While many engineers, producers and artists are drawn to vintage mixing desks, their refurbishment can be time-consuming and costly. When a vintage Neve desk at the Blue Man Group studios in Manhattan presented Creative Development Music Director Todd Perlmutter with the problem, he turned instead to a new 32-channel Rupert Neve Designs 5088 discrete analogue mixing console.
In collaboration with technical service and wiring company dB Sound Design and studio furniture specialist Sterling Modular, Perlmutter has now finished converting the 5088 into a one-of-a-kind console incorporating 16 1064 and 16 original 1081 mic preamp/EQ modules in a custom penthouse section. ‘My mics come in and go through my 1081 mic preamps, which go straight to the tape machine,’ he says. ‘Each tape machine monitor output goes right into the fader on the same channel. When I go to mix, if I want to put the 1081 EQ in, I just take the channel out of “tape” and it switches to the signal from tape going directly through the EQ. I work in Pro Tools but I also do fully analogue, old-school recording, so this is so much cleaner, so much more direct.’
When he first brought a tape session into the new desk, he was pleasantly surprised, ‘The first thing I noticed was that I could throw the faders up and hear everything right away; I didn’t even have to spend time getting the mix together. The amount of murk that disappeared with the 5088 was remarkable. Everybody noticed it immediately.’
There was already a classic Neve 8048 console in a tracking room at the former Loho Studios on Manhattan’s Lower East Side when Blue Man Group established its rehearsal and production facilities there. Perlmutter subsequently discovered that he could buy a new Rupert Neve-designed console for about twice the cost of refurbishing the old 8048. Initially planning to rack-mount the modules from the 8048 for use with the new console, he and Jeff DelBello, of New Jersey-based dB Sound Design, soon discovered that the modules were almost exactly the same width as a 5088 channel. ‘We came up with the idea of putting it all together into one console, one standalone item that could one day be moved if necessary,’ says DelBello.
DelBello delivered the modules and frame parts from the 8048 and an old Neve film console that had been in storage to Sterling Modular in Boyertown, PA. ‘They assembled the frame again for us, but there were some challenges,’ he says. ‘Neve never made buckets larger than 12 modules wide. The weight of the modules would cause bowing or sagging in the center of the bucket. Sterling was able to reinforce the chassis to allow 16-channel buckets to be built and keep the modules centered over the 5088 input channels.’ DelBello wired the 1064 and 1081 modules into the 5088 frame, along with a number of custom panels and a DK-Technologies MSD series surround sound meter display in the 5088’s center section.
According to Jim Maher at Sterling Modular: ‘Because the 1081 modules were larger than the 5088 penthouse, we designed an entirely new penthouse with additional dividers and structure. At the same time we built in the DK meters and provided space for additional controls. We then added a matching 19-inch-wide patchbay and fabricated custom mahogany side trims to finish it off.’
The first project for the new 5088 was a 5.1 mix of a Blue Man Group piece promoting Panasonic 3-D televisions. Perlmutter had previously performed 5.1 mixes on Blue Man Group’s SSL console, but notes: ‘The way that we were able to set up the busses and the auxes on the 5088 was just as easy to do without having to make any modifications.’ Perlmutter reports that the 5088 console will now get a good workout on a busy summer schedule of music production, audio and video post production, and sound design for Blue Man Group shows in Japan and aboard Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Epic, as well as for its US National Tour beginnin in the autumn.
More: www.sterlingmodular.com
More: www.rupertneve.com
