Why? What? For the curious yet uninitiated, a compressor is an essential piece of studio gear. It allows one to control dynamics of a signal using certain parameters, which is really important for reasons documented elsewhere on the interwebs. The 1176 is a very popular form of FET compressor, which can work magic on all kinds of material, particularly vocals in my opinion. It’s big, warm, open, and can really help you bring out the room with the right attack/release settings.

I’ve already hit some hurdles with this project. Firstly, I don’t really know what I’m doing. Secondly, I don’t really know much about the 1176. It’s one of those great legendary pieces of kit that has a rich history, many many different versions, and the usual amount of ‘opinion’ floating around regarding which revision was the best, and for what (generally unscientific) reason. I’ve never had the privilege of using one myself, and even the modern commercial clones of the original are way out of my price range. I’m going to try and build one for around £200.

So, since I’m way out of my depth as per usual, the plan is to keep it simple. And thanks to the many others that have attempted this before me, help is abundant, albeit badly organised.

The current state of play is:

• There’s an awesome clone design from Jakob Erland, which many people have had success building.
• Mnats revised Jakob’s PCB design, to make them more flexible essentially, and has done great work since on building clones of the various 1176 revisions.
• I’ve ordered a set of Revision J boards from Mnats, which should be here next week.
• I intend on ordering most of the basic components from Mouser.
• I have a choice when it comes to transformers; do I opt for both input and output transformers? If so, do I order Lundahl transformers as suggested? Alternatively, Hairball Audio have stock of recreated B11148 output transformers, and I could stick with the op-amp based input.
• I’ll get a standard 2U rack case from somewhere..
• And have front panel custom made by Schaeffer.

So already I have choices which are confusing me, and I may encounter problems sourcing certain components.. we’ll see. Beyond this, there’s putting the thing together, and testing everything correctly along the way. I have the basic tools; soldering equipment, digital multi-meter, but probably need to buy a second hand scope.

I reckon I’m only scratching the surface to be honest.. this whole thing feels suspiciously like a can of worms!

It took me about a day to build each pre-amp, and generally it went without a hitch, which is definitely testament to the quality of instructions and help on the SCA Forums. It’s best to practice your soldering technique on something less expensive first, if you’re not used to soldering with precision. It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Once you’re confident, start by stuffing the PCB with the lowest profile components first (resistors), and build up from there. You’ll generally find it easier to work with the board like this, since when you flip it over the parts are held in by the work surface, allowing you to mount most things flush for a more solid and professional looking board.

The only really tricky bit is wiring the input transformer, which involves soldering some resistor lead across certain pins as jumpers. Gravity is not your friend. Take your time, and all will be well.

How do they sound? Incredible. High quality pre-amps are essential to getting the most out of your microphones, but despite knowing this, I was still blown away by the results! They’ve got that warm bottom end that you’d expect from Neve gear, which isn’t to everyone’s taste, but they’re also really open in the top end, not dark at all.

I’ll definitely be building some of the other modules, probably a pair of each flavour once I can afford it.