Your question is somewhat of a non sequitur? If you are using an 1176, is at the older, original, blackface model? Or is it the newer, silver faced model? The reason being, the older one has a 600 ohm balance, bridging input. It can only actually be used with a console or preamp capable of driving 600 phones, which many pieces of equipment cannot do. The newer ones, use an OP-Amp, in place of the old transformer with a 10,000 ohm input. Those are more applicable to many of the newer pieces of processing that cannot drive 600 ohm inputs.

Because this is the relatively fast peak limiter, I have generally never used an attack setting that was completely counterclockwise but rather, generally between a 9 o'clock to 10 o'clock position. The release time can help to adjust your " apparent loudness level". When released control is full counterclockwise, it is in the minimum released time, very fast release. It will sound rather loud and obnoxious and can actually get rather gritty sounding. If the release control is full clockwise, that is the slowest release time and may in fact be too slow. For vocals, I generally run the release control between 12 o'clock to 2 o'clock on average.

For smooth limiting, select the 4: 1 setting. For heavy limiting, choose 12 or 20: 1. The latter settings would be more appropriate for a more aggressive rock-and-roll singer.

I would imagine the software version is designed to mimic the hardware version and so the settings should translate to be about the same.

With the hardware version you can select the " gain reduction" or GR metering. For smooth limiting, your input control should be adjusted to reflect not much more than 10 D. B. reduction with between 15 to 20 D. B. reduction for more aggressive singers. You then need to switch the metering to " output level". That is your makeup gain. For vocals, I just for between -7 to -5 output level.

I hope this answers your question?

And by the way.... The blackface and the silver face sound very different from one another. Not just because of the difference in input circuitry but also because the output circuitry and transformer are different.

I'm sure this will screw you up well?

Thanks for the detailled information! I'll have to use a silverface model for the tests since there is no other unit available for me... so you think the difference between the silverface model and the plugins, which are modelled to simulate the blackface units, is already too big to get a fair comparison? i mean i expect the difference to be audible anyway, so this could strengthen my point... :wink:
and when it comes to the settings they should be as accurately the same that it won't make a major difference in sound? or could i check the attack and release time in someway by sending a sinus through the compressor, recording the signal and analysing the waveform afterwards? or am i on a totally wrong track here?

again, thanks a lot

Toby