1176 Distortion, is this normal?

[MikeCzech]

Even at 4:1 I'm getting an ugly snowy noise at the top end. I don't get it on vocals, drums overheads, or accoustic guitars unless I drive it really hard.

I notice it on high gain guitars and it's really noticable on bass. Here's what I can do to reduce the distortion, but I don't know where the main problem lies.

If I reduce the gain on my pre's it helps (maybe I'm clipping the input on the 1176, but my pre's don't appear to be clipping...

It I reduce the input level on the 1176 it helps, but then I'm not compressing as much as I would like - especially for bass. I like to get the VU's floating between -2 to -5 gain reduction.

If I reduce the output level on the 1176 it helps a bit, but then my levels to my DAW are weak.

I've tried slowing the attack and release times to see if I get a smoother compression, and that helps too, but sometimes it takes away from the sound I'm looking for.

Is my 2-1176 broken?

[kakumei47]

I use the 2-1176 for loud guitars a lot and never have this problem. it's one of the few good compressors we have so i've used it on most sources and haven't heard anything like you described, even with fast settings. so there might be a problem with yours.
could it be anything else in the chain (like an overloading pre) that the compressor is just accentuating?

[MikeCzech]

Hmmm.. Interesting.. It might just be after my syteks, I might have to look into this further, but off hand I'm thinking this is not the problem.

[bradb]

on the 1176 clone i built there is a distortion trimpot. I dont know if yours has it, but what if you tried messing with that, remembering its original location?!