VLA-2A Mark II is a compressor plugin by Black Rooster Audio that emulates the opto electronic VLA-2A leveling amplifier of the late 1960s. It is available in VST3, VST2, AU and AAX formats for Windows and macOS.
Black Rooster Audio built the VLA-2A Mark II as a native emulation of the vintage opto compressor it is named after. The developer says the design aims to capture the sound and feel of the original unit as closely as possible. Its circuit is simulated in real time, so the behavior follows the analog hardware rather than a simplified approximation. The plugin runs on Windows and macOS and works in common plugin hosts across VST3, VST2, AU and AAX formats.
The VLA-2A Mark II uses a component-based, real-time circuit simulation. Black Rooster Audio says the crucial parts of the hardware are modeled, including the input and output transformers, the discrete sidechain and audio path networks, the filters, and the T4B cell.
The developer recommends the plugin for drums, and says it also works on bass and vocals. Careful adjustment of the compression is presented as the way to make a signal sit in the mix.
Aliasing is reduced with a low-latency, linear-phase Dolph-Chebyshev polyphase oversampling design. The oversampling rate adjusts automatically to the session sample rate, which keeps CPU use lower at standard rates while aiming for transparent results.
DSP operations use the SSE2 instruction set for pipelined processing. The interface also supports high pixel density displays on both Windows and macOS. On Windows, check your DAW's manual to confirm it is HighDPI capable.
Formats, systems and requirements as listed by Plugin Boutique. Missing details are left out, not guessed.
| Developer | Black Rooster Audio |
|---|---|
| Type | Plugin |
| Category | Compressor |
| Formats | VST3, VST2, AU, AAX |
| Operating systems | Windows, macOS |
| Architecture | 64-bit |
VLA-2A Mark II is available in VST3, VST2, AU and AAX formats. It is a 64-bit plugin.
It runs on Windows and macOS. Windows 7 or newer is required, and macOS 10.9 or newer is required, with M1 and M2 Apple Silicon supported.
You need a VST, VST3, AU or AAX compatible host in 64-bit, a display resolution of at least 1280x1024, and 1GB of RAM. Windows requires an SSE2 compatible processor, and Intel Core CPUs are recommended.
The developer says it is well suited to drums, and it also performs well on bass and vocals.
