Insider’s Secrets
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things up; maybe a little bottom end gets squeezed out or maybe they are just sort of excitingly solid
state... The big thing for me is the clarity, and the improvement in the top end.”
Last but not least, if you’re trying to get an extra dose of attitude in a lead vocal, try ALL mode with
short attack and release times. Not recommended for the faint of heart (or for balladeers), but it can
definitely give a male or female rock vocal track an in-your-face sound that you can’t get anywhere
else.
Drums
In the world of recording, there’s probably no greater challenge than getting powerful and precise
drum sounds. The 1176LN has long been the compressor of choice for engineers for kick drum, snare
drum, and overhead or ambient mics. When you factor in the added tube stage and equalization
controls, that makes the 6176 a natural for drum recording.
“I’ll always place one big mike, like a U47 (Neumann) or a ribbon mic such as a Coles or Royer, five
or six feet in front of the drums,” confides Grammy-winning engineer Jay Newland (Norah Jones). “I try
to get the whole drum set to sound good through that one mic and then put it through an 1176. That’s
the secret weapon track. The 1176 compresses and makes it sound bigger and more present and a lot
more exciting without having to crush it. I just it give a healthy 3 - 5 dB of compression and turn up
the gain a little bit—it sounds great! If I have that mono track, where the whole drum kit sounds
balanced, then I can build a decent drum sound with whatever else I have.”
“The 1176 is standard equipment for my sessions,” adds studio owner / engineer and well-known
industry “golden ear” Allen Sides (Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day). “I mult the left and right [drum]
overheads and bring them back on the console, then insert a pair of 1176s [in All-button mode] into a
pair of the mults. [That] puts the unit into overdrive, creating a very impressive sound.”
Engineer Andy Johns employs a similar technique. “What you do is, you run your room mics through a
couple of 1176s, just so that they are nudging a bit. This brings up the decay time of the room when
your guy hits the bass drum or the snare. If it’s a very quick tempo it won’t work, but at medium or
half-time tempo it brings up the room. It’s wonderful and there is not another compressor that will do
it the same way as an 1176.”
“When I am mixing,” he adds, “I mult the bass drum and the snare. The bass drum will not be even,
so the first bass drum track—the one that doesn’t have the 1176 on it—gets to breathe. Then I put
another bass drum next to it with an 1176 at a 4:1 [ratio setting]. That evens it out a bit. I sneak that
in and the bass drum is more constant. Of course, you have to change your EQs appropriately... For
the snare, I use one normal track that I EQ to death. Then I will use another one that has gone through
a gate. I put an 1176 on it to make it pop [and] I sneak that in... and all of a sudden the snare just
comes up.”
Indeed, the perception of distortion is increased with lower frequencies in All mode. That’s why,
given the frequencies and transients created by the kick drum, the limiter/compressor section of the
6176 can almost literally make an overhead or room mic explode. As reviewer Trevor Curwen points
out, “[All-buttons mode] can give a quite awesome compressed sound. This is particularly useful in
creating a larger than life drum sound, where compressing the room mics on a drum kit, combined
with careful setting of the release control, can really squeeze out the room ambience.”
