Guys, we have Will from UA on hand to go nuts and bolts on the V76!
Post all V76 questions here!
Post all V76 questions here!
V76 Preamplifier Q&A with Will Shanks!
- Thread starter Matt Hepworth
- Start date
CodyV
Active Member
Hey Will! Thanks for taking the time to chat with us, and for all of the hard work from you and the ua team that went in to this. A few questions.
Why did you pick the V76? Were there any difficulties / fun challenges in the development process? Finally, is there a particular "Sweet Spot" of input gain where you feel like the V76 really shines?
Why did you pick the V76? Were there any difficulties / fun challenges in the development process? Finally, is there a particular "Sweet Spot" of input gain where you feel like the V76 really shines?
Deckard
Active Member
No question here atm but I had a lot of fun playing some basslines with my Voyager through it 
Rich and reactive, dynamic sound. Awesome!
edit: Actually I think a mix knob would be great. I went into high distortion with my basslines and think it would be great to be able to blend the unit in rather than changing the input gain in this scenario.
Rich and reactive, dynamic sound. Awesome!edit: Actually I think a mix knob would be great. I went into high distortion with my basslines and think it would be great to be able to blend the unit in rather than changing the input gain in this scenario.
Will Shanks
Universal Audio
Way to kick it off! The V76 is another classic, and it deserved to be heard and made available in my opinion. Along with many more of the wonderful German IRT designs, they are not the easiest thing to get a hold of, and even then, knowing a unit you buy is up to original specs, or even knowing who to trust these units to for service repair is a challenge. Most of our customers will never go down this road, so I felt it a historical responsibility to bring it out, and to do it right with a proper end to end circuit emulation.
The first challenge was ensuring our unit was indeed original spec and in tip top working order as close as possible to the what it would have sounded like new, so the unit was thoroughly gone through. Luckily, I was able to buy a unit locally from a trusted friend at Wide Hive Studio in Berkeley which meant it was already in great shape to begin with. It is an early serial number unit #302. In addition, 25th Street recording in Oakland had units in great repair to lend us, and I got another four units from Jerry Harrison who also lives around the bay. This was really nice to have so many units at the shop to really ensure what the expectations are of these units, and to understand the unit to unit variation and know your golden unit is squarely in the mix. In general, if the V76 is unmodded and good repair, the units are pretty consistent even with a wide range of serial numbers.
On the emulation side, the pentode amplifiers and surrounding circuits were new and unique challenge, and was time consuming. Fun stuff not in the marketing copy: An interesting thing about the V76 is that the frequency response changes a bit from gain setting to gain setting, and two of the gain settings have a different impedance setting than the rest of the range, by design. Odd, but it is there in the HW, and is faithfully replicated when using the Unison version of the plugin. I'll let you decide where it really shines, but it is incredible that a design that goes this far back has 76dB of clean gain, and a very low noise floor. One trick I love is the "Revolution" sound, which is very overdriven DI electric guitar. On the record the signal chain was going through units, so try that out for fun.
Will Shanks
Universal Audio
Simple answer: Incredible design!Hey Will! Thanks for sharing your time with us.
My question is pretty simple : what's the V76 secret ??
Cheers
sirthought
Established Member
Suggest putting th v76 on an Aux channel in Console and you can blend the sound more.No question here atm but I had a lot of fun playing some basslines with my Voyager through it
edit: Actually I think a mix knob would be great. I went into high distortion with my basslines and think it would be great to be able to blend the unit in rather than changing the input gain in this scenario.
Geoff Waddington
Established Member
Did you guys contact Oliver Archut during this project, man, he knows V76's inside and out.
Loved the track on the video, totally captured that British invasion vibe that featured V76's a lot, man, took me right back to that sound !!
Loved the track on the video, totally captured that British invasion vibe that featured V76's a lot, man, took me right back to that sound !!
slamthecrank
Hall of Fame Member
More info on that track:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Green_Bag
[video=youtube;bp9PqJtP5Ng]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp9PqJtP5Ng[/video]
Not to be too indelicate about it, but Oliver died back in 2014.
Eric Dahlberg
Purveyor of musical dreams fullfilled.
If you feel like doing a series of these, you're welcome to borrow my V72's and V276. I have one of the filters, too.
I'm not Will, but my name sounds similar. Does that count? If you look at the block diagram of an Apollo you will see the 10-65dB gain control is in the analog part of the Apollo's pres, before the signal hits the A/D converter. The plug-ins operate in the digital part where they give additional gain gain digitally.
:- Don
shimel
Venerated Member
I have exactly the same feeling Geoff !
I just can't believe that just a preamp plugin is able to do that trick
But that true
Last edited:
Perhaps you could give us a not so simple answer? As someone who has picked apart the V76 design in detail - what is it about it that makes it sound that way? All the iron, the tubes, the topology, sure. But what was interesting or unique about the design?
- Richard
Gitaarwerk
Hall of Fame Member
But, but, George Baker is Dutch )) what is going on here with british sound, while it was german engineering? Hahaha.
)) what is going on here with british sound, while it was german engineering? Hahaha.Geoff Waddington
Established Member