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something fresh and new .”
While they had detailed documents for the console , given the number of modifications made to it over time , in some cases , they were useless .
“ I ’ d say we spent almost 90 per cent of our time doing signal flow , which is humorous because nobody likes to do that , but it ’ s all you can do when you ’ re facing a very elaborate , very detailed console and simply don ’ t know where all the wires are running to ,” Young says .
He adds that one particular issue took two weeks to diagnose and turned out to be a problem with one wire . “ It was driving us insane . You could hit the console as hard as you want , nothing would happen , but if you tapped it with the softest touch of your finger , it would cause the speaker to cut out .”
The intention was never to restore the board to its original state when it shipped from the factory , but rather to work with what they had , mods and all , and ensure it worked for Lake and the studio owner ’ s needs and workflow .
After getting a handle on the overall state of console , they began repairs . First came ensuring everything was balanced and that all the outputs for the speakers were working . “ And actually ,” Young says , “ one would cut out and the other had distortion . We had a lot of problems in the centre section of the console , which , thankfully , we got around .”
Finding replacement parts was also challenging , particularly when trying to track down a number of switches that were manufactured 40 years earlier . Finding those switches new was virtually impossible , but Lake had a contact that was able to provide them with the parts and has been a source of valuable information throughout the process . In the end , they found just enough switches to make the fix .
Unsurprisingly , once they dug in , they found more surprises . “ We discovered , by accident , that there are four 31106 modules in the console that were made by Focusrite , not Neve . They actually have the mic pres inside of the modules , which none of the other modules do because the mic pres are remote ,” Lake says . Rupert Neve of course founded Focusrite after departing the company bearing his name . “ Once we figured out everything was working and got around the mods and the switches , we
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CONTROL ROOM
determined that you ’ d flip a switch and nothing would happen . We took the switch apart , put it back together , but realized that , while the switch was fine , the relays were no good . And which relay is no good ? Well , there ’ s a giant field of them . No one ever thought you ’ d have to replace these relay sockets . It was designed in such a way that whoever put it together was happy to be done with it , but Jason replaced every relay socket in that section .”
In trying to figure out how to approach that process , Young says he spent a full day underneath the console just staring at it . “ I was trying to wrap my head around how I could get pretty much every cable in there out , and then put it back together without missing a wire .” Doing so took over a week . “ I don ’ t remember most of it , actually , but when I took the wires out I found several that weren ’ t even connected and were no longer doing what they were supposed to .”
Afterwards , the centre section wasn ’ t responding properly . “ Sure enough , it was more of those bloody 40-year-old key switches . One had cracked in half , but the wires were so densely packed they were physically holding it in place . It looked okay ; you ’ d flip the switch and it felt like it worked , but it didn ’ t .”
The most trying issue in terms of time spent was getting the talkback function working . “ We actually had to leave it for a bit and come back to it because we reached a point where , based on the documents and how the console was originally wired , it appeared to be running the way it should .” Ultimately they ended up modifying the console and adding remote talkback – “ which included adding a new relay , but that ’ s been very handy for us and it also helps extend the life of those key switches ,” Young says .
Overall , Sairan says restoring the board was like getting into the mind of Rupert Neve . “ Rupert was asked to build something that exceeded the sound quality of anything else on the market at the time and his response was this console . The
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“ The Montserrat Neve console is the console that all others are measured against as far as sonic capability ”
frequency range , the bandwidth of the console itself is more than twice that of an 80 Series . Its frequency responses curve is flat at 180 kHz , whereas the earlier Neve channels ’ response was to 80 kHz . Whether or not we ’ re capable of even hearing the upper bandwidth is irrelevant ; what was discovered was that there is a psychoacoustic reaction to hearing a channel strip that has that wide a bandwidth . Geoff Emerick has been documented as saying that he preferred tracking on a Neve console , but liked mixing on SSLs and the rumour is that he asked Rupert to design something that would be open enough to mix on , but would also have the recording characteristics of what he traditionally produced .”
One of the things that set the consoles Neve worked on apart is that he never abandoned the use of transformers when , led by SSL , pro console design moved towards fewer components and , therefore , less
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PHOTO : COURTESY OF SUBTERRANEAN SOUND |
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32 • PROFESSIONAL SOUND |