Extended Review of Universal Audio 1176 Classic Limiter Plug-In Collection
Russ gets his hands on the new 1176 Classic Limiter Plug-In Collection from UA and puts it through an extensive test on several types of material.
Evolved from the popular Universal Audio 175 and 176 tube limiters, the 1176 retained proven qualities of these industry leaders, and set the standard for all limiters to follow. Entries found in Putnam’s design notebook point to his extensive experimentation with the newly developed FET (Field Effect Transistor) in various configurations. Eventually, he found a way of using the FET as the gain-controlling element of a compressor/limiter. While the 1176 has seen a huge number of revisions in its history, the most significant revision was by UREI engineer, Brad Plunkett, in an effort to reduce noise — hence the birth of the 1176LN at Rev C. Numerous design changes have followed since, resulting in at least 13 revisions and variations of the 1176.
Universal Audio released its first 1176 plug-in emulation in 2001. This plug-in single-handedly launched the UAD platform, and inspired a decade of analog emulation software. Today, we’ve circled back to the 1176, and modeled its entire electronic path from stem to stern — including its transformers, FET and bipolar transistor amplifiers, for colorful input/output distortion. The resulting 1176 Classic Limiter Plug-In Collection provides unrivaled emulations of three distinct 1176 units, and is indispensable for any serious engineer or producer.
The 1176 Limiter Plug-Ins Collection provides three distinct 1176 revisions, representing over 40 years of design iterations to the original 1176 — the world’s most recognized compressor. The Rev A “Bluestripe” represents the original Putnam FET limiter design, complete with its higher distortion and unique FET gain amplifier characteristics. The Rev E “Blackface” covers the early 70’s / Brad Plunkett “LN” (Low Noise) era of the 1176 circuit lineage, with variations including a more linear compression response, transistor gain amplification, and a change to the program dependence. The 1176AE provides UA’s rare 1176 40th Anniversary Edition, complete with exclusive “hot-rod” mods — including its lower 2:1 compression ratio, a fixed “super slow” 10ms attack mode, and the program dependence of Rev A.
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