There aren’t many studios in central London with enough space to record a band live, with a Neve desk to capture the action.  Which is why Fortress Studios is favoured not only by up and coming artists, but also by so many producers, engineers and record labels. 

T48

  1. ‣48 Channels Inline - that’s 96 on mixdown

  2. ‣48 Bus

  3. ‣Flying Fader and Mute Automation by Martinsound Technologies

  4. ‣4T output

  5. ‣GPO Patch-bays

  6. ‣6 mono/stereo 1 stereo cue/rev sends

  7. ‣2 Cue Mix outputs 4 reverb returns

  8. ‣4 band fully sweepable parametric EQ on every channel

  9. ‣Dynamics section with compressor and gate on every channel

  10. ‣Plasma Meters both RMS and Peak on every channel

  11. ‣Beautiful warm Neve sound

Our Neve

V1

A Brief History

In 1964 Neve designed and built the world’s first commercial transistor-based mixing console for Philips Recording Studio in London.  Building on this success, the company moved into a purpose-built factory in Melbourn, near Cambridge, entering the broadcast field — in 1968 producing the famous 2254 Comp/Limiter for ABC Weekend Television in the UK, followed by the world’s first solid-state switching matrix the next year — and making its products available in North America for the first time.

In 1970, Rupert Neve designed a microphone preamp module, the 1073, for a new A88 console. It became a legend, still widely regarded as one of the best microphone preamps ever designed. Neve developed a whole series of console modules in the 1970s that were so successful, the company went on to make them available as modules that are still some of the most sought-after designs on the market.

Rupert Neve

Penny And Giles

Flying Faders

by Martinsound

Technologies

2 Plasma meters

VU and PPM

On every channel 

The 1970s saw the pace of development at Neve speed up, with an immense number of new consoles leaving the production line including, in 1973, the 8048 with its famous 1081 modules that are available today in the form of the 1081R.

In 1975, a chance meeting between Geoff Emerick of Air Studios and Rupert Neve resulted in a new console for Sir George Martin’s studio on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. The groundbreaking design work that went into this console has left its mark on Neve electronics and to this day modules influenced by its development are available as options for the 1081R.

In 1977 the company installed the world’s first moving fader automation system, Necam (Neve Computer Assisted Mixdown) at Air Studios, London.

Back in Melbourn, Neve was also pushing both digital and analogue technology to new heights, first with the 8108 in 1979 — the first console to have assign-able controls and memory faders — and then entering the race to build the first commercial digital multi-track console. Neve won that race in 1980, and the result was the Neve DSP, with the first unit sold to Tape One in London

On the analogue front, the company followed up with the development of the V Series, unveiled in early 1985. The V Series (named after one of the design team, Greg Pope — V stands for ‘Vatican’) went on to become the most successful, and perhaps the most revered, of all Neve’s analogue designs.

The mid-1980s was a time of change and consolidation in the professional audio industry. Neve was acquired by the Siemens group of companies in 1985, and accelerated its work on the next generation of digital consoles, ultimately to be known as the Capricorn.  AMS went on to develop the first fully integrated digital console and hard disk recorder, the Logic 1, released in 1988. In the same year, AMS developed and launched linear motor-based faders, and in 1989 Neve introduced the VR console.

Despite the enormous changes that have been wrought on the industry by the development of digital audio technology, to think that today’s professional recording, mixing and editing environments are a place solely for digital would be wrong. Analogue has a distinct place in the overall scheme of things. The finest digital systems are nothing without precision, quality analogue design — just the techniques and technologies that enabled Neve to make its name almost half a century ago. From mic amps to monitoring, analogue has a fundamental role to play. Thus it was that 2001 saw AMS Neve announce the first totally new Neve analogue console in almost two decades — the 88R.

Taking the best aspects of the acclaimed V Series and Encore Plus console automation, plus the multi-format surround-capable flexibility of the DFC and, of course, the legendary Neve sound, the 88R was an instant success and showed that analogue audio was a vital part of the future, not simply of the past. Today the 88RS is its worthy successor with a level of audio quality that exceeds that of 192 kHz 24-bit digital and combines that Neve sound with the latest innovations in audio and control technology.

AMS Neve continues to be renowned for its rack-mount modular products, notably the Outboard and the 88 Series lines, which combine legendary Neve analogue electronics and design with the latest digital conversion technology, bringing the Neve sound to the latest analogue and digital production systems.


extracts from http://www.ams-neve.com/html/corporate/history.php

Our Technician Andrew Bolton (Bolty) with Rupert Neve