Neve VR Legend maintenance and calibration

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madreza

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 8, 2005
Messages
364
Location
Paris, France
Hi everyone and happppppy newwwww yeaaaar 😁

I need some advice

At the studio , we have a neve VR legend that of course needs to be taken care of

I first need to calibrate the bargraphs and the input levels
I m looking in the manual and technical pages of the desk but if anyone can help me go faster .... It would help me spare some time 😊

The desk has also another issue on the master section. On the right side of the mix out , I get some scratchy noise from time to time. When feeding a Channel with high level sin .... it stops ... after some time , back again.
I think that might be a bad cap or a faulty transistor on the master section.
This happens on Mix 1-2 and Mix 3-4 .... not sure if it happens at the same time though

So any advice and help is more than welcome !
Thanks guys
 
When was the last recap?

It is a VR, they need constant maintenance.  Any issues are usually due to heat as they run very hot under the hood.
The usual suspects are lytics everywhere and the switch cams.
Switch cams are plastic which get brittle from long exposure to high heat, when they break your switches do not latch.  You can replace the cam for pennies or the switch for dollars.

Lytics dry out from heat. The best part is the common 105 temp lytics are still not enough as it's hotter then that under the hood. You could try the newer 125 temp lytics but I don't know what values they come in or much more about them as we got rid of our vr's.
The upside is it's all thru-hole
 
Inside the center section you have the Monitor Rack, fitted with eurorack type boards. Mix 1-4 output amps are on one of these. You may have a problem with that board.

As there are MANY variations you should take a look at the service documentation to check the card position in the rack.

Regarding the bargraphs, are you talking about the channel ones or the mix/monitor ones?
 
Hi Guys and thanks for the help

Psych60s , After I posted the first message , I saw that board
I recapped it and tried permuting the 5534's and 5532's to see if the problem switches to the other side or not
seems that the noise is still on the right

the bragraphs , I'm talking about the channels

Thanks Pucho , I'm Gonna recap the whole master section anyway !
:)
 
Those are tricky consoles. I believe those are the ones that had a factory recall due to the capacitors in certain sections actually blowing up. Also if memory serves me right the metering on those desks is actually fed from the patch panels that come with the console not from in the desk, that's why they always came with patch bays as part of the install. There are still AMS/NEVE factory trained techs out there that service these desks for major overhaul issues. PM me and I will try to dredge up a number for one of them.
 
Pip said:
Those are tricky consoles.
They are certainly complex, but with time & experience they are no worse to work on or understand than any other high-end console (e.g.  Calrec, SSL, Focusrite).

Some clarifications:

Pip said:
I believe those are the ones that had a factory recall due to the capacitors in certain sections actually blowing up.
Incorrect.

There were no "blow-up" issues. The problems were caps leaking (yes, smoke was occasionally released, typically from the Minifader assembly, but no blow-ups). Caps drying out was (and still is) a problem.
Concentrating on the USA, there was a re-cap project in the 1990s. A colleague (Neil McCombie of ScotchMcNeil Audio) was a key player in the project when he worked at Neve. As told to me by Neil, Neve in the USA had a set of loan modules that moved from one studio to another. The studio's modues went back to the USA based Neve workshop for re-cap & test, after which they were returned to the original studio, and the loan modules moved on to the next studio. Neil worked on the project for a couple of years.

Pip said:
Also if memory serves me right the metering on those desks is actually fed from the patch panels that come with the console not from in the desk, that's why they always came with patch bays as part of the install.
V-Series (V3, VR, VX, Legend, etc.) console channel meters are fed via 64-way ribbon cables from the channel backplanes. This applies to both the level bargraphs and dynamics LED (or dynamics bargraph, depending on the console version). Meter (bargraph) control is from a dedicated PCB in the centre section.
Main output & Aux output meters are all wired internally to the console centre section.
The patchbay can be either internally mounted in the console, or installed remotely in a 19" rack. All cabling connecting the console to the patch is on 56-pin EDAC connectors: Channel buckets have connectors under them, the centre section has connectors on a rear-of-console panel and on the back of the centre section card rack. Any V-Series patchbay can be totally disconnected from the console, and the patchbay removed as a complete assembly (albeit a very awkward one to move as it comprises of the patch strips, user connector panel and patch-to-console cables). Sufficient detail is provided in the service manual for a user to make their own patchbay; indeed some studios have done this themselves.
Whilst some centre section meters pick-up their drive signals from lines that connect to the patchbay, there are no dedicated patch-to-meter lines: as previously noted, all meter wiring is internal to the console frame.


Pip said:
There are still AMS/NEVE factory trained techs out there that service these desks for major overhaul issues.
Name and business noted above. Neil can easily be tracked-down with a google search :)

.
.

Regarding the OP's original problem, study the centre section / master section signal flow diagram, concentrating on the main mix paths. The fault as described points to a mechanical issue, not a cap or silicon: scratching being cleard by a blast of high-level suggests poor connection. Look at switches, pots, connectors, relays, ribbon cable connectors, card-seating. Failing silicon or caps do not "come right" when blasted with level, they typically get worse.
 
Thanks Gareth for all those infos
and thanks Pip for the answer

I also have another issue in the master section
I don't have the same level in mix 3 and 4
when feeding a signal from a mono channel ( no pan involved ... just sending to 3 - 4 )
I have a higher level in the left channel than in the R channel
 
Is the level drop only on Mix 3&4 or is it also on 1&2?
Is the level drop frequency depedent?
What is the level difference?
Possibly caps on the mix amp card.
Possibly caps on a balanced output card - there are several of these in the rack so you can swap & prove the theory.
 
the level drop is more significant on the 3-4 ( Around 10dB I can check that more precisely tomorrow  )than on the 1-2 ( 1or 2 dB )
the level Drop is frequency dependant ( If I remember well , drops in the low freq more than the high freq )
I recapped the mix amp card
Didn't have time to check the other cards
thanks a lot for your help :)
 
There are trim pots in the master section card cage. I forget what they trim exactly, it has been sometime and would need a desk service manual.  Off hand I would suspect you can trim out the difference between mix bus 3-4 but not sure if you can do 10dB.  At that point I would be looking for a faulty opamp.  Perhaps trying swapping mix bus cards 1-2 with 3-4 and see if it follows.
 
Mix 1-4 are on the same card
already tried swaping the op amps ..... still the same
I will check the trim pots tomorrow ! thanks :)
 
madreza said:
the level drop is more significant on the 3-4 ( Around 10dB I can check that more precisely tomorrow  )than on the 1-2 ( 1or 2 dB )
the level Drop is frequency dependant ( If I remember well , drops in the low freq more than the high freq )
I recapped the mix amp card
Didn't have time to check the other cards
thanks a lot for your help :)

A LF frequrncy  droop sure sounds like a bad capacitor to me.

Bri

 
Well , Still re capping the desk ....
but seems I found the problem for the R channel Scratching ....
it seems it is one of the relay boards ( C or D ) .....
any advice on a quality relay to replace the faulty one ?
 
Sorry for late reply, these are the ones I used for our Neve, as recommended by Neil Mcombie...
https://www.jprelec.co.uk/store.asp/c=745/Hongfa-Miniature-BT51-Relays-HFD27(S)-DPCO-1A
 

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