Hi guys!
A colleague and me did a study on the audible differences between the UA 1176LN reissue and the 1176LN plug-in from UA's UAD-1 card, as part of our exam from the Royal University College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden. We should have done this about ten years ago but hey, better late than never

We thought that some of you slutz might find it interesting to listen to the audio examples for yourselves ..............heh
We recorded this song at my colleague’s studio using the following equipment:
DMP, Vintage design pre
Blue baby bottle mic on all tracks except Beta 52 on back of Cajon
Motu 896HD soundcard
Digital performer 5
We first put some basic eq on the tracks that needed it and then compressed them using the analog 1176, recording them back into the computer, one by one. We made thourough notes on all settings and also used a couple of bars in the song as a "marker" to determine the amount of gain reduction.
All of the tracks where compressed except for the bass. It didn’t really benefit from 1176 compression so we just passed the audio through it to add some warmth.
Then we compressed each track using the digital 1176 using the same settings as the analog 1176 used. At this stage we realized that we had to use a bit more input on the digital 1176 to get the same amount of gain reduction at our "marker" bars. We tweaked it until we had the closest gain reduction possible, compared to the analog 1176.
Then we recorded the digitally compressed tracks back into the computer using the same signal path as with the analog 1176 (minus the actual analog 1167 of course).
We then compared the tracks, one by one, analog/digital and noted if there where any gain differences we could detect using a digital meter bay. If there where any gain differences we changed the gain on the respective track that needed it.
We then mixed the song that used “analog” 1176 compression and bounced it. We then swapped all the tracks to the ones using the digital 1176 and bounced once again.
This method is of course slightly artificial as one probably never would use an 1176 on all the tracks in a mix. But for this test we had decided to focus on the 1176 ONLY, so what the hell…..
We then did a questionnaire with the music production students at a local music college to determine if they could here a difference between the two versions. We weren’t so interested in if they thought one was better then the other, just if they could here the difference.
Turns out they could just barely hear any difference at all and they really couldn’t pinpoint which version that used analog compression and which version used digital compression!
So now we’re really excited to hear what you guys think!
Have a listen and take a guess!
I’ll post the “correct answer” in a couple of weeks!
The song, “Those sweet words”, is comprised of the following nine tracks:
Lead vocals
Background vocals
Wurlitzer
Acoustic guitar
Addl. acoustic guitar
Bass
Cajon, front and back on separate tracks
Coins in pocket
Good luck!!!!
/Jonas