New Music Gear Monday: Universal Audio LA-6176 Channel Strip Plugin

We all love channel strips, whether they be real hardware or a virtual plugin version – and what’s not there to like? For one thing you usually get the saturation and control of the original preamp, a modeled EQ, and a compressor/limiter/gate, at the very least. The whole trick is to base it on a signal path that really sounds great in the first place, and that’s exactly what Universal Audio did with its new LA-6176 channel strip plugin.

The LA-6176 combines the models of three of the most iconic audio devices ever developed – the UA 610 tube preamplifier, the 1176 limiter and the LA-2A leveling amplifier. As you would expect, the 610 preamp provides the tube sound and saturation of the original preamp, which is then fed into either the 1176 or LA-2A model.

The controls are almost the same as on the stand-alone plugins with the exception of a Mix control and sidechain filter switch on the 1176, along with Slow and Fast indications on the Attack and Release controls, and an ALL position on the Ratio control.

You might think, as I did, that you can use all three of these components at the same time, but that’s not the case as it’s basically the 610 preamp into either the 1176 or LA-2A. What you can do though is set each module and toggle back between them and the plugin will keep the settings from each so you can have an instant A/B comparison.

The LA-6176 plugin retails for $299 but carries an introductory price of just $99. It will run natively on a Mac or PC without UAD hardware, or runs accelerated on Apollo interfaces and UAD‑2 hardware. You can find out more here, or watch the video below to hear how it sounds on a variety of instruments and vocals.

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