 50-60 ms and then a longer 0.5-5 second release). So I'd go for a longer release.

 

[BLUElightCory]

Can you tell me how you feel about some of the models and which ones are useful to you?

I'm still in the demoing stage, but I'm really liking most of the models - I find myself using the U670 (Fairchild) and Moo-Tube (Manley) models quite a bit on bass and full mixes.

The sst76 (1176) and Over-EZ (dbx) are great on more aggressive stuff, as are the FRG and D357 models.

The "Opto" models are the LA-2A emulations and I've really liked them on bigger, slower stuff (bass, vox, etc.).

There's a great article about the models here:
McDSP 6030

 

[funtez]

While the mcDsp comps are looking good, softube fet is a tried and tested absolutely killer 1176 IMO.