UAD Powered Plug-Ins Manual
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Chapter 47: UA 1176 Classic Limiter Collection
Grit
A simple 1176 trick is turning the attack and release up all the way to their
fastest setting. This has the audible effect of adding compression distortion to
the audio source, and is especially pronounced in all-buttons mode. What
happens here is the attack and release are happening so fast that minute level
fluctuations sound like distortion. It can add a very useful, gritty compression
effect.
This effect is useful on bass, where you might need compression and distortion
at the same time, and the 1176 can provide both in a unique way. This trick
also sounds great on screaming lead vocals.
Artist Presets
The UA 1176 Limiter Collection includes artist presets from prominent 1176
users. Some of the artist presets are in the internal factory bank and are ac-
cessed via the host application’s preset menu. Additional artist presets are
copied to disk by the UAD installer. The additional presets can be loaded us-
ing the Settings menu in the UAD Toolbar (see “Using UAD Powered Plug-Ins”
in Chapter 7 of the UAD System Manual).
Signal Flow
A functional block diagram of the 1176 is provided in
. Signal lim-
iting and compression is performed by the Gain Reduction section. Before the
signal is applied to the Gain Reduction section, the audio signal is attenuated
by the Input stage. The amount of attenuation is controlled by the input control
potentiometer. The amount of gain reduction as well as the compressor Attack
and Release times are controlled by the Gain Reduction Control circuit. After
Gain Reduction a pre-amp is use to increase the signal level. The Output Con-
trol potentiometer is then used to control the amount of drive that is applied to
the output amplifier. The 1176 is a feedback style compressor since the signal
level is sensed after the gain reduction is applied to the signal.
Figure 138. 1176 signal flow
Input
Transformer
Pre-
Amplifier
GR
Circuit
Output
Amplifier
GR Control
Circuit
Input
Output