- Product: NN76
- Publisher: Tree DSP
- Version: 1.1.3
- Format: VST3, AAX
- Requirements: Windows 10 or later
- Source: treedsp.com/products/NN76
The analog device that started all of this for me was the UREI 1176. I knew it first from the plugin — from a picture of the plugin, really — and I played with that plugin a lot in my DAW. But during an internship, I got to work on an actual 1176. And all of a sudden I understood why people were still buying analog gear, because it sounded genuinely different from the plugin version. And this whole thing might be about to come full circle, because Tree DSP has released a neural network FET compressor.
The NN76 is yet another clone of the famous 1176, but what makes this one different is that it uses machine learning and neural networks to emulate the compressor rather than modeling the circuit directly. It’s actually an idea I had myself back around 2011 or 2012 — this notion of just instructing a computer to run audio through a compressor, adjust its parameters, run audio through it again, adjust again, over and over, some kind of self-learning loop. I didn’t know that was called AI at the time, and I also didn’t know it wasn’t actually possible yet back then.
The interface has meters everywhere, which is nice, plus input/output gain linking. One thing I can’t find in here yet is an “all buttons in” mode — on the original hardware, pushing all four ratio buttons at once pushes the compression into a completely different, much more extreme territory. Doesn’t seem to be implemented here yet.
I ran some drum-only material through it, starting around a 4:1 ratio and gradually speeding things up. The knobs are oriented the opposite way from what you’d expect if you’re used to actual 1176 hardware — that caught me off guard at first. So, the attack knob’s actual range is quite narrow on a real unit.
Tree DSP NN76 vs. UAD 1176
What I really wanted to try was comparing NN76 against the 1176 plugin from Universal Audio, since I’ve got that installed already, and since it’s basically the only officially licensed clone out there — Universal Audio being the company that originally made the 1176. Did my best to match every setting between the two, though that’s always genuinely difficult with compressors like this. I was referencing the low-noise Revision E unit specifically, which as far as I know was also the first version with the black faceplate — can’t say for certain it’s an exact match, but it should be close enough. And realistically, every 1176 out there sounds slightly different anyway, because they all carry different wear. Not even two 1176s will sound exactly the same.
With that out of the way, here’s how the two actually compare.
Both have a genuinely nice sound to them. However, I do think the NN76 lands a bit closer to that analog feel. The Universal Audio version sounds a little more exact, a little more precise; the NN76 sounds a little more glued-together, for lack of a better way to put it.