What Ics to use on a Neve V series ?

[Rob Flinn]

Yes. I had forgotten about the DiAn but was aware at the time. Am I correct in thinking it all ran on a single Z80 micro ?.
Where the analogue circuits under the control surface itself or; n a remote mainframe ?
fwiw I think the Euphonix series ran on multiple Z80s.

My experience with a client running a CS3000, was that it ran on a 386. I also had a client who was using a Harrison Series 12, which sounded really good, but a maintenance nightmare now, running on one of those original apple computers that was a square desk top box, using 2 nubus cards & a CRT touch screen. Try gettting hold of spares of any of those things now. In comparison the EUphonix is much more servicable. Ian Brown the U.K euphonix tech told me it was designed by someone who was a service tech at some point, so maybe that's why.
Comparing the Harrison to the Euphonix, the Harrison is pretty clunky with huge racks & loads of ribbon cables. The Euphonix is a much more sleek design. Both are very power hungry, from memory we had to install a 22A feed @230v for the 56ch Euphonix.

 

[Newmarket]

My experience with a client running a CS3000, was that it ran on a 386. I also had a client who was using a Harrison Series 12, which sounded really good, but a maintenance nightmare now, running on one of those original apple computers that was a square desk top box, using 2 nubus cards & a CRT touch screen. Try gettting hold of spares of any of those things now. In comparison the EUphonix is much more servicable. Ian Brown the U.K euphonix tech told me it was designed by someone who was a service tech at some point, so maybe that's why.
Comparing the Harrison to the Euphonix, the Harrison is pretty clunky with huge racks & loads of ribbon cables. The Euphonix is a much more sleek design. Both are very power hungry, from memory we had to install a 22A feed @230v for the 56ch Euphonix.

Sounds about right. Going back to the Novation (as it's what I dealt with) - IIRC it was pretty much full of (current hungry) NE5532/4 opamps. I recall Mr Swettenham opining that he thought the buffering was a bit overdone but that the EQ points were good.

 

[xarolium]

I designed a diagram of the Neve VR channel MIC/line signal path. I surprise how many time the signal comes and goes to the mini fader module and how many switches the signal cross !

 

[Matt Syson]

The signal path of a SSL4000 from mic to summing goes through around 23 switches if I remember correctly. Many of these are rarely used, such as 'EQ to Dynamics sidechain' even if you are not using the Dynamics at all so it all these 6 or 8 pole switches that give the user the possibility of a gandy function, but in reality rarely of ever DO that makes these large desks unreliable simply because the mechanical operation of pushing switches never happens so dirt builds up. Buffering of pots and many places in a signal chain is necessary to get predictable and 'accurate' laws for the controls and avoid level changes when switches are operated which was the hallmark of well designed desks. Just because you can stuff 100 amplifiers into a channel strip does not necessarily mean you SHOULD.

 

[KrIVIUM2323]

I designed a diagram of the Neve VR channel MIC/line signal path. I surprise how many time the signal comes and goes to the mini fader module and how many switches the signal cross !

It's because you can route in almost every possible way in the chanel ( rec, mix and broadcast mode + swap between small and large faders+ chanel op).
The V series use faders with audio running through them, not vca with remote fader controls hence a lot of audio switching needed.
They offered a lot of flexibility regarding routing option but was way more complicated to use than say a 4000.
Ch.Op which source small faders from large one ( giving access to routing matrix) was great. A bit like 'float' on SSL 4000 but with more option.

You must be careful when operating the desk as there is many ways you can introduce feedback without noticing it. It's particularly true with can lines: i remember a session where a drummer got a very high blast in headphones because an assistant switched something on desk ( can't remember what) when engineer was not at desk. The guy had tinitus for some days and assistant was kicked back from control room.

You talked about the issue with switch. Manipulate the solo/mute ones with delicacy, they break like glass ( because of heat) and cost an arm and leg when you can find spares.

I took care of multiple V ( Vr legend and Vx). In the Vx the electrolitycs capacitors were all 105*c rated ( metal cans) which greatly increased longevity and space between reccaping.

 

[musgrave]

Opa2134. Lower noise floor, more heat. All but the middle ic on hi eq (osc at some settings) keep the caps. 5534 = opa228. Clips nice. Silent fans in the back of frame and slots in the aluminum module frame front and back to pull room air into the ch strip. There is a mad labs mod PDF floating on the Internet add the two jumpers and the mic pre-tweak and that’s it. We have tried removing capacitors. We have tried jumper on the grounds in every direction, and these were the things that measured and sounded best.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Opa2134. Lower noise floor, more heat.

Than 5534? Rather the contrary, I would think.

 

[Mihobro]

The early days of digital audio earned it a reputation for "different" sound quality, generally considered inferior to analog. Customers are generally resistant to change so held onto analog only audio paths longer than they rationally should have. Since the customer is always right multiple companies tried to deliver analog audio paths with digital controlled features. These were generally complicated and impractical.

I was friendly with one of these analog path only companies (APB) and it was a good business plan for them until the benefits of all digital audio paths became compelling economically. I was an old analog dog but relatively new to the dark (digital) side. I first designed for them a digital master section audio level meter (including my simultaneous "peak/VU" feature) that was superior to their former analog metering and actually cheaper to build. After that I helped them design a digitally controlled analog "automatic mixer". This was a good candidate for digital control because of all the computations involved in an effective NOM gain sharing algorithm.

I laid out my first (and only) prototype PCB with both (THAT) VCAs and DPOTs for each channel's gain controls. I populated the DPOTs first and they worked so well that I didn't bother populating the VCAs. I had incorporated hooks in the DPOT control software for zero crossing synchronization but the prototype didn't appear to need it. I saved the zero crossing feature for a later software upgrade if desired after stricter listening test. My suspicion is that the gain changes pushed to the DPOTs were so small and so frequent that gain change perturbations (like zipper noise) were not audible. FWIW I mostly listened to speech sources (coming from my TV), while I often used music sources for the cross modulation testing.

I was very disappointed when this project was dropped by the analog only mixer company as they faced growing competition from low cost but acceptable audio quality, digital audio mixer platforms.
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IMO this avoidance of digital audio in modern electronics is an irrational market perception (audio myth?) not unlike several other still around.

JR

In the early days of digital, we went through a lot of equipment from Otari/ Mitsubishi, Sony, Panasonic, Studer, Apogee,New England Digital, Tascam etc.many which used the same components, with many great producers and artists. We got different results that were acceptable or not, convenient or convoluted, sonic improvement or steps back. Which led to different solutions to different projects.
But, no one, even Wolf Deiter of Duetche Grammophone, ever refused to use a Neve console, (we had a VR). Maintenance problems, yes a few, mostly bad logic mux or demux CMOS chips, occasionally a bad cap in the signal path, (which Neve completely recapped the modules, it seemed like every year, but it seemed to be temperature related as that went down considerabilly after the ventilation of the desk was improved. (We routed an AC supply duct through the wire ways under the console. ) I had a chance to read the trouble logs from one of the Neve Techs, and 85% of them were addressed by reseating the modules, no kidding. Comparing a poorly maintained unmodified Neve module with a newly modified and refurbished module is also not a real comparison between the two IC's, when a flush and reseating of connections and patchbays, are enough to bring a noisy distorted module back up to spec.
As far as sonic quality, it was speculated at the time that with the coming of 24bit, 192KHz digital systems, that there would be practical equivalence of sonic quality between analog and digital systems; which at the time, (early 90's) only had a few working prototypes an early modified Nagra machine existed. Interestingly enough, some artists actually took advantage of digital grit as part of their sound in the 16bit/ 48KHz days especially in the Rap/HipHop world.
While it may be a good academic exercise to change out different IC's in a Neve, the difference will not be practically significant and there are other parts in the sound chain, Mics, Mic preamps, DA converters, AD converters, including the analog stages before and after the converters, and especially speaker monitoring systems. that will yield more significant improvements. And if you are doing all this to record Rap or Hip Hop, or anything which will have compressed distribution forms, it will all be kinda a waste as the grit is part of the sound. Modifications must be proved in working studio sessions with real musicians to fully measure success. Will it be appropriate for the medium or genre?