Early Rupert Neve Consoles and their stories | PART NINE: 1971-1972 | “Three-Man Neves”

Researched and written by DAVID TAYLOR
With information and photographs by JOHN TURNER
And further assistance from BLAKE DEVITT

Thanks to John and Blake for providing the important Neve documentation to help provide an accurate history and hopefully my own interest in researching how these consoles were used, and by whom, illuminates the changing face of sound over the years.

THE ‘TECHNICAL’ CONTENTS:

If you’re interested in just the ‘techy bits”, these can be accessed via the ‘jump’ facility using the following section ‘IDs’, and then the browser ‘return button’ to come back here again:

69| The 16-4 becomes a ‘standard’ S.16-4 then the 8014
70| 1970-71: Five Neve 16-channel 4-group consoles:
70a| 1970: Craighall Studio’s 16-channel 4-group, 8-monitor Neve S.16-4
70b| 1971: The R.G.Jones 16-channel, 4-group, 8-monitor – Neve S.16-4
70c| 1971: Sound Development’s 16-channel, 4-group, 8-monitor – Neve ‘A237’
70d| 1971: Manta Sound, Toronto’s 16-channel, 4-group, 8-monitor Neve
70e| 1971: Surrey University’s 16-channel 4-group 8-monitor – Neve ‘A259’
70f| 1972| 6 West Recording’s 24-channel 8-group 16-monitor Neve ‘S.24/8’
71| 1971: Rank-Pinewood’s Film Dubbing console: 30-channel Neve– ‘A241’.
73| 1971: EMI-MGM Film Dubbing: 36-channel 4-group Neve – ‘A243’.
74| 1971:“The Neve on Eel Pie Island”: Pete Townsend’s 16-channel 8-group –‘A246’
75| 1971: “Stereo for BBC Radio” – The Broadcasting House Concert Hall – Neve 24-channel ‘A251’ and The Maida Vale Studio 3’s – Neve 32-channel ‘A289’ and Maida Vale Studio 2’s 24-channel ‘A290‘
75a| Neve 1079 Mic Amp Module
76| 1971-72: “Multi-track for The Peel Sessions” – BBC Radio studios ‘Langham 1’ and ‘Aeolian 2’s’ 16-channel 4 Group and ‘Maida Vale studios 4 and 5’s’ 24-channel 8 Group Neve’s
77| 1971: Nova Sound London’s 24-channel 16-group 24-monitor Neve –‘A254’
78| 78| 1971-72: RCA Hollywood’s 32-channel 24-group Neve’s –‘A260’ and ‘A1004’
79| 1971: RCA Toronto’s 24-channel 16-group Neve – ‘A204’

69| The 16-4 becomes a ‘standard’ S.16-4 then the 8014

Back in Part Five, I detailed the two 16-channel, 4-group consoles built for Bob Auger in 1969. Both had 8-track monitoring, and 1883 routing modules. These consoles were custom designed for Auger, but the design used pretty much evolved into the very well known Neve 8014 console. The process was slow though, and by 1971 Neve had started producing a range of ‘standard consoles’ typified by this Neve Ad and as you see in late 1971 Neve were calling their ‘standard’ consoles, the ‘S Range’. However, plotting the time scale before Neve changed from calling the standard consoles ‘S Range’ to the ’80 Series’ is difficult.

Neve had always built consoles ‘to order’ and each was designed around the customers preferences, however during 1971, three Neve consoles initially became ‘standard consoles’. The BCM10-2 was the smallest, a broadcast orientated desk, the S.24-8 was a 24-channel, 8-group with 16 monitors and in between came the ‘S.16-4’, the 16-channel 4-group 8-monitor console, with jackfield and producers desk and four Comp/Lims, that we came to know perhaps a year or so later as the ‘8014’.

The Neve ‘S Range’ Advertisment was published as late as December 1971, and the illustrated desk in it has 4 VU’s.
The brochure shows the Melbourn factory Wiring Shop and the Test Department, and that’s John Turner with an S.16-4, and here’s another of John testing a 16-4.

Although only still four groups, there are eight VU’s fitted to the desk John is testing here, and by the time Neve did start calling them ‘8014’s’, they were usually fitted with 8 VU’s.

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70| 1970-71: Five Neve 16-channel 4-group consoles.

Craighall’s looks like the S.16-4 in the brochure, except it has an EMT140 Reverb Plate Remote on the upstand.

Craighall have a pair of remote controls for their Studer’s on the upstand and along side it a QSD-1 Quadphonic Synthesizer, which Sansui introduced in 1971 to encourage the use of their ‘QS’ matrix system for Quad.

70b| 1971: The R.G.Jones 16-channel, 4-group, 8-monitor – Neve S.16-4

R.G.Jones, Beulah Road, Wimbledon SW19.

Another S.16-4 delivered at this time went to the Wimbeldon studio of R.G.Jones:

Here’s the R.G.Jones studio:

70c| 1971: Sound Development’s 16-channel, 4-group, 8-monitor – Neve ‘A237’

Sound Developments, Spencer Court, 7 Chalcot Road, London NW1 8LH

Pressured by the ‘Pirate Radio Stations’, which were operating from ships off the UK coast, the demand for commercial radio in the UK finally produced new commercial licences dealt out by a new regulatory body, the Independant Broadcasting Authority. These started in London with the ‘talk radio’ London Broadcasting and the ‘top 40-based’ Capital Radio in October 1973.
Before these took off however, some sound studios sprang up to produce radio programming and radio commercials, and one such was Sound Developments in the Primrose Hill area of NW London.

Sound Developments was started by Roger Sinclair, who since 1970 had been running an internal radio service throughout the four United Biscuits factories around the country. Sinclair saw that broadcast commercial radio would finally come and his facilities grew to accomodate this.

His second studio built in mid-1971 was set up to cater for radio production, commecials and some music recordings and to complement his Ampex 8-Track, he purchased a Neve 16-4 ‘standard console’. Sound Developments only initially populated this console with 12-channels, but in the 1973 photo below, we can see that it has 8 VU’s, and by then had the full 16 mic channels.

70d| 1971: Manta Sound, Toronto’s 16-channel, 4-group, 8-monitor Neve

Manta Sound, 311 Adelaide St.East, Toronto, Ontario

Purpose-built recording studios have always been rare and in 1971 Manta Sound in Toronto, Canada opened a two-studio facility in a brand new building which started operations in July and officially opened on 4th Nov 1971. Manta had a big orchestral recording sized Studio 2, but and they installed this Neve 16-4 in their smaller Studio 1, working with a Studer A80 16-track.

70e| 1971: Surrey University’s 16-channel 4-group 8-monitor – Neve ‘A259’

Institute of Sound Recording – Tonmeister Course, Surrey University, Guildford, GU2 7XH.

The first Neve drawing for this console was dated 15th December 1970, and it was delivered during 1971. Surrey University were by then running the UK’s ‘Tonmeister’ recording course which had been set up by John Borwick and was based on the Germany idea of training engineers with a background of some musical knowledge. In Germany it was common for classical engineers to also carry out the dual role of ‘Engineer’ and ‘Producer’ in recording sessions and the first course was started at Detmold way back in 1946.

Delivery of even this medium sized Neve into the small control room was obviously an struggle:

Makes me wonder how much effort it was for Bob Auger and his few assistants man-handle his 16-channel Neve into all those temporary control rooms in churches and concert halls when doing his classical records.

In this case the mixer was installed in the Hall Undercroft, which was under the main hall and entailed flights of stairs.

The layout drawing, first started in December 1970.

Surrey Uni’s ‘A259’ was fitted with 1066 mic amps and the usual 1883 Routing/Switching Modules. Above each channel was a toggle switch to change-over the inputs from two seperate studios. John Borwick’s BBC background shows up in the choice of PPM metering. To the right of the two 2254/A Comp/Lims is a Stereo Width control, and at time of installation we can see a Studer Tape Remote Panel on the upstand.

Another Neve document above shows the planned layout of the Monitor Control Panel, but with changes suggested by Surrey to suit their needs. So a typical ‘standard console 8014’…..that was soon modified for the customer, in the usual Neve way.

The small control room housing the Neve was under the Main Hall without much isolation, so mixing in the control room could be difficult if the Hall was in use and the adjacent recording studio also was sometimes used for lectures, which were also easily disrupted by mixing.
With only a small number of Tonmeister students in each yearly intake, there wasn’t going to be much money available to keep up with the dizzy changes in technology that the recording industry went through. However the Neve lasted a long time and many students learned their basic sound techniques at the console.

The ‘standard range’ included the bigger S.24/8 as well:

70f| 1972: 6 West Recording’s 24-channel 8-group 16-monitor Neve ‘S.24/8’

6 West Recording, 6 West 57 Street, New York 10019

Imported Neve consoles were slow in being adopted in the US, and the Billboard Recording Directory of 1972 shows many studios still with ‘custom consoles’, and a growing number from new local US console manufacturer’s. In New York City, Vanguard got their first Neve in 1968 and the second studio to get a Neve was 6 West in 1972. The Chief Engineer for 6 West at this time was Ed Friedner, previously at Vanguard, so he would also have brought this Neve into 6 West. However, with a new US Office, Neve soon began to appear in more studios.

Designated as an S.24/8, this Neve in 6 West Recording has 16-channels fitted. No comp/lims are visible. It went into their small Studio ‘C’, to work with a Scully 16-track.

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The Neve ad below from 1973, although referring to the standard consoles, now has the S.24/8 in two versions called ‘spec. 8016A and ‘spec. 8026’.

Afterlife: Neve ‘A259’ – Vale Studios

The only console detailed above that I’ve located further history for is Surrey Uni’s Neve ‘A259’, and in mid-2022 Vale Studios put the console up for sale and I’ve recently been told that prior to selling by the Vale the following changes had occurred:
-The Studer remote which previously sat in the upstand had been removed, and replaced by just a standard blanking panel.
– Those toggle switches mentioned in the original Surrey spec had also been removed at some point, as well as (as one presumes there would have been) the corresponding IO on the rear.
– The 8 Track Monitor Matrix had been partially dismantled. The board itself still resides inside the console, but the relevant front panel for it, switch caps, and knobs, have all been removed. 
The original Neve Manual proves that in 1971 Neve were labelling it as an ‘8014’:

Neve ‘A259’ now happily resides in another studio, so it’s pleasing that it avoided being stripped out to harvest just the 1066’s!
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John Borwick, who started the Surrey ‘Tonmeister’ course was known to anyone who read audio magazines in the ’70s and ’80s, and he certainly led a busy ‘audio life’.

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71| 1971: Rank-Pinewood’s Film Dubbing console: 30-channel 6-group Neve – ‘A241’

GORDON McCALLUM : 
“Three mixers. I was the man in the middle and I used to handle dialogue and music and the others were handling the effects tracks.” [A]

The first of the big Film Dubbing consoles that Neve made was for the Rank owned Pinewood Film Studios.

The 30-channel Neve 6-group for Pinewood was designed with recessed positions for the 3-man operation involved in controlling the stems of ‘Music’, ‘Dialogue’ and ‘FX’ during final mixing.

Pinewood’s ‘A241’ had the 12″ long 1064 mic amps in the upstand, and newly designed 1926 Routing Modules. The two protruding fader sections each have the Echo Send and Return controls on each side each fitted with a shorter length 1066 mic-amp for EQ, and with a VU and ‘Pre-EQ’ and ‘Post EQ’ insert buttons.
A pair of 2065 Hi and Lo Pass EQ modules are visible on the left.
The three modules on the right are a 2067 Hi-Pass/Lo-Pass EQ with HpF of ‘360, 160, 70 and 45Hz and LpF of 2, 4, 6 and 8KHz‘, a 2072 three position Notch Filter and a 2257 Background Suppressor module.

If we zoom into the centre of that image we can see the 1926 Routing Modules in detail. and the film track record controls with TB keys on a panel above them.
The 6-groups were further split into 6-sub-groups, and above the black track and TB panel are dual rows of routing switches for the main and sub-groups, however the pots beside these comprise only 3 of each.

Looking at the 1926 Routing Modules, they have a keyswitch labelled ‘PV’ / ‘PFL’, an ‘On’ button with indicator lamp and a pair of ‘Insert’ switches for ‘Pre EQ’ and ‘Post EQ’. The ‘P.V.’ was presumably ‘Preview’.
Here’s the Neve circuit diagram for the 1926 Module:

JOHN TURNER:
“This circuit diagram doesn’t look right!
Both feeds to the keyswitch are pre fader – definitely PFL, but I suspect that the feed to the “PV” is drawn coming off the wrong switch contact, and should from the post Channel Cut switch contact. In one lever switch position this would allow the operator to listen to an input or cue, prior to the channel being switched ON or NOT CUT. The other position being after the Channel Cut but pre-fader.”

Film’s mixed on the Pinewood Neve:

WIKIPEDIA:
“During the 1970s Pinewood studios were being used more for television programmes, including ‘The Persuader’s’ (1971), starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore and ‘Space: 1999’ (1975–1977).
Major films shot at Pinewood included ‘Fiddler On The Roof‘ ‘(1971), ‘Sleuth’ (1972), ‘The Day Of The Jackal’ (1973), ‘Superman’ (1978) and ‘Superman II’ (1980), ‘Alien’  (1979), and the James Bond films ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ (1971), ‘Live and Let Die’ (1973), ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’ (1974), and ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (1977).”

Films shot at Pinewood weren’t necessarily dubbed there and I don’t know how many of those feature films were mixed on the Pinewood Dubbing Theatre’s Neve, but Gordon McCallum, nicknamed ‘Mac’, used the brand new Neve to mix ‘Fiddler’, which I’ve already written about (here) and the ‘Bond’s – ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ and ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’.

Mixing of course, was still without any automation, and all fader moves, EQ and Echo changes were reliant on memory and scribbled notes :

GORDON McCALLUM:
“Now as far as the final mix is concerned of course, you see originally we went straight onto film and that was ….. in those days, a trying business because you would rehearse right up to the point of being able to do a good ten minute take – and ten minutes is quite a long time. And you’d have a whole lot of tracks to play, a mass of cues, of alterations you wanted to make in the level or quality and so forth. And you would mark your cue sheets with the levels and you’d write cues down on paper…
And that led to the total destruction of my ability to write legibly, because it was always the quickest possible scribble, and back to the pots. So that …we rehearsed up to the point of being able to do it and you buzzed the turnover with film on the line and your mind went a total blank of course! Immediately you did that, you couldn’t remember a thing! But the moment the first mod came through, you clicked back in, you were programmed, and usually it worked and you did one or two takes. It seldom went above that, because if you did, that was costly, you know – a film and all the rest.” [A]

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73| 1971: EMI-MGM Film Dubbing: 36-channel 4-stereo group Neve – ‘A243’

EMI-MGM Studios, Shenley Road, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.

The other big Film dubbing console that Neve produced in 1971 was for the Elstree Film Studio of EMI-MGM. This was the 36-channel ‘A243’ seen in our headline photo. Here it is without the operators:

Although designed for the same purpose, EMI-MGM’s ‘A243’ was somewhat different from Pinewood’s ‘A241’.
The chief mixer, Len Abbott went for a console with the four group faders centrally placed on the sloping panel, and each has a red keyswitch labelled ‘Solo’ underneath.
This panel has the first Sliding Script-rack that we’ve seen, something many other users later opted for. These required new rails to be inserted top and bottom of the sloping surface to allow carriage along the full length of the desk. These sliding racks were a great idea, as they could carry a substantial piece of paperwork, but easily moved to get to the controls underneath.
‘A243’ has PPM’s instead of VU’s, and these are seperated into two sections. Four of the PPM’s are Ernest Turner stereo meters, labeled ‘1, 2, 3, and 4’ are presumably reading the stereo groups in pairs, even though the group routing switches were still labelled singly.
Each section has another Ancilliary mono meter. All the PPM’s, including 4 more little ones beside the Echo Remote Controls, are scaled in ‘decibels’ like below, as apposed to the standard UK BBC broadcast scale:

Here’s a closer view of the 1064E Mic Amps and 1928 Routing Modules:

The clear plastic sliding Script-rack is visible above as well.

And this is the central section:

It’s strange to see that over on the right, built into the sloping front, is a standard looking ‘Levell Oscillator’. This was a common test instrument of the time with a full frequency range of 15Hz to 150KHz……that should cope with most ‘line-up’ requirements!

Here’s a typical communication between Neve and the client after a meeting confirming details of the requirements for customising the console. The EMI-MGM Dubbing Mixer Leonard Abbott was specifying this console.

Len Abbott obviously knew what he wanted and several new modules were produced for Elstree EMI-MGM’s ‘A243‘, the ‘1064E’ Channel Amplifiers had an extra Presence Frequency, and also finer steps on Hf, Lf  boost & cut controls. They also had a new ‘1928’ Routing/Switching Unit which was 4 Group and 4 Echo, The ‘2077’ High Pass / Low Pass EQ Unit with Lp frequencies of 2,3,4,5,6,and 7.5 kHz and Hp frequencies of 550, 600, 700, 800 & 900 Hz.
A ‘sharp’ Notch Filter, the ‘2078’ with 50 to 400Hz frequencies of x1, x 10, and x 100 cutoff.
Next was a ‘2256’, a ‘Background Noise Suppressor’ and the ‘2079 Academy Pre Emphasis Filter’ with 3 positions.

So what is an ‘Acadamy Pre-Emphasis’?
In 1938 The Acadamy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had set out the ‘worst case’ situation for the optical sound tracks that were printed alongside the film frames, and came up with ‘The Acadamy Curve’. It was defined as flat from 100 Hz to 1.6 kHz, low frequencies were then cut down 7 dB at 40 Hz, and mid/high frequencies down 10 dB at 5 kHz, and down 18 dB at 8 kHz….so virtually no HF above about 3k and no LF below say 50Hz was going to be audible!
Not much better than a telephone really, which those of us working in the other audio fields thought of as pretty farcical…….. but luckily Ray Dolby and his company came to the rescue, and it wasn’t too much longer before they helped to start removing this onerous restriction.

Mixing all the tracks involved in a major feature takes time and required lots of pre-mixing to accomodate them all, so you had to hope you didn’t regret those pre-mixing decisions later. This was helped around this time by the incorporation of ‘Rock and Roll’; the ability to wind all the dubbing machines back in sync and then roll forward again, allowing doing ‘drop ins’. This required the accurate matching of the mix levels of course.

BILL ROWE – 1976:
“Elstree has a 36 input Neve desk with a six way output. It is driven by a desk crew of three on major productions. I handle the dialogue and music while the other two take the sound effects – that’s the fun bit, especially on action films. On sound effects premixing which may be busy or complicated all three of us will take tracks.
There are 34 35-mm Interlock replay machines available to us, seven of which are triple-track. Twelve of these machines convert to 16 mm if required. Two three-track recording machines can be locked in, each track capable of receiving separate information -the reason for this facility I will explain later.
Some films have only a few tracks per reel, but others can be top heavy and require some premixing. Extensive premixing is a disadvantage as it is always possible to commit sounds to each other and then find when you run everything together something doesn’t work. So we premix down on to a three-track mix which keeps it loose and even if the reel is very top-heavy with a lot of tracks we keep premixing this way until we run out of three-track replay machines or tracks, whichever comes first ! When premixing effects, the dialogue and music are run as competition otherwise what seems to be a well balanced premix could become a complete disaster when the Seventh Cavalry to the rescue type music is played.
We use rock and roll to dub – no, we abuse it. While dubbing we listen on replay, to detect drop outs (we still get them) and bad punch-ins.”

Bill also explained the way they use the stereo PPMs:

“We also use what we call `fore and aft’ meters. Each meter has two needles, the red needle indicates what is going on and the white what is coming off. This is so advantageous because it indicates level and hf loss on the recording. which, if subtle, are not noticeable to the ear at first, especially during the heat of looking at the screen for cues or at the chart for what happens next, for your cigarette lighter or cup of coffee; one eye on the director, the tut-tutting of the dubbing editor who can’t hear his grass growing track, and trying to remember what it was your wife wanted you to bring home! It is also useful for updating. Get the needles equal, have a quick listen on the AFB monitor switch and punch in.”
STUDIO SOUND -JULY 1976

Film’s mixed on the EMI Elstree Neve:

In the early ’70s, Bill Rowe became EMI-Elstree’s most famous mixer:

“In 1972 he was made Chief Dubbing Mixer, and became the first person in the world to utilise the then brand-new Dolby noise reduction system in film dubbing, with Stanley Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’, using Dolby on all pre-mixes and masters. So impressed was Kubrick with the result that he not only brought Rowe both Barry Lyndon and ‘The Shining’ to mix, but also the French and Spanish versions of ‘Paths of Glory’, once those respective countries had released their long-time bans, and the newly-reissued reprint of ‘Dr Strangelove’. Among others, Bill Rowe dubbed ‘Aces High’ for Jack Gold, ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ for Sidney Lumet, and ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?’ for Philippe Mora. Rowe also mixed in this period Tony Palmer’s monumental history of popular music for television, ‘All You Need is Love’.
In 1974 Rowe mixed ‘Callan’, the first film ever with a Dolby ‘A’ encoded optical track, and in July 1974 the first ever Dolby stereo optical recorder was commissioned by Elstree, and was demonstrated with ‘Stardust’.
In 1975 he dubbed ‘Tommy’ for Ken Russell, a particularly complex sound movie, which was shown in its premiere run in the ‘Quintophonic’ sound system, with a surround track that could be encoded: effectively, the first feature in Dolby Stereo. In September 1975, ‘Lisztomania’ was the first feature to premiere with a Dolby Stereo optical soundtrack: Rowe was making film sound history, and in 1979 he was made Head of Post-Production at Elstree Studios.
A golden era in film sound had begun. Jack Nicholson brought his ‘Goin’ South’ to Rowe, and George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Elton John all mixed their stereo movies at Elstree. Elstree itself became a haven for George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and Rowe used the old mono desk for the superb 70mm stereo dub on Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ (dubbing editor: Jimmy Shields). There was a run of David Puttnam features: ‘Midnight Express, ‘Chariots of Fire’, ‘The Killing Fields’, and the 70mm epics ‘The Mission’ and ‘Memphis Belle’. Rowe actually said, when first he heard Vangelis’ music for ‘Chariots’, that he could ‘feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up’.
In this tremendous period Rowe accrued seven British Film Academy nominations, and one memorable evening actually found himself in competition with himself. He won the Bafta award for best sound on three occasions: for Alien, The French Lieutenant’s Woman and The Killing Fields.”
Bill Rowe’s 1992 Obituary in THE INDEPENDENT.

Here’s Bill Rowe at the Neve in 1984, with another important part of the Elstree mixing team, Ray Merrin:

Bill Rowe championed Dolby in its early days, and this would have been made more accurate by his insistence on frequent audio line-ups throughout the magnetic film chain:

BILL ROWE:
“Dolby Labs, with whom we now have a close relationship, brought science to we `arty lot’. Each time the music studio supplies the music for a film we also ask for Dolby tone, 10 kHz tone and a reference level at 1 kHz. This information is used to calibrate some of the replay heads to the characteristics of the record heads used, and subsequently the music is only played from those heads. Furthermore each roll recorded in the dubbing theatre has 1 kHz reference, Dolby tone and 10 kHz on the front so that on replay it proves the lot, including the hf response of the head. If a roll replays incorrectly it is checked out with a short test loop.
When the dub is complete the magnetic recordings go to the transfer suite.
They take the reference level, check the hf response from 1 kHz and 10 kHz on the front of each roll and just transfer it. On the end of each roll there is another reference tone which is the guide given to the transfer operator as a check that there has not  been a major malfunction during the transfer of the roll. An optical rush print is checked by us in the theatre by comparison with our magnetic master.”
STUDIO SOUND -JULY 1976

It wasn’t just in ‘noise reduction’, that Dolby changed in the film industry of course, but also the quality of sound in the cinemas.

BILL ROWE:
“What is really needed is a standard of reproduction in cinemas. At the moment the Academy roll-off is as variable as a temperature chart during a bout of ‘flu. While dubbing you think of the good theatres and the bad, and then the American theatres with their speakers and their roll-off. Dolby Labs spent a great deal of time and money, measuring cinemas, both in Europe and America, but when they showed me the curves I clutched my worry beads and realised you can’t win. With dialogue of borderline intelligibility, you remember the reverb time in such a theatre and the ‘bass bounce’ in that theatre with the well upholstered usherette (is she the acoustic problem I wonder ?). Do you harden up the dialogue, and hope it won’t come out like a whiplash in the text book theatres? Standard sound in theatres will arrive I am sure. So I hope will an improved optical response in recordings.

The most important thing in a dubbing theatre is the monitor, both level and characteristic. If it is a normal optical dub you switch on the roll -off but if a magnetic release you stay flat. The monitor level is critical. Too low a level and you overshoot and restrict the dynamic range. Too high and you have too wide a volume range – this being fine in the dubbing theatre but useless when competing against the ambient level of a cinema audience. When starting from scratch you arrive at a monitor level in rather a crude way, by running a cross section of other films from reliable stables and take an average setting. From there you shoot something yourself and run it in a good friendly cinema. This is not perfect, but you arrive at the true setting by error detection, ie the complaints are fewer!“
STUDIO SOUND -JULY 1976

1971: Neve opens new office’s in the US and Canada

Rupert Neve Incorporated, Berkshire Industrial Park, Bethel, Connecticut 06801, U.S.A.
Rupert Neve of Canada Ltd., POB 182, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada
( and later in Malton, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.)

Neve set-up a U.S. office at Bethel in Connecticut at the beginning of 1971 and another in Ontario, Canada. This was later followed by a US Westcoast office in Hollywood.
Geoff Watts moved ‘over the pond’ to take charge of the new US operation, and wrote about his impressions after 8 months in Connecticut in the Xmas 1971 ‘Neve News’ house magazine:

Geoff Watts settled into his new workplace:

74| 1971: “The Neve on Eel Pie Island”: Pete Townsend’s 16-channel 8-group –‘A246’

Used at The Boathouse Studios, then Broadwick Street. Rebuilt by Shep as 24-16 for Sweden, the Prairie Sun, N. California.

EEL PIE INSTAL NEVE:
A Neve BCM10/2 standard mixing console has been installed at Eel Pie Studios, Twickenham.
Delivery and installation occurred within two weeks of the order being placed. A second order for a 16 channel eight track desk has been awarded to Neve, for installation in a new studio opening this spring.”
Studio Sound – April 1971

PHILSBOOK:
“The Boathouse is situated on the south-west bank of the River Thames in Richmond. The property was previously known as Waite’s Boathouse and was built in the 1960s by Bill Sims, a boat manufacturer  whose company built racing boats including those for the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. Local neighbour Pete Townshend  and friend of Bill Sims commissioned  a 55ft launch from the company, complete with on-board office so he could commute along the Thames”. [B]

PETE TOWNSEND:
“I lost my license one day for driving home drunk from Olympic Studios at four in the morning, and started to moor a little speedboat there that I used to commute. It took about 55 minutes during the day, making phone calls and eating breakfast like a Lord. At night we could get home in 30 minutes. It was wild.”  

PHILSBOOK:
“In 1975 The Boathouse was sold to Townshend who converted it into the Meher Baba Oceanic Centre for  followers of Meher Baba, the spiritual guru whose teachings had inspired Townshend. The building was totally renovated to include a film dubbing and editing unit, a cinema and a recording studio (known as Oceanic Studios).
In September 1981 it was decided that the studio should be run as a commercial facility so it was rebuilt with the acoustic design by Keith Slaughter and the technical  installation  by Roger Knapp. It became known as Eel Pie Studios, running at the same time as Eel Pie in Broadwick Street.”

Pete Townsend had eight Quad pan-pots fitted to the groups of ‘A246’, and they came into use mixing ‘Quadraphenia’ in 1973. This also required four loudspeaker feeds of course.

PETE TOWNSEND:
“I didn’t actually commission [install] the console until late 1972 … In 1975 the console shipped to EMI studios and was used to mix the very first surround movie soundtrack for the Tommy movie … In 1977 the console moved to Oceanic Studios. In 1979 I sold it. I’m very pleased it survived … We recorded Quadrophenia at Ramport and with Ronnie Lane’s mobile. Quadrophenia was mixed in my barn studio on the Neve … The guitar sound and synth track for “Who Are You” were recorded on this console. The synthesizer tracks for “New Song” and “Sister Disco”, also … I greatly regret selling the 8014 as they sound amazing. I have some 1064 mic pres and I prefer them over all other Neve modules. It was hard not to get a good sound with this stuff.”
(NB: Pete Townsend won an Oscar in 1975 for scoring and adapting The Who’s Rock opera for the film.
The film was mixed at EMI-MGM by Bill Rowe.)

In 1973 Neve enlarged the console to have 26 inputs and 24-track monitors.

Afterlife: Pete Townsend’s Neve ‘A246’ goes West

Californian dealer Dan Alexander sold ‘A246’ in 2021. Here’s some photos of it then:

The very first Neve that Pete had was his 1971 BCM10:

JOHN TURNER:
“Sometime after the BCM10 was installed at Pete Townsends house it developed a fault and I ended up visiting to fix the fault.
The bedroom in which Pete had installed the BCM10 was more a box room and so the BCM10 was installed almost vertically along one wall with just enough space for a person to squeeze between the BCM10 and the equipment on the other wall. One problem with mounting position was that the nice smooth P&G faders had a tendency to slide down a little on their own!”

That early BCM10 of Pete’s has been kept by him for many years:

“After 26 years, Pete Townsend has parted ways with his residence in Richmond, London, leaving behind his home studio.
“It’s been a wrench,” Townshend wrote on Instagram. “Moving house is never any fun.” He notes that he helped Ronnie Wood — who owned the house before him — build the home studio. Thankfully, Townshend was able to take his Neve BCM10 with him, a console he’s used for countless Who records.
“I mixed Live at Leeds on it,” he wrote. “I recorded the piano for “Love Reign O’er Me” on it. I did all the synthesizer backing tracks for Quadrophenia, the music for Ken Russell’s Tommy movie, and “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” This console has so much mojo for me. I truly love it. I’ve rarely managed to get a bad sound out of it.”
Townshend confirmed he relocated his studio to the English countryside, where he’ll hopefully be working on new music soon.”
ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE – OCT 2021

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75| 1971: “Stereo for BBC Radio” – The Broadcasting House Concert Hall – Neve 24-channel ‘A251’
and The Maida Vale Studio 3’s – Neve 32-channel ‘A289’ and Maida Vale Studio 2’s 24-channel ‘A290‘

Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, W1A 1AA

40 years after it was built, the BH Concert Hall received this Neve. Perhaps the wrap-around design was influenced by the small control room, but previous Pye transistor desks used in a few BBC Radio studios had been built with a similar curved shape.

The Concert Hall Neve ‘A251’, was followed by the similar designed 32-channel ‘A289’ for Maida Vale recording studio 3 and 24-channel ‘A290’, for Maida Vale recording studio 2, that also broadcast mainly classical music.
Studio 2 was the smaller and was probably similar to the Concert Hall, and got the 24-channel desk made up of three 8-channel bays, whilst the bigger Studio 3, home of the BBC Concert Orchestra, got the 32-channel version, made up of two 12-channel and one 8-channel bays.

JOHN RUSHBY-SMITH:
“During the planning of this installation there was much debate about the orientation of the desk. Had it faced the window it would have prevented a view of the stage, so it was installed at 90 degrees, offering a sideways view. This seriously concerned some experts, as they feared one-sided reflections of the glass, but in practice this didn’t prove a problem.” [C]

The beauty of a wrap-around console like this is that the operator is always in the sweet spot for monitoring the stereo image. This is perhaps particularly important in live mixing classical music using stereo pair miking techniques. The arm rest/script area is raised slightly.

Neve, like Pye before them, were aware of the problems to be encountered in recovering the costs for the extensive R&D required to fulfil contracts for mixers with the BBC, but putting a console into the BBC brought the company prestige with other broadcasters:

JOHN TURNER:
“This was exactly what Rupert had anticipated, almost everything about it was new, including the shape. For the first time there were relatively tight customer technical specification requirements to be met as well as interfacing with complex BBC facilities.
I was involved in the installation and met Paul Terry, a BBC engineer of whom I have lasting memories. Paul was a real gentleman, dressed in a pin-stripe suit, he was down on his hands and knees behind the patchfield helping sort out some wiring problem in the complex BBC cabling. He had a big thing about transformer output balancing and introduced me to the very large BBC LL63 line driving transformer. Paul explained that this output transformer balance was critically important because in BH there could end up being miles of screened cable which the line transformer had to feed.”

Here’s the centre section:

75a| NEVE 1079 Mic Amp Module

The mic-amps used by broadcasters had only one input, so the mic-amp modules ran continuously from -80 to +10dB of gain with no ‘Off’ after -20dB that switched over to the line input. The 1079 used this with 1073 EQ.

A new version of the 1073 appeared on the BBC Radio consoles: the 1079, which had no ‘OFF’ position on the coarse gain control.
Neve at this time had no stereo mic channels but could fit stereo groups and also width controls. The newly designed 1079 Mic-Amp modules are all housed in the highest upstand sections, in banks of eight.

The 1929 Routing modules are beneath them, which I’ll describe seperately below.
On the left are two of the 2254/A Comp/Lims with the lower panel providing routing of some form. To the right of the Comp/Lims is a vertical row of Mic Pattern Controls. The RTE ‘music’ consoles previously described, had a single Mic Pattern Control for an AKG C-24 Stereo Mic, but here there’s a bank of 12 seperate controls, giving the range from ‘omni’, through ‘cardioid’ to ‘fig-of-8’. Presumably these were linked to the AKG C-12/C-24 mic power supplies.
To the right of the pattern controls are a pair of 2065 Hp/Lp Filters and then a pair of 2069 or 2074 Equalisers. The 2069 was based on the 1066 and the 2074 on the 1073.

There are three 1766 Stereo width controls, lower right. First fitted to the RTE consoles, the 1766’s allowed a stereo pair of mics to be panned as a pair and to have a wider or narrower image operated by a pair of controls labelled ‘Offset’ and ‘Width’ .

Under the mic pattern units are two 1769 Echo Remotes for EMT Stereo Plates. The central faders are for the Stereo Groups and the Main Outputs, with pairs of narrow width faders for the Groups.

Here’s a closer image of the 1929 Routing Module – from somewhat later in its life:

The 1929 Routing Module showing, at the top selection for the the Independent Output ‘IND’. This was a ‘clean output’ that bypassed the usual groups and was a feature of the consoles made by Pye that the BBC had used in the past and was also fitted to the ATV Elstree Neves ‘A177’ and ‘A258’.
Next down are the Stereo Groups 1-4 routing buttons. Two ‘PA’ selectors, plus ‘Pre/Post’ switch with pot, two similar ‘FB’ selectors and a pair of ‘Echo’s’ with a bigger pot. The channel ‘pan-pot’ is beneath these and on the left, bringing it close-to-hand, along with a ‘Mic Bal’ fine gain pot, giving +/- 5dB, and the ‘AFL/PFL’ keyswitch.

JOHN RUSHBY-SMITH:
“When the Neve was first installed all the RSA (or EQ, for younger readers) control knobs were the same colour. I was instrumental in suggesting the knobs be fitted with coloured inserts and indeed in devising a colour scheme which held good for many years.” [C]
(The BBC term ‘RSA’ stood for Response Selection Amplifier, and had been in use since external EQ was first available.)

As Neve had no stereo mic channels at this time, John Rushby-Smith has two pairs of mono channels each linked with ‘fader straps’. The faders on the BBC Radio consoles, also faded up towards you, contrary to most mixers.

Some history of the Broadcasting House Concert Hall:

THE BROADCASTING HOUSE CONCERT HALL:
“Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC. It was the first purpose-built radio centre and opened in 1932. The Concert Hall was the largest of numerous studios and facilities designed for different radio transmissions. Unusually the Hall is designed for a public audience.
The Concert Hall was designed by Val Meyer in keeping with the modernist, now Art Deco, design of the building. Stepped designs with recessed lighting were created in plaster across the walls and ceiling. Twelve bas-reliefs by Gilbert Bayes run along the side walls, classical imagery on the western wall and modern opposite. The design aesthetic was applied across the building.
The Concert Hall is a broadcast studio and live performance space for the public. The original capacity was 550, with some removable seating to enable a full size orchestra to perform.
The first public performance at the Concert Hall was on 15 October 1932. During the Second World War it was used as a shelter and dormitory. Originally intended for the music, the hall has been used to host variety programmes and comedy. The long running shows Just a Minute (1967) and The News Quiz (1977) recorded in the Concert Hall make a feature of the audience reaction with microphones placed above the seating.
In 1994 the space was renamed the Radio Theatre. It has been refurbished multiple times since opening, removing the original seating but maintaining much of the decorative scheme.”
From The Science Museum website, who have an original 1932 Art deco seat from the Concert Hall.

With a reverb time of 1.7 secs, the Concert hall was best suited to classical chamber music and many live and recorded recitals took place there, and as you can see below it took up three floors of ‘BH’.

Afterlife: The Maida Vale Neve’s ‘A289’ and ‘A290’ come together….to magically spend almost 3 decades in New York

In the late 1980’s, the owner of The Magic Shop Studio at 49 Crosby Street in New York’s SOHO, went looking for a suitable Neve:

STEVE ROSENTHALL:
“I took a trip to England and spent a bunch of time there. I was lucky enough to locate a console owned by Alexander Fulcher, who operated a studio in London. I eventually convinced him to sell it to me and had it shipped over. The console was originally installed at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios. Rupert Neve visited early on, within the first couple of years after The Magic Shop opened. We were all terrified that he was going to tell us that the console was bad and that we should bag it. He came in with his oscilloscope and performed tests on the console. He also performed some tests on us, which was interesting because he is very much into the idea of perceived frequencies — that it’s not just what you hear, but rather what your brain processes, that you may not think you actually are “hearing.” He played back 80 kHz and 90 kHz tones through the console, showing us that we could actually perceive those frequencies — even though we didn’t think we could. After going through all of that, he told me, “Steve the console is fine. You can go ahead and use it.” We were really happy. About five years after I opened, my friend, Nat Priest from Music Valve Electronics, walked in the studio with a photo of a console that looked identical to the one that I had. He said, “Do you think we should get this?” I said, “Yes — by all means!” We got on a plane the next day, went to England, and found a second console, which was the 24 input version of the 32 channel console that I already had. Nat put the two consoles together, and Rupert was very helpful again. He sent us schematics and drawings about how we should join the busses and stuff like that. So our 1971 Neve went from 32 inputs to 56 inputs, which it is now.”
TapeOp magazine interview by Bren Davies – July/Aug 2008.

JOHN TURNER:
“Magic Shop Studios – This was the studio where David Bowie recorded his last two albums. Nathanial Priest, who has send me these pictures, was responsible for amalgamating two of the early BBC Radio consoles, ‘A289’ & ‘A290’. These were repeats of ‘A251’ the first BBC Radio console installed in the Concert Hall at BH.
According to the owner, Steve Rosenthal, he purchased these two consoles in the late 80’s and Nat combined them into a huge wrap around 56 Channel console.”

Steve first got the 32-channel ‘A289’ and then he added the 24-channel ‘A290’. The combined desk is made up of, on the far left a 12-channel bay, then the central section consisting of the groups/monitoring section and an 8-channel bay. The next curve has both a 12-channel and an 8-channel bay, and finally on the right are two 8-channel bays.

The Magic Shop closed in 2016, after recording David Bowie’s last album ‘Blackstar’. Hopefully it retains its magic even now, after being sold to the Magic Barn in Iowa:

STEVE McINTOSH- THE MAGIC BARN:
“I have large schematic documents and what would be considered an owners manual in a binder.  The consoles also still have their ID plates where power is attached to them.  The 32 channel console is A289 and the 24 channel is A290.”  

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76| 1971-72: “Multi-track for The Peel Sessions” – BBC Radio studios ‘Langham 1’ and ‘Aeolian 2’s’ 16-channel 4 Group Neve’s – ‘A590’ and ‘A591’ and ‘Maida Vale Studios 4 and 5’s’ 24-channel 4 Group Neve’s – ‘A825 and A826’

BBC Radio had been able to transmit the classical Radio 3 network in stereo via the FM Wrotham transmitter in Kent since 1970, but the other networks were still in mono and didn’t get any stereo transmissions until Radio 2 in late 1972. The only ‘pop’ studio in the BBC capable of recording music for stereo, with an 8-track, was the T1 Studio run by the Transcription Unit in Kensington House, off Shepherd’s Bush Green. The Transcription Unit sold BBC programmes to overseas broadcaster, usually on large ‘Transcription Discs’.
With the coming of more stereo it was decided that two studios would get Neve 16-4 desks and Studer 8-tracks; Studio 2 at the Aeolian Hall in New Bond Street, and the single studio in The Langham Hotel, opposite Broadcasting House.
One of the Radio DJ’s, John Peel, was enormously influential in introducing new bands through his radio shows and a part of that were the ‘sessions’ he played, recorded in the BBC’s studios and usually consisting of four tracks from each band or artist. For some years a variety of BBC studios were used, the Paris Theatre, Aeolian Hall and before settling on Maida Vale Studio 4.
Peel’s show ‘The Sound of the Seventies’ had moved in October ’72 to a late slot on Radio 2 and first went out in stereo on 6th November 1972, after they had started recording ‘sessions’ in stereo at Langham Studio 1, for Peel and the ‘newcomer’, Bob Harris.

BBC STUDIO MANAGER (SM) BOB CONDUCT:
“BBC Transcription (TRU) wanted stereo for many sessions – particularly John Peel’s stuff – so had to bring a portable stereo mixing desk in and take split mic feeds into another room.This setup became almost impossible when the mono recordings were being overdubbed – in mono, and became a farce when TRU wanted parallel stereo recordings of simultaneous sessions in MV4 & MV5. It was during one of these farcical situations that DG Ian Trethowan chose to visit MV. Stepping over bundles of multicore in the corridors, I remember his saying to me “Isn’t this a very silly way of having to do this…..?”!
I believe that it was this event that led to the conversion of LH1 (Langham 1 – then an underused drama studio) and AE2 (Aeolian 2) into the first multitrack studios, each being equipped with the Beeb’s first ‘straight’ Neve desks (16/4) and with 8 track Studers. Monitoring was via Neve’s 4 x 8 switch matrix into 4 x Lockwood 15” in LH1 or 4 x Tannoy 15” Lancasters in AE2.
With Radio 1, Radio 2, Transciption Recording Unit and BBC Records now being serviced by LH1 & AE2, the opportunity arose (1972) to completely rebuild MV4 & MV5, with enlarged control rooms fitted with Neve straight 24/8 desks.” [D]

KEN GARNER – THE PEEL SESSIONS:
“Langham 1 was only ever meant to be a stop-gap, until Maida Vale could be refurbished but it was to remain in constant use, 15 hours a day, until summer 1981. It wasn’t initially promising. Sited in the wing of the building that follows the line of Portland Place, opposite Broadcasting House, it first had an unusual curved shape; and the traffic meant bands faced terrible parking problems. Then turning left from reception, roadies humping in gear would push open the door, opening into a tiny control room, which then smashed the back on the Studer tape machines, thoughtfully sited behind the door. ‘however, Langam 1 is the studio I remember with most affection’, says Aitken, and he is not alone. Sharing the ground floor of the Langham with the BBC Club, the atmosphere was informal. It was easy to pop out for a pint. ‘Strangely, the lack of useful space seemed to work towards an effect of “closeness” rather than being cramped’, says Aitken. The BBC sold the building in the 1980s.” [D]

With the opening of the newly refurbished Maida Vale Studio 4 in 1974, with its Neve 24 Channel 8 Track, the ‘Peel Sessions’ made MV4 its base.

Maida Vale 4 studio, with the common ‘perforated’ BBC acoustic screens, designed much earlier by Sandy Brown.

KEN GARNER – THE PEEL SESSIONS:
“Then, quite unexpectedly, three months after the refurbished Maida Vale reopened, with the latest generation of 24-4 Neve desks, a 8-track Studer A-80s, the axe fell on ‘Sounds of the Seventies’,’BBC to cut services by tenth in New Year’, said the front page of The Times on 11 December 1974. Facing a £20 million deficit in March, and with uncertainty over the licence fee, in order to save £1 million, BBC Television programmes would stop at 11.30pm, and Radio 1 and 2 would merge again in the afternoons and after 10pm. ‘It means the end of Radio 1 stereo programmes’, said Bob Harries. ‘Last week U had the best contract from the BBC I’d ever had, and then suddenly, four days later, the whole Sounds of the Seventies programmes go overboard. It’s really a retrogressive step. the only survivor will be Top Gear’.” [D]

John Peel got just two of the week’s Top Gear programmes, and so what had become eight ‘double sessions’ a week became just Peel’s two sessions. But things improved after an outcry about the loss of late night rock, and from Sept ’75 the Peel Show took over at 11pm each night, and listening to John Peel became many rock fans nightly ‘fix’.

I’ve not found any photos of the Maida Vale Neve 24-Channel 4 Group consoles, except this one, an 8-group, that had been installed later in MV6, which is believed to be either ‘A3024’ or ‘A3036’:

That’s the sort of ‘lash-up’ that occurs sometimes in broadcasting as the Neve 24-channel above is augmented by a little side desk, another Neve, whilst mixing an experimental ‘UHJ-matrixed Quad’ 24-track recording of a live Genesis concert in 1978.

Music recorded on the BBC Neves for Radio 1 and 2

KEN GARNER – THE PEEL SESSIONS:
“One of the first done in Langham 1 was the debut of a very shy, nervous singer-songwriter, Joan Armatrading. The week after that recording on Tuesday 31 October, the stereo transmitters were finally switched on. When a newly promoted Bill Aitken SM-ed his first sessions in Langham 1 on 17th January 1973 – ‘Medicine Head’ in the afternoon, and ‘Frankie Miller backed by Brinsley Schwartz’ in the evening, both for Bob Harris – he became the first SM (Studio Manager) to cut his teeth on multi-track”.

Producer John Walters was the prime source of new bands for the Sessions, usually scouting in clubs. Bob Marley and the Wailers arrived in Britain in mid ’73 to promote their first Island disc.

JOHN WALTERS:
“When we got them in, people at the time said, “You’re not booking that lot, are you?” When Marley arrived at the studio, you realised he was a star: very quiet, and somehow dignified. Of course, all of them were there, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh. I seemed to remember it took a lot of time to get started, there was a lot of sitting around, as you’d expect, and at the time, of course, possessing marijuana was a imprisonable offence; they did everything very discreetly, but you could smell it, even through the double doors, in the control room. They were also grinding hash up and putting it with honey. What was I suppossed to do? BBC training would probably have told me to call the police. Anyway, that was their first visit to Britain, years before they were noticed. Only Island and us were onto them then.” [D]

Here’s the three tracks from that first session, during which they recorded ‘Concrete Jungle’, ‘Rasta Man’ and ‘Slave Driver’ on the Langham 1 Neve, with Bob Conduct mixing and John Walters producing. This is from a repeat broadcast made on 14th July 1980, in which we hear John Peel’s intros:

Once Punk rock arrived, the Peel Shows became the one outlet that consistantly gave the Punk bands airtime.

KEN GARNER – THE PEEL SESSIONS:
“On Tuesday 26 (1976), Peel played The Damned’s ‘New Rose’. It was the first real British punk record. If ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ or ‘Tutti Frutti’ was the crucial moment for a previous generation, ‘New Rose’ was, for many of us, the record after which nothing was ever the same again.”

Mike Robinson was the mixer as ‘the Damned’ trashed the mic amps of the 24-channel Neve in MV4, and Jeff Griffin was Producer.

JEFF GRIFFIN:
“I think I was apprehensive about it, because I hadn’t seen them before or met them; but, in fact, when we got to the studio, I’m not sure who was more apprehensive, them, about being in a BBC studio, or me about working with them. The amusing thing was that quite a few other people had heard that The Damned were in, and every now and then we got people creeping in through the door, looking in through the window to see if they were being sick all over the place or spitting at us. Which they weren’t at all of course; they were four of the nicest blokes I ever got to work with.” [D]

KEN GARNER – THE PEEL SESSIONS:
“By the end of 1977, each night’s programme was at least 60-70 punk and reggae. What happened later to the Banshees in 1978 shows the importance of Peel Sessions. For nine months, their growing public identity beyond gigs and the music press was solely constructed by the Peel Show. ‘Within that year, all these new bands were doing sessions, and they’d never been heard by many people before, they’d just been up and down the country playing to 30 people,’ says Steve Severin. ‘And then suddenly it was all over the airwaves, and you couldn’t really ignore it.’ “ [D]

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77| 1971: Nova Sound London’s 24-channel 16-group 24-monitor Neve –‘A254’

Nova Sound Recording Studios, 21-31 Bryanston Street, London W1H 7AB.

Recorded Sound Studio in London’s Bryanstan Street had been the purchaser of Neve’s first studio valve consoles (see here), and they replaced that in 1969 with a 20-channel 8-group Neve ‘2056’, which I detailed in an earlier article in this series (see here).
In 1971 it was time to upgrade again and a 24-channel 16-group Neve, ‘A254’ was ordered. It was also at this time that the studio was purchased by a group called Scotia Investments, of which the existing studio manager, George Pastell was involved. The studio then changed its name to ‘Nova Sound’.

“The control room houses a superb new £22,500 Neve desk with 24 input channels and 16 outputs. This was specially built to satisfy all the facilities demanded by the Nova engineers, and is rather different to other Neve consoles. for example, on the channel equalisers, which have switchable frequency selection controls, the frequencies are not those found on standard Neve modules.
The Nova desk has equalisers switchable to musically related frequencies, which the engineers consider to be more logical. Anothere feature is the provision of faders unstead of small rotary pots to control the loudspeaker monitor levels, and it is possible to record direct from the monitoring system if required.”
BEAT INSTUMENTAL STUDIO FEATURE – June 1971.

The channel amp modules were in fact just 1073’s, but a new Routing module was designed for the monitors, the 1933.

Here’s a look at the console controls:

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78| 1971-72: RCA Hollywood’s 32-channel 24-group Neve’s –‘A260’ and ‘A1004’

RCA Records, 6363 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood 90028, California.

Another feather in Neve’s cap, was to get orders from the major American record label RCA who, being part of a giant electronics company, had always produced their own consoles in the past. The first RCA studio to get a Neve was in Madrid and the first desk for RCA in the US was for the Hollywood Studio B, and this was a 32-channel 24-group console ‘A260’, which was proudly demonstrated at the UK APRS Exhibition that year:

RCA ENGINEER KENT TUNKS:
“The way RCA worked in those days (I guess I am talking thru the late sixties) was that RCA New York built and designed the consoles and they were then distributed to the various studio locations.With the coming of the early seventies this practice stopped and we had Neve at RCA Hollywood.
After I got there they installed the first Neve console in Studio B. I don’t remember when this was, but I would guess about 1971 or so. Then A got the same model Neve board. C was last to get
a Neve after a few years.” [Y]
Quote via Gearspace Forums.

The second matching 32-24 console was ‘A1004’ for Studio A and it was delivered during 1972, and Billboard magazines Recording Studio Directory of June 1972 list both RCA Hollywood’s Studio 1 and 2 as having 32-channel 24-output Neve’s, with Ampex 16-track recorders. Both studios are also listed as being 75ft x 45ft x 25ft high, with control rooms of 30ft x 20ft. The Directory still doesn’t show the third studio with a Neve as late as 1975.

When ‘A260’ was being constructed, the ‘Neve News’ carried a cartoon, which indicated there was an unusual amount of ‘to-and-fro’ between RCA and Neve with the console:

A few months later, the next ‘Neve News’ gave the follow up on that:

Around this time Allan Ballantine was the Manager of Facilities and Engineering Planing for RCA, and he was probably specifying the Neve console, and in 1972 he drew up the details for a complicated transportable console that Neve constructed.

The most obvious feature of RCA’s ‘A260’, are the mass of routing buttons and small pots on the full-length left hand panel. This is the enormous ‘Cue’ panel, and we’ll take a closer look at this below.

No other Neve had been built with such a comprehensive set of ‘Cue’ send controls before.
There are eight ‘Cue’ circuits on ‘A260’, with the four main ones having their master gains at the bottom of this selection panel, with most of the big panel taken up with the controls for these four.
The individual gain pots are colour coded vertically for each ‘Cue’ circuit, ‘red’, ‘white’, ‘blue’ and ‘green’.
At the top are a row of five pots labelled ‘Channel Cue A’, ‘Channel Cue B’, Microphone 2′, Microphone 3′ and ‘Line’.
The long vertical rows consist of 24 toggle switches labelled ‘Playback/Cue/Output’, with 24 ‘send control’ gain pots.
Beneath these are four more numbered ‘5/6/7/8’, with row labelled ‘Echo On Cue Return’.
The second long vertical row consists of both pots and black routing switches for the additional ‘Cue’s, ‘5/6/7 and 8’.
At the bottom, to the right of the master pots for ‘Cue’s 1-4’ are the ‘Echo On Cue Send’ ‘On’ switches and gain pots.

The mic amps are 1073’s, the 24-channel channel Routing Modules 1910’s, however two new Routing Modules were produced for RCA, the 1931 ‘Aux’ Modules and the 1932 ‘Monitor’ module.

JOHN TURNER:
“An interesting feature of both the switching units type 1931 and 1932 is that they use a the first Neve class A/B amplifier, B208, designed by Geoff Watts very soon after he joined Neve.”
Here’s the 1932 modules in close-up:

The 1932’s are mounted in two rows above the narrow P&G Monitor faders. Each has four black routing buttons for ‘Echo On Mon’ with gain pot, four buttons for speaker selection with a pan-pot, selectable in pairs. The green illuminated and individually numbered button is for ‘Solo’ and a red illuminated button for ‘OD’ (Overdub).

The 1931 Aux Module:

Another Neve console that is listed as being for ‘RCA’ was ‘A1002’ , a 24-channel 4 group ‘Reduction Mixer’ being constructed during 1971, but we can’t confirm which of the RCA Studios ‘in the world’ at that time it was destined for.

Afterlife: The RCA Hollywood Neve’s

In 2023 Record Producer Dennis Herring offered for sale the 32-channel ex-RCA Hollywood Studio B Neve ‘A260’ via North Hollywood audio dealer Techno Empire:

Above is ‘A260’ as seen when put up for sale in 2023. With only a few switch and monitoring modifications it is still looking close to how it did in when delivered in 1971. The most significant change is there are now thirteen 1073 mic amp modules that have been modified to resmble 1084’s, with three switched HF frequencies and a Hi-Q button, and they are now labelled ‘1073M’, which is a model Neve never made and they are most likely from Brent Averill.

The other RCA Neve ‘A1004’ from Studio A now resides in Studio Two at the large EastWest Studios, previously Cello Studios at 6000 Sunset Boulevard, and so this console isn’t far from its original RCA home. The Neve moved to the 6000 Sunset studio that had been Bill Putnam’s original ‘Western Studio’, after Allen Sides had bought the RCA Hollywood complex:

“6000 Sunset Studio 2: Allen (Sides) installed a very custom, completely class-A 8038 Neve console, which had originally been custom-built for RCA. This console had been 32 input with a separate 24-channel monitor console. Allen completely rebuilt the aux module section with ten discreet sends on every input, and added eight more inputs. He installed GML automation and set up the monitor section as additional inputs for a total of 64 inputs.”
From “Ocean Way Recording-The Legacy” on the Ocean Way website.

However, statements that miss-represent the early Neve’s, like the one quoted above from the Ocean Way website, do infuriate the ex-Neve employees:
JOHN TURNER:
“6000 Sunset Studio 2: Allen (Sides) installed a very custom, completely class-A 8038 Neve console.
In this text we see two of the things that really annoy me! The RCA console was not an 8038, it was a completely custom console and it was not completely class A. The Geoff Watts designed amplifiers used in the switch units were class A/B!“

Ocean Way ay 6000 Sunset, became Cello Studios and is now EastWest Studios, and here is how it is now:

LAWRENCE ETHAN MALCHOSE – EASTWEST STUDIOS CHIEF ENGINEER:
“I think Charlie said the ‘M’s (1073M mic amps) were a Brent Avril Mod. The meters are located differently on the Studio 2 console and have had meter buffers added to them running on a seperate+/- 15v supply.
I don’t know which RCA room the console came from, just know that it has a Wally Heider sticker.
I am fairly confident that the last 8 channels were converted to 1073 and Aux modules added at Ocean Way. All the Aux modules were completely redesigned. Many of the main monitor function relays were replaced with IC relays. The actual monitor source reed relays are still functional. I think the 1-24 or 25-48 source switching to monitor and line inputs was an Ocean Way mod. An interesting bit, that is also on the 606/Sound City Neve, is an additional set of 1272s that all the groups go through. I believe it’s primarily for the three main faders that would have been dialogue, music, and FX. 8 Groups each. So you have summing that goes to the patch, then returns to the second set of 1272s, fader, then back to patch and multitrack recorder.”
From my correspondence with Lawrence in October 2024.

The reference Lawrence makes to Wally Heider is interesting, as both the RCA 32-24 Neve’s carry a sticker on the rear panel. Dennis Herring suggests in his ad for ‘A260’, that it was “Custom ordered from Rupert Neve by Wally Heider for RCA Hollywood”, but Heider was operating his Remote Recording operation at this time and I can’t verify the claim.

79| 1971: RCA Toronto’s 24-channel 16-group Neve – ‘A204’

RCA Ltd., 225 Mutual Street, Zone 2, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Canada became a bigger market than the US for Neve consoles for sometime and the first for Canada was when RCA Toronto got a 24-channel 16-output Neve during 1971 for their 42ft x 32ft x 18ft high Studio 1.

Nowhere near as lavish as RCA Hollywood. RCA closed it in 1979 and it became ‘McClear’s’.

“The RCA studio, Billboard reported in a 1972 story about Toronto’s emergence as Canada’s recording capital, had managed to “lure” Gordon Lightfoot back from the U.S. to record Old Dan’s Records.
By 1974, Billboard reported, the studio was producing three-quarters of all Canadian country albums. That was in addition to rock bands like Bachman-Turner Overdrive, music for films and television programs like CBC’s “The Tommy Hunter Show,” and jingles.
One evening in the mid-1970s, said former RCA and McClear chief engineer Hayward Parrott, Mick Jagger arrived for a tour of the studio. RCA employees had mocked a phone caller’s request for an appointment for Jagger; they went home for the day, leaving Parrott and the man who was cutting his hair to greet Jagger’s limousine.”
From The Toronto Star

A new Neve, but the studio hasn’t had the interior improved by the look of it. The desk is a pretty standard 24-channel 16-output Neve of 1971, which was used with an Ampex 16-track.

Afterlife: RCA Toronto’s Neve with Singer, Songwriter and Producer Ian Thomas

IAN THOMAS:
“My exposure to Neve consoles started right out of high school with my band, Tranquility Base. RCA had just purchased a brand-new Neve for their studio on Mutual Street in Toronto, wanted to work the bugs out, and offered me free recording time in exchange. Months later, we recorded our first successful song, “If You’re Looking”. In 1973, while working as a full-time music producer at CBC, I spent my nights bootlegging on the Neve at RCA and recorded my first album with the single “Painted Ladies”, which launched my solo career. As luck would have it, that very same console came up for grabs 14 years later when RCA sold their studio, so I bought it. Once installed in my Winona barn studio, I sat there and stared at my very own Neve for hours. I went in for a coffee, came back out, polished it and stared at it some more.”[F]

CREDITS AND REFERENCES:

[A] Quotes from an interview with Gordon McCallum on the oral archive ‘The History Project’: https://historyproject.org.uk/interview/gordon-mccallum
[B] From the UK Recording Studio history website:https://www.philsbook.com/
[C] The BBC Concert Hall photo and information came from the website https://www.orbem.co.uk/
an extremely good BBC Radio History technical information site.
Photos and further details from“The Story Of Broadcasting House” by Mark Hines, published by Merrell.
[D] Much information taken from Ken Garner’s brilliant book“The Peel Sessions” published by BBC Books. This is an comprehensive listing ands history of John Peel’s work over many years at BBC Radio.
[E] Quote from a Gearspace forum: https://gearspace.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/101560-rca-studios-60s-4.html
[F] From Ian Thomas’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/IanThomasCanada/posts/tbt-we-lost-a-giant-of-the-music-industry-last-week-in-rupert-neve-many-of-you-m/3994649890586176/