7 things to know about our VLA-FET

no 1 | As mentioned, our VLA-FET is inspired by the super classic analog 1176 compressor. The 1176 emerged as far back as 1967 and was the first known FET based compressor design ever. It was originally designed for use in broadcast applications.

no 2 | The 1176 is known and loved for its tremendously short attack time and the sweet distortion it imparts on the sound source if the unit is driven hard. The VLA-FET mimics this behavior and sound exactly.

no 3 | Since the 1970s, the compressor has been a staple for anything that requires a bit of attitude—rock vocals, drum buss, electric guitar, bass, and electric pianos. You will not find a serious music studio without at least one 1176 unit.

no 4 | The original 1176 compressor—and our VLA-FET—has four fixed ratio settings. But users quickly discovered that by pushing all four buttons at once, they could achieve a mode where the compressor would simply go mad—and people loved it! Try it yourself—just set the VLA-FET to All Mode by clicking the 20 ratio button twice.

no 5 | As mentioned above, the VLA-FET distorts beautifully when driven hard. If you want to add drive but no compression to a track, we have added a 1:1 ratio mode which is not available in the analog 1176. Just activate it and turn up the Input—nice crunch!

no 6 | The VLA-FET is suited for use as a parallel compressor, not least for drums and drum loops. Try smashing up the drum buss with a high ratio or even All Mode, and then use the Mix knob to blend it to taste your clean drum buss or drum loop.

no 7 | We have added two more features that aren't available on the original 1176 compressor: An Auto Fast release mode, which is program-dependent and a high-pass filter on the sidechain. This makes the compressor "hear" less of the low frequencies, and therefore not react as strongly to kick drums, bass instruments and other low-end heavy sound sources.