Awaiting approval…
I love my job!
If you’ve ever read the Rane notes on Sound System Interconnection, and Grounding and Shielding Audio Devices, you may have noticed this passage:
" The Audio Engineering Society recommendation will address a simple issue, the absurdity that one can not buy several pieces of pro audio equipment from different manufacturers, buy off-the-shelf cables, hook it all up, and have it work hum and buzz-free. Almost never is this the case. Transformer isolation and other interface solutions are the best solutions for balanced/unbalanced interconnections, though they are too costly for many systems. Even fully balanced systems can require isolation transformers to achieve acceptable performance. Some consider isolation transformers the only solution. These superior solutions are not covered here."
Well, here is that in practice. Every input and output is transformer isolated. Even the insert sends and returns!
It really is, as they describe, a design with no secondary lower quality signal paths.
I’ve chosen a configuration with 26 mono channels with the 5052 mic pre and eq, and 6 stereo channels.
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Looks like a boss console. I would love to tinker with that thing just to hear what it sounds like. If you ever get the chance I would love to hear something running through that vs. a channel strip plugin, or even just an sm57 on an amp into a pro-sumer interface vs. one of those channels.
Nice. Is this integrated with Pro Tools or Reaper or another DAW?
I was at Skywalker Sound back in 2016 / 2017, they have an 88 channel Neve which is fully integrated with Pro Tools.
The main engineer (Ben) sits in the middle, the PT operator sits on the right. The orchestra is behind the glass in the giant recording room below.
Protools. With HDX DSP cards in a Mac Pro. Lol, just under $16,000 for a computer with an 8 core CPU, that gets flogged by the Ryzen 5800X in the computer I’m using right now that cost around $2000 to assemble.
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If we end up getting the go ahead, I’m sure I can come up with some recordings.
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It’s interesting looking at the Rupert Neve legacy. That 88 channel Neve is an AMS Neve design.
The console we’re looking at is a Rupert Neve Designs 5088. The last console he designed before he died, long after he left Neve Electronics and their merger with AMS to form AMS Neve.
It would be interesting to compare the internals to see which elements there are in common, and where they deviate.
Even today the list of console designs and designers of stuff on this scale and performance and complexity isn’t very large.
SSL, Neve Electronics, AMS Neve, API, Focusrite (founded by Rupert Neve), Midas, Rupert Neve Designs.
Gotta hand it to him. Rupert Neve certainly left a large footprint for one man.
And then there is stuff very few people have ever heard of.
Like the D&R Octagon console we have right now. Amazing bit of kit, just not practical to maintain any more.
A computer controlled routing system, like any channel to whatever tape input, and return from tape to whatever channel without touching the patch bay, with surround mixing capabilities, automation, dynamics on every channel, and you can also record music through it if you’ve managed to figure out how to do that.
We’d probably try to keep it going, but spare parts are hard to come by since there were only two ever sold in Australia.
