created in 1968 by Bill Putnam’s universal audio engineering company, the 1176 went different revisions throughout the years with a low noise(LN) circuitry version being created by Brad Plunkett. this version has become one of the most widely used and loved in the industry .this is the well known iconic looking Black coloured 1176ln.

the 1176 comes from the tube UA 175/176 compressor. to expand on this compressor Putnam used the new technology of Field Effect Transistors (FET) to be used as a voltage variable resistor. This is a big change from the UA 175/176 design in which actual voltage gain of an amplifier is changed.

the 1176 is a fed back style compressor. to make this work in the remake models 0f 2000 by universal audio they had to just replicate the original integral output transformer. Putnam’s son Bill Putnam jr. was lucky enough to come across the extensive design notes of his father which allowed him to re-create and expand on the original 1176.

The 1176 is used for gain reduction. it has four compression ratios 4:1, 8:1, 12:1, and 20:1. it has controls for input level , output level , attack and release. this means it’s a fixed threshold compressor.  it’s a mono unit but you can link it with a second unit for a stereo application.

British Mode

The 1176 has four different buttons for each compression ratio 4:1, 8:1, 12:1, and 20:1. some along the line someone discovered that when pressed a certain way you can achieve a n all button mode that resulted in an aggressive sound that had elements of the units 20:1 ratio, and resulted in a different knee and envelope shape. This came to be known as British mode.

Price

The unit doesn’t come cheap . the universal audio 1176 can be purchased on the Thomann website for 2,035 euro with the original 1176’s going for considerably more.

Clone

With the big price tag some people have tried a do it yourself approach to building the 1176. this has turned in a popular trend with many people making their own unique 1176 clone model with the components of their choose.

Plugin

In today’s digital music world, and the development of home studios and in the box mixing, universal audio has developed popular plugin versions, these copy all the revisions of the compressor unit with even added features that are possible in the digital domain like a look ahead feature. there is also a bundle of classic compressors by waves that were designed with famous mixing engineer Chris lord Alge, this CLA 1176 has become one of the most popular plugin compressors on the market. This bundle is on the Thomann website for 349 euro which is a lot less than the physical unit. Universal Audio also do a plugin version that can be bought in different bundles that also include other famous compressor. these rang in price from 500 euro to 5,000 euro, but can include hundreds of plugin’s in contrast to the vintage remake unit that’s 2,000 euro alone.