The 1176 needs an update.

O.k. I been spitballing ideas  and I want to see what would stick to the wall if you will.

As we know we have one to many 1176 clones on the market.  Yet few if any offer anything new to the design.  I guess if it's not broken why fix it but I want to enhance things. 

I thought of the following things and wanted to see what people thought.

1. replace the ratio switch with a pot
.
2. Add filters or even a 2 band eq to the side chain(insert switch to turn on and off would be applied)

3. Feedback or feedforward switch.  With the 1176 being a feedback design. why not run it as a feedforward design.

4. Teplace input and output pots with custom knob that creates a threshold control. The idea, the 1776 is fixed threshold which is why input and output volume controls. But if we have the input increase while the output decreases and vice versa you can create a control we could call threshold.

Anyway what say you?

I'd like to see a diy 1176 type limiter with a good discrete reg psu for the main rail  .. without the lm series voltage regulator.

If looking at as a system - eliminate the wiring a much as possible  ....  use a decent alp potentiometer for level  ..    a decent modern led vu meter, like 48 segments!  in addition to the GR metering moving coil - which should be a really good ballistic one . like seriously good, not the lightweight ones of today.

A 'threshold' control is essential for fine control  ... not hard to scale the sidechain amp.

As good or premium as far is available on this planet for the 'release' capacitor .. to avoid that  'lumpy' release characteristic.
I want 'smooth' glassy release, like a fine Shobud played live. 8)

I think the basic architecture is hard to beat ...  especially the traffo line amp in the early revs.

Me personally, I like a decent sized input transformer  ... with great shielding.
Output traffo mr Ed Anderson's stuff suits me Just stuff it into a good quality can or three.

Hairball type attenuator too.

If it's a '2ru single channel with co-located PSU'  type of build, then serious shielding on all traffos is a must imho - not just from 'itself' but from other mains powered rack units nearby - one of the reasons I very much like 500 series implementations.

Again, if it's a 'single channel 2ru' type of build, why not a simple little DI ?  It takes about 2cm squared  and a jack

Really great limiter always make me wish I could just 'plug in' my nice guitar  and go  - direct.

And finally, if it were a 'modern pcb' type of build, a second balanced output, with a balancing chip like the drv134.

Where do I buy ?  Of course, 'stereo linking' concerns are a very serious and seperate matter. 

Bump

This is a good point. Some of this seems kinda like what the Distressor does, but seeing a good modernized improvement would be nice. Any work done on this since posting?

I’ve had some ideas about combining a few compressors of different types into one compressor.
Sort of like the idea of having a slow release compressor first of all I.e using an LA-2A first then an 1176 on a fast release.
This type of idea is very useable on vocals and I’ve tried it on a few other things and does sound great.
Rather than a tube LA-2A maybe something like the LA-3A design then into a 1176/RM58 or some kind of FET design?
Maybe we could get something new out of this type of idea?