1. WELCOME
Rupert Neve started building devices for studios in the beginning of the 70s, coming from
a broadcast background and having some experience himself with recording. He grew up
in Argentina, and as a young boy he repaired radios, built radios and sold them to friends,
studied the Radio Amateurs Handbook, and already knew the valve catalogs by heart. At 17,
he enlisted to serve his country during World War II, joining the Royal Signals.
After the war, Rupert Neve used a small legacy from his Grandmother to buy an ex-US Army
Dodge ambulance, where he installed equipment to convert it into a mobile recording and
public address control room. He recorded choirs, amateur operatic societies, music festivals
and public events on 78 RPM lacquer disks (before the days of tape).
Rupert gained audio design and manufacturing experience with Rediffusion, Ferguson
Radio, and as Chief Engineer of a transformer manufacturer. Since his employer was not
interested in manufacturing Neve's designs, he decided to start his own company.
The first mixer designed by Rupert Neve was for Desmond Leslie, a composer of "musique
concrète" (a musical style that worked with pre-recorded real world sounds, assembling,
mixing and manipulating them). Leslie needed a device that would help him mix these
sounds together, specifically because of a contract with EMI to produce the background
music for Shakespeare plays. Neve created a mixer that was a truly unique, custom-
designed piece of equipment, and not saleable to anyone else.
In 1961, a new opportunity presented itself: the advent of the pop music scene in London.
One of Neve’s very early clients was Leo Pollini of Recorded Sound in London, for whom he
designed and built two valve consoles.
By 1964, Rupert Neve had already developed high-performance transistor equipment that
replaced the traditional valve designs. The first client for the new transistor equipment was
Phillips Records Ltd.
Neve was commissioned to design and build a series of equalizers to enable his clients to
change the musical balance of material that had been previously recorded. This was before
the days of multi-track tape machines. The success of the equalizers led to orders from
Phillips and other recording studios for mixing consoles. These attained a reputation for
excellent workmanship and sonic clarity. Demand grew rapidly.
After a few years, Neve Channel Amplifiers comprised a range of high-performance input
amplifiers available for use on Neve sound control consoles, which incorporated alternative
arrangements of filter and frequency response curves. These amplifiers were designed to
accept signals from microphone and line sources and raise them to a level suitable to work
in the main mixer circuit. Important features: low noise & distortion and generous overload
performance. The first one was the 1053 and many more followed, with changes in the
selectable band frequencies and in components.
Designed in 1969, the 1063 was the first Neve channel amp to use the beloved red/grey/blue
knobs that became one of the distinct images of Neve. The 1063's equalizer was a simple
3-band affair consisting of high and low shelves with a bell mid band. The shelves used a
Baxandall type design providing a High Shelf at 10kHz and a Low Shelf selectable between
35, 60, 100, and 220Hz. These Shelf EQ bands provided a boost/cut range of +/- 16dB. The
Mid band was an inductor-based Bell (also called Peak) design allowing choices of 700Hz,
1.2, 2.4, 3.8, and 7kHz with a boost/cut range of +/- 18dB.
Baxandall tone control circuits were named after Peter Baxandall, an English audio engineer
who first came up with this type of circuit in the 1950s. They are characterized by sweet
sweeping curves in the bass and treble shelf EQs (these were even named Baxandall
curves) that give a broad yet musical adjustment. The slope is lower than what was usual,
and that contributes to the curves sweetness, since they sound smoother and more natural.
2
Arturia - User Manual 1973-Pre - WELCOME
Содержание 1973-Pre
Страница 1: ...USER MANUAL...
