Volt 176 USB Recording Studio

Volt 176

Needed a little home-studio option for editing when I'm not in the big studio and this Volt 176 looked liked a great addition.... and it is! Great add-on pack, love that every option has a knob or button unlike other devices out there. Vintage mode is subtle but noticable, compression is cool too but would have loved it more if it was gain matched.

Very good interface ONLY if you have no network problems

Volt 176 it's a great audio interface - no doubt. It's a small, but powerful "box-of-joy" with amazing sounding "Vintage" mode and great 1176 real-time emulation. As far as the hardware is concerned, I have no objections. BUT if you have no internet connection or you internet provider blocks some ports/connections and UAConnect doesn't work properly, there is no "standalone" ASIO driver for download and your interface does not work also. Hardware it's a masterpiece, but "only on-line" driver installer it's a imprudence :( Five stars for the hardware, zero stars for the network driver installer... Now I'm able to use Volt 176 only on my secondary computer, the main unit cannot run UAConnect properly :(

Broadcast-quality: achieved.

Back in the mid-1990s, I had the opportunity to broadcast the early morning local cut-ins for National Public Radio in a college town. I still remember jumping bleary-eyed into the booth with 30 seconds to air, popping on the cans and waiting for the signal from my producer. Speaking into the classic Electrovoice RE-20 with its unique, greenish-brownish-gray gills, for about 4 minutes I got to sound just like I was in the room with Bob Edwards in Washington, DC. It was a fun time.

Fast-forward 30 years, and now I'm trying to build a professional-sounding setup for my new, remote job requiring voiceovers. I was a reporter in radio and TV for nearly 20 years, and I know how to do my research. My mic of choice? The good old RE-20, unchanged since my fond memories of 1996: effortless, warm, flat profile with no need for a pop screen and tough enough to pound nails into a board (look it up). Mic cables? Short, gold-coated Mogami XLRs. Work sent me a new-in-2022, 16" M1 MacBook Pro - science fiction made real. Cans? Polsen studio monitor. I chose a Cloudlifter to boost the RE-20 signal. Now I just needed something to connect all that analog goodness to my Mac.

So many choices! Thankfully, a salesman at my locally owned music production shop steered me away from my first choice, a little red box that worked pretty well for me in the past, and pointed me right to the little unit I now have lighting up my small recording space like a Christmas tree (I love all the colored lights!): the Volt 176. Setup was easy. Red light for 48v power to the Cloudlifter, blue light for the headphones, orange lights for Vintage and the magical 76 Compressor, and green lights for the VU meter...

...And I was back. It was a trip back in time to that little college radio station in 1976. Only this time, it sounded *better*... so much better. Without the 176 compressor, my RE-20 sounded so quiet it was like having noise-canceling headphones on. With the compressor...well. I got a physical shiver... my voice sounded like butter. This is the simplest, most incredible-sounding mic setup I have ever used, ever. One mic, two small boxes, and a Mac... and I'm literally at NPR quality. I know, because I was there.

If you have an RE-20 (and you should if you are doing voiceover work, radio-style podcasting, or just want to wow the executives in your next Zoom meeting), you owe it to yourself to pick up this sweet little box with the wooden sides and the heart of gold. Now pardon me while I step back into my time machine :)

UA VOLT 176

I am impressed with the size of the Ua volt 176. So far I have not recorded but only played music through it and the headphone amplification is wonderful! I will write more when I try the compressors and preamp!