DIY Neve inspired tracking console

[Coop]

Hi All,

I am usually working as a FOH/MON engineer in the live sector. When Covid hit last year I started to look more into recording and mixing in the studio. I always did little recording jobs and built myself a pretty nice mixing setup. The outboard was growing over the last years and after finishing my 24 channel Neve style passive summing mixer, testing it out now for a couple of weeks and falling in love with it's sound, I finally decided to start a new project. This is the biggest I have started so far.

I want to build my own custom 16 channel tracking console together with a good friend and amazing pianist. He has two empty rooms, one intended to be used as a control room and one as a recording room. We fell in love with tracking through nice gear and using Protools more as an advanced tape machine while tracking. The setup so far consisted of some nice preamps, equalisers, compressors and my live mixing desk (Digico SD11). Loved to be able to sum in the desk and send the signals post fade to Protools.

We did a lot of online editing/mixing sessions over the last couple of months and started to talked a lot about vintage gear and how records where made before the advent of usb interfaces. And the idea of a 16 Channel desk was born.

Some facts:

Based on a Neve 8014, simple layout but with a more modern touch to it
16 Channels loaded with 1073/1084 Modules
4 Mono Busses and 1 Stereo L/R Bus
Balanced switchable insert after the EQ section
Passive summing into 1272 group amps
Completely clean relay based control room section with several inputs and outputs
LED meters for every channel
VU Meters for the stereo bus
Center section with room for my lovely 23" Apple Cinema Display

I'm open for any ideas and suggestions you guys have.


Attached are some layouts and some block diagrams/schematics that I already drew.


Johannes

 

[sam system-d]

Check this out :
Neve 80 series Console Build

 

[JohnRoberts]

That is a generous offer to do that much work for free...

JR

 

[neve2254e]

Looks good. How about adding a fader swap between the channel fader and the direct out knob? That way you can keep a mix level on the direct out knob and ride levels on the fader for the direct output to record. Very handy feature.
Cheers
Eric Slaughter

 

[ruffrecords]

Additional things you probably need to think about.

1. Patch bay. All Neve consoles had a built in patch bay. Essential when patching in outboard.

2. How to you switch from tracking to mixdown

3. FX returns. Where do they go?

Cheers

Ian

 

[Coop]

@neve2254e
Thanks, that sounds like a good idea. My initial plan was to do a Pre/Post switch for the DI out but the fader switch sounds even better.

@ruffrecords
1. That's true. The patch bay would live in another rack and not in the console frame to keep the size at a minimum.

2. Good question. Need to think about that.

3. Well it was not really intended to be used as a real mixdown desk. In "mixdown mode" it would just serve as a big summing mixer.
My current setup consists of 4 Digidesign 192 I/O interface with 24 hardware insert points going to a patch bay, 24 outputs to my summing mixer and 8 hardware inserts going directly to my FX units which I rarely use. That's why I didn't put in FX returns. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a couple for future needs.

 

[ruffrecords]

@ruffrecords
1. That's true. The patch bay would live in another rack and not in the console frame to keep the size at a minimum.

Sounds like a plan

2. Good question. Need to think about that.

Back in the70s, some Neve consoles were fitted with separate mixdown line ins. These were in addition to the regular line ins. One huge relay, a T-bar relay, switched all line inputs over to the mixdown inputs at the push of a single button. Mixdown inputs were usually wired to a christmas tree at the back of the console.

I use a simpler version of this in the current design of my Mark 3 tube mixer. Instead of one big relay, each channel has a separate remix input which is switched in/out by a relay in the channel module. The dc to operate this relay comes from a bus so that one switch in the control section can operate all the relays at once. To add flexibility, each channel module has a switch that determines when and how the dc operates the relay. In the centre AUTO position the dc bus operates the relay. When overdubbing you want to be able to listen to track already recorded so you set the switch to PLAY on those tracks which operates the relay directly. Lastly during mixdown you may not want all channels switched to the mixdown inputs. You might want to use a couple for FX returns. In this case you set the switch to REC(ord) and it prevents the dc bus from operating the mixdown relay.

3. Well it was not really intended to be used as a real mixdown desk. In "mixdown mode" it would just serve as a big summing mixer.
My current setup consists of 4 Digidesign 192 I/O interface with 24 hardware insert points going to a patch bay, 24 outputs to my summing mixer and 8 hardware inserts going directly to my FX units which I rarely use. That's why I didn't put in FX returns. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a couple for future needs.

But you would still want to use the EQ??

Cheers

ian