Stereo 1176 Revision A
The Legendary 1176 Blue Stripe
Recreation of an 1176 "blue stripe" with Ed Anderson output transformer and added remote control! The 1176 is THE compressor, made popular by the likes of Chris Lord Alge and many, many others, as it’s found its way into more or less all well-equipped studios around the globe. Now in Stereo!
This compressor features an input and output level control, variable attack and release, and four ratio settings from 4:1 to 20:1. There is no threshold control, so the amount of gain reduction depends on the input level and selected ratio.
Sound-wise, this compressor excels in bringing the source forward in a mix with a combination of fast, transparent peak reduction and lively, gentle saturation. If pushed a bit harder, it will start producing more harmonic distortion and the compression will become more and more perceivable, especially with longer release times.
Where to use Stereo 1176 Revision A?
Where to Use the 1176 Rev A?
Being a stereo unit, this processor lends itself well to any single source track in need of a character injection. It’s a classic on a snare drum, it will pull the last drop of sustain from a mono drum room/kit mic, it will nicely thicken a bass guitar and the added harmonics will make it cut through even on smaller speakers. The vocals will sit proudly in front and center, a synth lead will gain even more energy and a mono acoustic guitar will get more body without obvious pumping on the transients. Transparency is all good and dandy, but this compressor can also become a saturating, pumping, and sucking beast! By activating the “all-buttons-in” mode with Shift-Clicking any of the ratio buttons, the resulting unanticipated state of the circuitry produces far more distortion and somewhat altered timing constants. In this mode, the 1176 Rev. A treats the transients to a chainsaw experience and is arguably the definition of the hard-rock vocal sound.