An Innovative Compressor From Little Labs
First off, we’ll address the elephant in the room: aside from controlling levels smoothly and effectively, Little Labs LL2A shares no attributes with a famous compressor bearing a strikingly similar name. In fact, it’s an entirely new — and quite novel — design that uses a single linear analog multiplier in the audio path to provide natural-sounding soft-knee attenuation of the input audio signal. The feature set, however straightforward, does include a very useful sidechain insert jack. For level and gain-reduction metering, the LL2A uses a new-old-stock neon Nixie tube that’s rather reminiscent of a 1966 Ford Thunderbird speedometer! Engineers at Sweetwater have found the LL2A to be well suited for everyday deployment on vocals and full-range material. The Little Labs LL2A’s streamlined 2-knob setup lets you nail great-sounding results quickly, while the high-quality stepped threshold and gain controls make settings recall effortless.
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Streamlined control set
Its sidechain insert — a premium feature — notwithstanding, the Little Labs LL2A sports a straightforward 2-knob control set that lets you achieve your desired results quickly. This ergonomic simplicity is by design. There are many feature-laden modern compressors on the market. Indeed, complexity can provide the user a great deal of flexibility. But as we have found putting this gear to the test in Sweetwater Studios, having so much control over every parameter is a double-edged sword, often requiring lots of fiddling around to nail what you’re after. This is definitely not the case with the LL2A.
A versatile workhorse
On the LL2A, threshold and makeup gain knobs and a bypass switch make quick work of dialing in the perfect settings for a majority of everyday compression/limiting tasks. Little Labs chose fixed attack and release times that are optimized for vocals and full-range material. However, there’s a hidden feature that immeasurably increases the LL2A’s versatility: selecting the link button without a link cable inserted slows the attack considerably, making it more suitable for bass and other sources where you want to ensure that the compressor doesn’t clamp down on the front of the notes. Of course, the Little Labs LL2A can be linked for balanced stereo operation with another LL2A, but this compressor has another unique trick up its sleeve: a single LL2A may be used for unbalance stereo operation.
Sidechain insert for flexibility
Every dynamics processor has a sidechain circuit that examines the signal and determines how much it will reduce gain — but not every unit provides access to its sidechain. In compressors without a separate sidechain input, your main input signal is, essentially, compressing itself. With compressors like the LL2A, you can insert external processing on the sidechain — or introduce a different signal that determines the compression action on the main signal. It’s an incredibly useful feature that lets you, for instance, automatically duck a track to make space for another (very popular for that EDM mix pumping effect). The LL2A’s sidechain insert gives you an impressive amount of flexibility.
Little Labs LL2A Compressor/Limiter Features:
- 2-knob setup with high-quality stepped, resettable threshold and gain controls
- Fast 400μs attack, 0.9s release soft knee compression
- 2400μs attack, 4.9 second release for bass: available in standalone mode
- Minimalist differential circuit topology utilizing only 2 active components in audio signal circuit path
- Unique linear voltage multiplier gain reduction, voltage-controlled attenuation
- True VU ballistic, accurate, neon Nixie tube metering
- Internal state-of-the-art super-low-noise linear voltage regulation
- 1MHz low-noise high-voltage supply for Nixie tube
- Linkable for 2 LL2A compressor stereo balanced use
- Single LL2A can be used for unbalanced stereo: TRS (tip-left, ring-right) or XLR (pin 2-left, pin 3-right)
- Rear-panel TRS balanced sidechain insert, TS link jack, XLR and TRS balanced mono I/O
- Rugged half-rack chassis: 2 LL2As may be rackmounted in a 1U space
- Quality crafted in California, USA
