Nod to The Legend · The gear · 1967

The 1176 Limiter

FET limiter by Bill Putnam

Putnam's 1176 was one of the first limiters built on a field-effect transistor, with attack times measured in microseconds. Its knobs famously run backwards (clockwise is faster), and engineers found that pressing all four ratio buttons at once makes it snarl.

Still heard: "All buttons in" mode is in nearly every 1176 plugin, and drums and rap vocals still lean on it.

Related legends

All 190 legends · Join PurpleGlue free