don’t stress too much about the exact placement of the compressor.
I usually have three on recorded tracks.
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I started using a compressor about a year ago when I joined a classic rock band. I’ve become pretty good at controlling my dynamics thru technique when playing at home, but at rehearsals I’m a bit more aggressive in my attack and playing style. A compressor helps keep things in check. After trying a few I’ve been really happy with the Wampler Mini Ego 76. It’s based on the 1176 circuit. My only slight complaint is that it doesn’t have any LED metering. I just use my ears and adjust accordingly.
As far as preamps go… there are so many to choose from. My favorite so far is the tried and true Sansamp BDDI. It really covers a lot of sonic ground.
My signal chain is Tuner > Compressor > Boost > Chorus > Preamp > DI Box
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I have a Darkglass Microtubes Infinity. It is the cornerstone of my board. It will sit in your effects chain without any issues. Just put it at the end, everything is fine.
Only effect from the DG I might want to put earlier in the signal is the compression. But compression works fine near the end to. If I want compression earlier, I’ll add another dedicated pedal. No harm in that.
My band uses IEMs, and the DG serves as a fantastic DI and modeler.
Here’s my pedal board, sounds like what you’re trying to do:
Boost (to level fingers with pick) → Octave → Fuzz → Envelope → DG:MT (Headphone amp for IEMs on the corner.)
I plan to add Chorus and/or Flanger. I’m also going to add a line-splitter into the circuit to be able to dial in clean blend on some of the effects.
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Yes! Or one based on it, like the Cali76.
The real original UA 1176 was a large rack unit; cool that UA is making it in a pedal too.
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The Cali76 is double the price of the UA1176. Is there any advantage in buying the Cali over the UA, like it’s twice as good? Can more be done with it?
I wasn’t going to bother with a compressor/pedal as I’ve never felt the need for one, but this thread has really got me thinking.
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Universal Audio make great pedals. You won’t be disappointed with that.
Is the Cali76 worth double? I doubt it 
Here’s a great demo of the pedal.
Lots of inexpensive compressors out there. Maybe do a forum search to see if there’s a thread already?
Fun fact - The original 1176 Peak Limiter was designed and created in 1967 by M.T. “Bill” Putnam Sr., the founder of Universal Audio and UREI.
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Yep. Putnam was a true great, and a pioneer in recording in general. IIRC he also invented reverb as an effect.
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I have the dopey expensive Cali76 pedal from Origin effects - the one designed for bass with the different x-former in it. I bought it more as a collector piece, and to have owned one for a period of time in my journey. I also owned the Empress base compressor.
In my opinion, for any and everyone here, no one needs the original origin effects Cali 76 pedal, which includes me. It’s definitely amazing and fun to own. For my years and what I do, and I guarantee you for all of your ears and anything any of you do, it is not twice is better. It is no better than any other decent compressor.
I did on the dark class hyper luminal for a while, but I found it very difficult to dial-in. For me, and I suspect everyone here, the most important part about a compressor pedal is being able to dial it in properly. What that means is some lighted feedback mechanism to show you how much compression is happening. The LED rays on both of the above pedals are what make them tremendous compressors. Most of our ears are never, really gonna know the difference, nor are covers. If you start playing in a band, you for sure need a compressor, do you need the most expensive one? No. But you need one that you can set up in TuneIn, and tuning your ears to hear what a compressor is doing, takes a lot of time. I don’t play live with people, but I would imagine that people who do like a gear that they understand and that they know how to control.
I like the Cali 76 because I use the same plug-in in my DAW, and that all makes sense to me. I’ll sell that pedal one day and get as much as I paid for it if not more because it’s so collectible. Again, none of that makes it twice as valuable or twice as good. It’s also a heck of a lot more expensive than all the other compressors because it’s not made anymore, and therefore rare and desirable.
My biggest advice to anyone around compressors is to find one that gives you some sort of visual feedback so you can dial it in properly. Your ears are just not trained enough at this earlier stage to do it without. If you do get to that point, and perhaps I’m here have those ears trained, then it really comes down to which pedal you like the most. I did start getting my ears trained a little bit, and I learned the two of the three compressors in the hyper luminal were not for me. I started to hear differences, not that I could explain them to you, but just that I liked what I heard, or I didn’t like what I heard. And again it was a real pain in the ass to dial in.
Our world is full of amazing and complex choices. The marketers want it this way. Always keep this in mind. For practicing at home, and fine-tuning your technique, a compressor is just going to hide mistakes in plucking strengths. For recording things, especially covers and the like, a compressor in your DAW is a much better and cheaper idea.
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This is true full stop for all effects for recording, IMO. A fully in the box workflow is so much more convenient, IMO, and way less expensive. Plus you always want to have a clean bass track around for mixing in anyway.
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Good advice @Barney , @John_E and @howard .
I’ll want a compressor at some point but I want to invest in a new amp first, almost certainly PJB BG-450. That probably won’t come for a few more months yet though and, in light of the advice above, I’ll almost certainly go for the UA1176.
Unless, of course, that whacky tri-pickup bass in Tokyo screams my name loudest and I get that first.
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I purchased an Empress bass Compressor (The Blue One) from Sweetwater and it stays on all the time. It made a remarkable difference in my sound in church.
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So in the end I picked myself up one of these for £189, which I thought was a pretty good price:
Plenty of controls to play around with, as well as the option to change the tone of the compressed signal - about 11 o’clock seems pretty transparent, with anti-clockwise boosting the bass and clockwise boosting the treble. Initial testing seems to show quite a subtle compression, but I’ll hopefully find time to explore more of the sounds that can be produced through the pedal.
I think I know the basics of how compression works, but feel like I want to take a deeper dive into it to properly understand what the controls are going to do. Much knob-twiddling to be done (ooh err 
) …
Phil
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Looks great. It’s got four of the five controls I want on a compressor (attack, release, ratio, and either makeup gain or threshold, depending on what the Level knob does) which is more than most pedals.
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I’ve been playing with AI asking about certain tunes that demonstrate different bass compression and then setting my Cali-76 pedal to match what it says to set it at. This exercise has proven pretty useful in understanding settings and results. It’s an interesting study.
I’ve actually been using for the whole signal chain on tunes. Gave it all my basses, mods and pedals, and a song, and it tells me what to put together and set to, so far results are really good. The downside, I just raised your electric bill by $5.
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Yeah, I think the “Level” control is a makeup gain, but will confirm when I get chance to play around with the settings a bit more 
Phil
That’s a really cool use of AI - it’d be interesting to see what prompts you’ve been using to steer the AI in the right direction 
Phil
For my most recent cover, ABC, I basically told it to research how it was recorded. I told it I was using my Fender CS 61-P with Labella flats, and told it all the pedals I had available.
It told me tone settings on the bass, and to use my SGT-DI in B-15 mode (which I knew), but then i asked it for exact dial/switch settings on the SGT-DI which it gave me. I had not asked it about compression on this one, just did my normal thing.
I am now looking at Philip Bailey / Phil Collins Easy Lover.
This time, i told it the list of bases (with strings and any mods), pedals and plugins I have in Abelton and asked it to ‘build my rig’.
It picked my Fender Marcus Miller Jazz bass with John East MM Retro Preamp. I told it I would use my physical compressor for a change on this one vs. a plugin. and it basically gave me the below. Haven’t dialed it in yet as I am travelling, so can’t comment yet on how well it did. It does give you rationale around all of it as well, I cut that out for simplicity.
The interesting thing is once you tell it the gear you have, its ready to go. I threw it a couple other tunes I am interested in and it pivoted and gave new recos. If anything, it’s fun to fiddle with. Results are still TBD, but ABC it worked out well.
For Easy Lover…
CALI 76
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Input: 3 o’clock
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Ratio: 8:1
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Attack: 2-3 o’clock
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Release: 10-11 o’clock
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Blend: 100% wet
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Output: unity or slightly above
MARCUS MILLER with MM-Retro
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Pickup blend: even or very slightly neck favored
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Bass: 25-30% boost
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Low mid: slight cut
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High mid: slight cut or flat
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Treble: modest boost 20%
SGT-DI
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Voice switch: B-15 — warmer and rounder than the SVT, much more appropriate for smooth 80s pop than the aggressive SVT voicing
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Grit: nearly off, 8 o’clock
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Bass: flat, center position
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Mid frequency: 800Hz, slight cut on the inner knob
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Treble: flat or very slight boost
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Ultra Lo: center/off — don’t engage it, keeps the low end natural and unexaggerated
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Ultra Hi: off — same reasoning, you don’t want added brightness
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Cab sim: off — you’re going into Ableton, let the SGT-DI just be a preamp
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Compressor: off — your Cali 76 is already handling compression, no need to double up
The B-15 voice is the key call here — it’s the warm, vintage Ampeg character without the aggressive SVT grind, which is exactly what Easy Lover needs.
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The SGT-DI is the only gear / bass that I have sellers remorse over. It’s so easy to quickly dial in a good sound with. Unless I need other effects (chorus / delay / reverb), it makes a great throw it in your bag and go type of single pedal solution.
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