“Super-squashed cleans, singing slide tones and endlessly sustaining leads”: Origin Effects unveils the Cali76 Stacked Compressor – a compact stompbox promising “studio-quality” dual-stage compression with expanded headroom

Origin Effects has expanded its range of compressor pedals inspired by the classic Urei 1176 by doubling up with the Cali76 Stacked Compressor – a pedal that doubles up with two compressors on one pedal, promising “super-squashed cleans, singing slide tones, and endlessly sustaining leads”.

Available in a silver or black brushed steel enclosure, the Cali76 Stacked Compressor is more compact than its predecessors, and presents its “studio-quality” sounds across two FET compression stages each with their own independent controls.

One of the biggest selling points is not clearly visible to the naked eye – it’s the power stage. You run the Cali76 Stacked Compressor on 9V DC from the pedalboard power supply of your choice (a minimum of 200mA) and the pedal internally converts the voltage to 24V to give you much more headroom, which is always a handy feature in a compressor.

It works on more than just electric guitar or bass guitar – Origin says it’ll handle a line level signal from your electronic keyboard or whatever studio outboard gear you want to apply compression to.

And that compression runs the gamut, from the subtle always-on tone-sweetening levels of compression, the kind of gloss-up for your sound that you only notice when it’s gone, or more serious levels of “over-the-top” squish.

Cali76 Stacked Compressor Introduction - YouTube

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“The Cali76 Stacked Compressor encourages you to use compression as a creative effect, not just a tool,” says Origin Effects.

The 1/4” jacks are located on the top of the pedal. You have a single footswitch enclosure with six dials. There is the all-important Dry level control for dialling in parallel compression – you’ll find unity gain around two o’clock and fully dimed you can add 9dB of boost to the signal.

The In dial adjusts the level of the first compression stage, and you’ll know when that compression circuit is doing some work when the LED on the right-hand side of the pedal lights up. You can adjust the attack/release for that stage with the Att/Rel 1 dial.

Meanwhile, the OUT dial sets the level of compressed signal at the output and, similarly, the Att/Rel 2 dial adjusts its response from fast attack, slow release to progressively slower attacks and faster releases as you turn it clockwise.

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The gold Thru dial adjusts the level of signal from the first compression stage going into the second. Turn it fully counterclockwise for single-stage compression. Turn it clockwise to get more from that second stage.

The UK guitar effects pedal company says the arrival for the Cali76 Stacked Compressor will mean the discontinuation of the SlideRIG Compact Deluxe Mk2 and the original Cali76 Stacked Edition. Out with the old, in with the new.

The Cali76 Stacked Compressor is available now, priced £290/$419 and is available now. See Origin Effects for more details.