Neve 80s Summing Bus Construction

[Blissy]

Hi All,

I am in the process of putting together a larger Console project, I am currently looking for information on the construction passive summing bus's. I think Neve used an aluminium extrusion with an internal copper bus that the summing resistors connected to? would love if anyone had any further insight?
I am sure there are others ways of doing this, using a multi layer PCB and Ground Planes to shield the bus's that are placed on internal layers? does anyone have experience with other options?

Thanks any help appreciated!

 

[Rob Flinn]

https://groupdiy.com/threads/restoring-and-old-neve-desk-done.63116/page-3
Look at post 55. There are a load of pics of how Neve do the summing bus.

 

[Blissy]

https://groupdiy.com/threads/restoring-and-old-neve-desk-done.63116/page-3
Look at post 55. There are a load of pics of how Neve do the summing bus.

Oh fantastic! Thanks!

 

[nielsk]

The way they did it worked but is very weak.
It would not be difficult to improve it.

 

[ruffrecords]

The way they did it worked but is very weak.
It would not be difficult to improve it.

Please explain exactly how.

Cheers

Ian

 

[nielsk]

They used very thin rows of a strip of copper plated PCB material with holes all along it for each bus "bar", around each hole is only a very small amount of copper. The copper plating often breaks where it is very thin around these holes causing the bus to fail at that point.
They used wire lead resistors soldered through these holes in the PCB strip and the other end's lead just poked out the back of the aluminum extrusion through an isolation shoulder washer, the wires from the group module outputs are just soldered to this resistor lead. These often come off, and are a real PIA to solder back on.
They used wire jumpers to connect the PCB strips from one bucket to the next, these often fail because of the delicate nature of the bus PCB strip.
That pretty much covers it...

 

[ruffrecords]

Fair comment. I wasn't quite sure what you were referring to when you said the way they did it was weak. I don't think Neve ever expected those consoles to be in use for so many years. It would be interesting to find out how it was done in contemporary competitor products. In those days, build methods at Neve were very much based on the instrumentation industry methods. The internal wiring was not much different to what I had experienced in the aerospace industry. I do rememeber a guy called Art Schubert (from Harrison if memory serves) spending a few months at Neve in the R&D department. He was instrumental in the setting up of the separate module manufacturing facility in Kelso and the introduction of flow soldering to replace hand soldering of PCBs. He was quoted as having said "I wanted to drag Neve manufacturing kicking and screaming into the 19th century".

Cheers

Ian

 

[nielsk]

I agree completely that at the time Neve (and several others) had no inkling the products they were making would last so long, and be used so much. In that perspective my criticisms verge on petty, but it does serve to learn from experience what stands the test of time.
While planned obsolescence has become a high art form, most products made today die the day the warranty expires, and will be long gone in 50 years. I think that in the day of the big commercial studios, the business plan was more about figuring on a studio needing to upgrade if they were still in business 10 yeas on, rather than forcing them to re-purchase the same thing they already have every year (Avid & Apple, anyone)...

 

[ruffrecords]

I agree completely that at the time Neve (and several others) had no inkling the products they were making would last so long, and be used so much. In that perspective my criticisms verge on petty, but it does serve to learn from experience what stands the test of time.
While planned obsolescence has become a high art form, most products made today die the day the warranty expires, and will be long gone in 50 years. I think that in the day of the big commercial studios, the business plan was more about figuring on a studio needing to upgrade if they were still in business 10 yeas on, rather than forcing them to re-purchase the same thing they already have every year (Avid & Apple, anyone)...

The advent of project studios certainly opened up a huge market for mixers that led inevitably to the introduction of mass production techniques and all their limitations. But there is still a market for big high end mixers. It was never huge and it still isn't huge but it does exist. Harrison's web site says they have shipped 1500 large consoles since the late 70s. That's about 40 a year on average. That is probably not far off what Neve were doing back in the 70s.

Cheers

Ian

 

[API]

Nielsk, if you look in my old thread above Neve did use solid copper wire at around 1970, but later changed it for the plated pcb material which indeed was ”weak”. Not sure why they changed that, but i would recommend anyone restoring a Neve to change it to the solid copper wire.

 

[ruffrecords]

Nielsk, if you look in my old thread above Neve did use solid copper wire at around 1970, but later changed it for the plated pcb material which indeed was ”weak”. Not sure why they changed that, but i would recommend anyone restoring a Neve to change it to the solid copper wire.

I started at Neve in 1974 and they were using special long lengths of one hole wide veroboard for buses. I guess that is the plated PCB you are referring to.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Blissy]

Thanks everyone so far! very helpful

 

[TomCee]

All ADM (Audio Designs and Mfg.) consoles used solid bus wire for all summing busses. We 'knew/suspected' at the time that using PCBs for motherboards would not be a good idea - and time has proven that 'suspicion' to be correct.

TomC

 

[Blissy]

All ADM (Audio Designs and Mfg.) consoles used solid bus wire for all summing busses. We 'knew/suspected' at the time that using PCBs for motherboards would not be a good idea - and time has proven that 'suspicion' to be correct.

TomC

Would love to hear more about the issues of using PCBs for Summing Busses. Noise related or a Longevity maintenance issue?
It looks to me like the newer API Console and others use PCBs as a back plane for there Channel modules that connect via a multi PCB connector.