And yes, I COMPLETELY realize that opening up this Pandora's box can lead to a significant draining of one's bank account, which is why I am asking these questions to narrow it down a bit. Thanks so much for all of your comments so far. I think I'm out of luck on the Slate for the same reason, no W10, which led me again to the Waves. Now in this comparison, to my ears using Sony Studio Pro Monitor MDR 7506 headphones, the UAD sounded best since it was the standard for the test, but since I don't have Windows 10 to run it, the Slate, followed by the Waves interested me the most. Since then I have heard every comparison I could find of the CLA versus xyz. In my opinion, the CLA-2A not only brings the vocal forward, maybe a tad more than the TLA, but surrounds it in a warmer envelope, and most importantly, smooths the notes together to create a more fluid vocal line that makes the performance more pleasing to listen to. So after my ga-ga moment, I decided that there may be others that might give another level of improvement, especially after hearing this: This was the first time I had used a 3rd party compressor in Reaper, and chose that one to demo based on comments in this forum. Then I put it on the bass track with the "Bass" default preset, and even on that, my bass track gained heft, solidity, focus, and texture. This was after I had already gone over each note leveling volumes pre-fx. I enjoyed the sonic characteristics the TLA-100 added to my vocal track, and thought its smoothening was better than any of the Reaper comps. Thank you for your professional opinions and experience. I'm not interested in any of these because I've heard them all and dismissed them for one reason or another, unless you can make a GREAT case for it! Slate FG-2A (only if there is some way to own it without being a hostage) Waves CLA-2A (aren't these supposed to be CPU-hungry?) Softube Tube Tech CL 1B (but I heard a demo where the Presonus P1B blew it away) Case in point, the Slate FG-2A, which I had decided I wanted until I found out you had to go the dongle route or even worse, subscribe regularly. Through extensive listening, I've narrowed my choices down to just a few, so please, no need to tell me the UAD Teletronix is the best, because I'm not interested in dongles or other crap associated with proprietary set-ups. So now I'm on the hunt for something better, ala a LA-2A clone. I liked what it did on vocals, too, but after doing some research realized that it's warmness is actually just because it cuts frequencies around 3-6K. Now I realize it is coloring the sound, adding it's own character, but I liked that. So, I demoed Softube's Summit Audio TLA-100A, and was astounded by the leap in quality I heard, especially on the bass, that just fattened up and sat in the mix much clearer. I'm using Reaper, and have decided I don't really like the Rea-included ones, Rcomp, Xcomp, the Sstillwaters' or Major Tom (although the Fairlychildish and 1175 are transparent and would be my first choices if I had to use only Reaper plugs.) With that in mind, I'd like to see what current opinions are from professional studio users. I've read a lot of threads about compressors on this forum, but not so much lately.
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