Website- www.softube.se

Price- $249/$399(TDM) Street

If you ask any of the world famous mixing engineers which compressor they would take with them if they could choose only one, there’s a very good chance they would say “an 1176 of course!”. Has Softube stepped in too large of shoes with this one? Can they nail the emulation of a true classic? We'll find out…

A Bit Of History…

In 1966, Bill Putnam, "the father of modern recording", came up with the initial design that would later become the legendary Urei 1176 limiting amplifier. It became an instant classic in the recording industry because of it's ability to control, add bite, and slightly brighten a vocal, delivering a very satisfying end result that could cut through even the thickest of arrangements. The 1176 is actually a kind of Swiss army knife that can be used in nearly any situation where one wants to effectively control the dynamic range of a sound source and give it some vibe. Many famous recording and mixing engineers have said that they couldn't imagine working without at least a couple of 1176's in the rack.

Numerous revisions of the 1176 were made. The most sought after is the original 1176 with the silver face plate and a blue stripe over the metering and buttons, usually called the “Blue Stripe”, or Revision A. Because of this legendary status, there have been quite a few plug-in emulations.

What I have here for review is one such emulation, called simply the FET Compressor. Softube, the Swedish developer of quality analogue emulations of various sorts, decided to base their model on the Universal Audio 6176 Channel Strip, which in itself is based on the 610 microphone preamp (a new original design) and the 1176LN D/E (a re-issue with new modern components).

I have no personal experience with the UA 6176, so I do not know the differences in sound between the original 1176LN D/E revision (which I have used several times) and the modern equivalent. Many do mention that they sound different, and some say the new ones are worse.. who knows? It's all subjective in the end.

A Legitimate Contender In A Difficult Race?

Let’s get something straight right away; Softube has done a very good job of emulating the basic behavior of the 1176LN. I made a thorough shoot-out between a real 1176LN (revision H, silver face), the Universal Audio UAD-1 1176LN plug-in, and the FET Compressor(see below for sound examples). They all sounded different, but at moderate settings on some material, we had a really hard time telling the various emulations apart. It was even more difficult to say which one was “the best”. Softube's FET Compressor usually sounded a bit more edgy and choppier than the UAD 1176LN, which tends to be a tad too soft (at least when compared to the original hardware). So in some situations it is a better emulation than the UAD, and this is no small feat!

On some of the test material, I preferred the original hardware. It has a certain focus and dirt that neither of the emulations could capture, especially not the UAD-1 (probably because it doesn't model any input or output distortion, only the compression action itself). Neither of the emulations matched the behavior of the knob positions on the hardware, which meant that I had to tune everything by ear. It is of course impossible to do this precisely, but one can get pretty close. All in all, I'm very impressed by the quality of Softube's emulation; so much so that I feel comfortable enough to say that we finally have a viable native alternative to the UAD-1 1176LN, and in all major formats.

Copy Protection

FET Compressor is protected by the iLok copy protection scheme, which will divide opinions. Personally, it doesn't bother me too much and I prefer it to the challenge and response system or any other method that keeps you from using your software on different computers. With the iLok protection, I have FET Compressor with me wherever I decide to work. Installation went smoothly on all the computers I tried it on and activating my license on the iLok worked painlessly as well.

Judging A Book By It’s Analogue Cover

When you first open an instance of the plug-in, you cannot help but be impressed by the gorgeous graphics. It looks like a shiny, sexy, expensive Maranz amplifier from the late 70's.

The motion of the VU meter needle has the most convincing animation I have ever seen in any plug-in. It's all very life-like and behaves like it should. The only critique I can come up with when it comes to the user interface is that the mouse cursor doesn't stay still when dragging a knob up or down. Instead, it moves, which is quite clumsy. It also means that if you have a plug-in at any of the top or bottom extremes of the screen, you will not be able to further tweak a knob when the cursor hits the edge. Other than this little niggle, the interface oozes quality.

All the controls are laid out perfectly logically on the screen. The large knobs control all the basic features of the 1176LN, while the small knobs control the new extra features that were added. A nice touch is the way you can simply click on any of the ratio markings and the knob jumps to that position. This way you can quickly get the original 1176LN behavior.

The Legend Has Some New Clothes?

Softube decided to go way beyond basic emulation of the 1176, creating a true monster of a compressor that can fit any music production and any sound source. For starters, the ratio knob is continuous, which means that you are not stuck with the original preset 4:1, 8:1, 12:1, 20:1 and “all-buttons- in” modes. You can set it to a gentle 1.1:1 ratio for mix-buss duties. Or you can go past the 20:1 mark, but not quite all the way to the “all buttons in” setting, which has some peculiar behavior and a lot of possibilities. You can also turn off all compression and use the unit as a saturation device.

Indeed, Softube went the extra mile and modeled the input and output saturation of the unit, which is a first when it comes to 1176LN emulations (with the possible exception of URS Channel Strip Pro, but don’t hold me to that), and it does sound quite good. My only gripe with this is that they didn't use the original 1176 “blue stripe” to base their model on. Even though I have not heard the UA 6176, I've read enough comments from people that I trust who say the input/output saturation, or “mojo”, is actually one of the weaker points of the re-issues.

That's not all. Softube included the possibility to use an external side-chain signal, which is a brilliant move! Finally, an 1176LN that can be abused!

They also added a pair of high and low cut filters to the internal side-chain. Then there is the Parallel Inject knob that controls the balance between the compressed signal and the original dry signal. However, it is implemented a bit differently than your typical dry/wet control because the dry signal goes through the distortion modeling, which means that you can't get a blend of the true 100% original. This is both a curse and a blessing. I would have preferred an option for the user to decide how the dry signal is routed.

Finally, there is a Look Ahead knob which allows the user to squash every last bit of a transient. Again, the implementation is a bit odd. At certain positions, the Look Ahead knob alters the tonality, slightly dulling the highs. And the reason is this, as explained by Niklas Odelholm from Softube; “Regarding the look ahead tonality. This is due to the sub-sample nature of the delay. An ideal sub-sample delay is non-realizable in the digital domain, and its approximations will cause changes to the frequency response.”

In my opinion, this should be a choice done by the user. There could have been some indicators of sample-precise positions around the Look Ahead knob that the user could click to avoid the high-end loss. Removing the current implementation wouldn't work either because that would change the sound of already existing mixes. Besides, the high-end loss can be a good thing in many situations!

One thing is certain, Softube know their way around DSP code. FET Compressor is very light on the CPU, which means that you can have as many instances of the plug-in open as you could possibly need. 20 instances of FET Compressor took only 16% of my laptop's CPU resources when all options of the compressor were in use. This was measured on an HP Laptop (Intel Core2Duo P7350 2.0Ghz) with Windows Vista, running Reaper 2.58. This is very impressive, considering the sound quality.

Looks Ain’t Everything, You Know?

I've had the pleasure of working with the FET Compressor for the past two months and have used it on numerous mixes in all kinds of situations. I'm a compressor junkie, and a real sucker for ones that allow you to route an external side-chain signal into the squeezer. A compressor that is as program dependent as the 1176LN is a prime candidate for side-chain abuse. The reason being that it is much harder to make a program dependent compressor sound bad, even when abused. No matter what you inject into the side-chain, something quite sensible comes out the other end.

I've re-sculpted several boring drum loops into a point where you cannot identify the original by applying the brutal “all buttons in” nuke, while precisely controlling which elements trigger the compression. In this case, I fed the side-chain with only the kick and the snare, separated with a trance-gate that was in time with the music. I've also used the FET Compressor in a 5-band multiband configuration and it's a sound killer.. err, sounds killer!

Because of the external side-chain, you can do some very creative things like applying a much longer look-ahead than what is on offer. For instance, you can make anything sound really weird (in a good way!) by applying 10 - 80ms of look-ahead for the compressor, which means that it will start compressing and already going into it's release phase when the actual transient hits. This is very cool for all kinds of dance and electronic music where movement and pumping is king.

You can also do mid/side compression using two instances of the plug-in. Due to the external side-chain, one can even cross-link the mid to the side, which means that as soon as your kick hits in the middle, your side's pump! It's awesome fun and very useful.

FET Compressor is naturally a good utility tool as well. Have a nasty snare or hi-hat that is too spitty or spiky? No problem. Tame it with some FET nukes, guaranteed to put anything in it’s place. It can also work wonders as a gentle leveler on the mix-buss by using ratios around 1.1:1. The only problem here is the distortion modeling which I sometimes wish could be turned off (there seems to be a work around by keeping the main input very low and driving the amount of compression through the external side-chain control).

This plug-in is at it's finest doing the things it was created to do, namely compressing vocal takes or spoken word. It gives that instant in-your-face, bite, and control that modern vocal productions demand. I found it especially useful on a rock singer who varied his dynamics a lot, from soft close-miked breathy aggression to brutal far away screams. Whatever the circumstance was, FET Compressor did exactly what I needed it to do, bringing the vocals in focus, and making them the star of the show.

Setting New Standards, Or Fitting Right In?

At $249, FET Compressor is a fairly pricey native plug-in. In these days of most excellent freeware alternatives, it might seem like too much for the average enthusiast. It all comes down to the uniqueness of the sound and the sound sculpting possibilities. It is a very versatile and creative tool that cannot be mimicked nor matched by any other plug-in as far as I know. This means that if you like what you hear after trying the demo, you really do not have any alternatives. I'd even recommend this plug-in to UAD-1 users due to it's unique twist on the concept of an 1176LN and the extremely low CPU usage.

There are other alternatives like FabFilter Pro-C, which has the “classic” algorithm, modeled on an 1176. Then there is the URS Channel Strip Pro, which has an 1176 emulation, among numerous other uses. All things considered, my vote still goes to the FET Compressor. You probably realize by now that I am completely sold on this thing. I can not imagine myself working without it, even though we have the hardware equivalent in the studio (this one being a DIY 1176 based on the Gyraf schematics) and the UAD-1 card with it's own flavor of the 1176LN.

Softube have created a very likable and useful compressor in it's own right, even though it isn't a perfect 1176LN emulation. Neither is the UA 1176LN plug-in, nor Pro-C or Urs CSP. FET Compressor comes close enough to get into that subjective area where it is not always easy to tell the difference, and especially not be able to decide which sounds better. Have a listen to the audio files from the 1176LN shoot-out, and then try the 10 days fully functional demo. I am definitely keeping this squeezer!

You can download the audio files for our 1176 shootout below. Here are the original loops, and rendered files from each plug-in, as well as some images to show which settings were used.

Original Loops Through Orpheus AD DA
Rendered Audio- FET Compressor
Rendered Audio- SIBA 1176
Rendered Audio- UAD 1176LN
Screen Shots