Universal Audio 1176LN

The Universal Audio 1176LN is the fastest attack in compression, reaching full gain reduction in as little as 20 microseconds. Its Class-A FET circuit is so distinctive that plenty of engineers patch one in with the ratio backed off, purely for what the amplifier does to the signal.

Ratios of 4:1, 8:1, 12:1 and 20:1 cover everything from gentle levelling to hard limiting, and pressing all four at once gives the All-Buttons mode that has shaped drum rooms and aggressive vocals for half a century. Release runs from 50 ms to 1.1 seconds.

Two rack units, mono. This is the current hardware, modelled on the blackface D and E revisions.