Hello buddies, this is the follow-up on the blind test to choose your preferred 1176 compressor clone. If you missed it, you can find the thread here. The clear winner was Waves version, CLA 76, and the runner up was Slate's VMR FG-116. As you are aware, it was later pointed out to me that my choice of UAD plugin was poorly made. The unit I chose for shoulder-to-shoulder test (UAD 1176 rev. AE) was a revision with a very slow attack and very uncharacteristic of a 1176 behaviour. Actually it has a button for a ratio of 2:1, how cool is that? Anyway, I don't just want to be a biased UAD sore loser fanboy, so I'm leaving you with facts for you to form yourselves an opinion. As a personal collusion, when my UAD card is at capacity, now my go-to 1176 could easily be Waves CLA 76.

Anyway, here you are a Soundcloud playlist with all the contestants in this shootout. Listen and see for yourself if the UAD versions stand far behind Slate and Waves. All I can add is that the legacy versions (UAD 1176LN L and UAD 1176 SE) are great compressors that come free with any UAD card or interface. Finally, it is safe to say that all of the units tested can be tweaked away to sound however you want them to sound. For this test, all plugins were set to their slowest attack and fastest release, with an input/output stage so that the floor of the wave shape is at -3 on a VU meter.

I'd love to hear your opinions on this one.











You can download the UAD-processed drum samples here at 48 kbps/24 bits .wav audio.
Finally, the samples of the original blind test at their original quality (48/24) here.

Peace to you all.

 

Last edited: May 18, 2016

To bad it is not a blind test, but I will test it blindly for the sake of it

 

Since we've already voted and CLA stood out among the rest, my idea was actually to give you a chance to compare it against all five UAD emulations, something that was missing in the original thread.

Should I add a poll here?

 

Ok, since I don´t have a real 1176 to compare, my opinion is :

SE & LN Legacy (in that order) sound more like the Waves CLA76.
LN RevE, AE & A (in that order) sound more like the Slate FG-116.

Thank you for post those sounds, so we all can compare them
An LA2A comparison will be also very interesting

 

Last edited: May 18, 2016

Coming up!

 

shame you don't have a real urei to test it against.
i've used them before and found the cla does a great job.
not used the uad ones unfortunately

 

@mercurysoto thanks for doing the study... looking forward to the LA2A if you will

 

Well, in software world, UAD is supposed to be as close as an original one can get. Same manufacturer, right? If anyone owns a hardware unit, the original uncompressed drum sample is provided. I'd love to put this test up against a hardware unit.

 

Why would you not test the Ikmultimedia T-racks emulations of these compressors. Clearly they are the best. 1176, LA2A, SSL, SSL Bus.
Spencer

 

strange conclusion, all of them try to emulate the same hardware?
what makes them better programmers? also they didn't invent the 1176 nor the 2a, they bought the rights to produce it

 

Next time T-Racks will be included in the comparison.

Right. Your point can't be argued.