Neve 51 vs. Studiomaster 16 into 4 part 1 - Clash of the 80s IC Consoles

Enjoy your videos Jamie. Do you use that reel to reel tape machine?

wonderful!

I have a couple of Studio Master desks and an RSD predecessor and a few friends introduced me to them with their lovely units a few years ago, the earlier the generation, the better. They're sleepers and keepers.

Awesome channel. Subscribed

Martin Hannett producer of Joy Division among others had one of these in his home studio, and they very much are of that era. He modded his EQ somehow, his board came up for sale including his personal notes on the mods, but the seller demanded I buy the whole lot to find out what he did. I'm guessing he narrowed the Q by upping the resistors in a couple spots, but he may also have gone from 741's to TL071's as Studiomaster themselves did around 1981. The 071s are a bit cleaner and faster which in the tape era was a good idea but nowadays probably not a good idea. The Jim Williams contingent will laugh at these old opamps but they don't know what we are trying to do with music so ignore them. 5534s are the SSL opamp and so very clean and fast, recapping isn't hard as much as it is tedious and the bigger issue is workflow and paying for HVAC to make the control room livable with a big old board burning a lot of heat.

My 1979 Studiomaster 12 into 2 is of this 741 era. I should note for the crowd that all Studiomasters and Recording Studio Design from the 70's and 80's had a "thin script logo" and Slipperman slipped up years ago suggesting the logo was an indicator of quality, better is the presence of big VU meters to know you got an original rather than a later one built by Rolls. My 1979 did need some recapping, had already been clumsily modded for direct outs and was in poor enough shape I decided to not view it as a museum piece but instead to mod the daylights out of it. I put in optional transformers galore, polarity switches, separate switchable line ins on DB25s, TRS switched direct outs and insert points, pulled the EQ off the master and made a couple more stereo pairs of line inputs...not to mention a completely new power supply. And I socketed the summing opamps so I can use LM6172 or something else the fast opamp people would approve of.

There is plenty of room inside these, and they are built to be extended, so a modder's delight if you know your way about. The worst thing in them for modding and maintenance are the bus bars linking all the cards together shown in your video, I replaced those with a eurorack ribbon which also allowed me to have stereo FX sends on alternating channels. Stock and in good shape these are certainly worthy boards, modded well they can be something truly special, although still looking up at a PM1000 or a Neve of course.

Looking forward to the full band recording (says the Eaton Bray 12-into-2 owner).

My first desk, not a rackmount mixer, in the mid 80's, was a Studiomaster 16-4, same as this one. In no way, shape or form could it be compared to a Neve. Pretty sure my friend I gave it to still has it stashed in his loft, because he's a packrat like that.

Neve moved into IC circuit topology after Rupert sold the company. The ICs used in those consoles had questionable sonic qualities, however, the use of ICs (along with the elimination of transformers) reduced manufacturing costs by quite a lot. This, along with each channel strip being fully on one main circuit board also reduced labor costs. Some console manufacturers (i.e. MCI in the US) continued to use transformers for their isolation qualities, but soon abandoned them because of several factors, mainly cost and audio fidelity). Once the 5534/5532 ICs came into being, console fidelity improved tremendously. Then it was merely the poor implementation of interstate coupling capacitors that continued to degrade the performance of cheaper consoles. The SSL 9000J is a servo coupled console… no interstate coupling capacitors… that sounds incredible in part, because the smearing phase distortion of those capacitors was eliminated. The NEVE 8108 and 8128 had a sound of their own, but were not really hi fidelity in their sonic signature. However, some cheaper consoles of that same era had a very lovable sonic footprint… Soundcraft being one of several.

The used 741 opamps in the Studiomaster might have lower dissipative heat, however they have higher distortion, noise, and lower slew rate than the NE5532. But I'm glad that the sound is cool!

Ive got that Atari like in the background; mine is in the shop hopefully getting out soon.

Hi! I hear a quite high noise floor from my headphones when you are plugged in the studio masters, more so when you're boosting with the EQ. Is it going to be a problem when many signals are running through the console?

Yessir

Please….these were a very ordinary desk in the day, complete with cheap short throw faders. The Soundcraft 200b ate them in every possible way and you can’t give them away now. “Analogue” is being bit overplayed on very ordinary 40 year old consoles.

Nice to see someone talking about the early Studiomasters. Can’t wait to hear the StudioMaster16into4 mix!

Your eq pots don’t crackle. I don’t understand how this is possible.

I have the 12-2c and i love it

500 watts from the Neve.. now we know why they got that "warm" sound reputation!

I worked on Studio Master 32 channel, they were old but good consol, after studio deside to change it with Mackie 32+16. Studio was on the Tascam MTR 24 1 inc multitrack recorder. The behinde consol has much more depth. Thank you.

I got a 16-8-2 5 series the EQ’s are incredible!