Dark76

Dark76

A faithful emulation of the classic 1176 FET compressor — the fast, punchy, all-buttons-in style limiter known for adding attitude and presence to vocals, drums, bass, and bus material. Dark76 captures that aggressive FET character and program-dependent behavior, while adding modern conveniences like four revision modes, a sidechain/output EQ, selectable detector topology, parallel mix, oversampling, and a bank of output transformer emulations.

Modes (LN / A / F / AE)

Four hardware revision voicings, selected from the column beside the VU (each with its own meter accent color):

• LN — clean Rev LN reference voicing (default).
• A — Revision A character.
• F — Revision F character.
• AE — Anniversary Edition voicing.

The modes change the compressor’s release behavior (per-mode release multiplier — vintage revisions recover a touch looser) and the overall character, so you get the family of 1176 flavors without loading separate plugins.

Core compression (top zone)

INPUT (−50…+50 dB) — Not a simple gain. The more you push INPUT, the more signal hits the detector, so the more compression. This is effectively your threshold — there’s no separate threshold knob.

OUTPUT (−50…+50 dB) — Makeup gain at the output, to recover level lost to compression.

ATTACK / RELEASE (1…7) — Reversed like the hardware: 7 = fastest, 1 = slowest. Attack ~0.3ms down to ~15μs; release ~400ms down to ~25ms. Release is program-dependent — speeds up after sustained signal, slows after transients.

RATIO (4 / 8 / 12 / 20 / ALL / 2) — Buttons. ALL is the “all-buttons-in” mode. Ratio also scales the knee.

VU + right column

VU — Gain reduction metering (panel accent follows the selected mode).

FB / FF — Detector topology. FB (feedback) is default and authentic: detector listens to the output, self-regulating, smoother. FF (feedforward) listens to the input — tighter, cleaner, modern feel.

ADV panel

MIX (0…100%) — Parallel compression, blends dry with compressed.

KNEE (−50…+50):

• −50 = hard knee
• 0 = medium
• +50 = soft knee

Ratio also scales it: 4:1 softer (×1.5), 20:1/ALL near-hard. 4:1 and 2:1 keep a ~3 dB minimum knee for character.

OUTPUT TRIM (−12…+12 dB) — Trim at the final output, after the transformer.

Sidechain EQ (mini display)

Shapes what the detector hears, not the audio. Drag bands on the display.

SC Freq (0…1000 Hz) — Sidechain high-pass. Removes lows from the detector so kick/bass don’t pump the mix.

SC On, Type (Bell/LShelf/HShelf/LCut/HCut), Freq/Gain/Q — Full EQ inside the sidechain path.

EQ MODE (SC / OUT) — Toggles the display between Sidechain EQ and Output EQ (post-compression EQ).

Transformer (combobox)

Output transformer emulation, 17 options (None, Carnhill, Sowter, Cinemag, Marinair, Haufe V72, Triad HS-30, Reichenbach, EA Edcor, Neve 1272, API 2520, UTC A-20, Peerless S-415, St Ives, Lundahl LL1538, Jensen JT-11, Tamura TKS-27). Adds output character/saturation.

Oversampling

x2 / x4 / x8 (Kaiser FIR, 128 taps) — Anti-aliasing for the compression harmonics. Default x4.