Classic Neve Consoles 1961 to date (Story #5)

Special Neve Consoles

Here is a test for Neve aficionados! What colour should a particular Neve console be?

The general answer is that the early consoles were black, they changed to RAF Blue Grey in the late 1960’s and then to the universally applied Extra Dark Sea Grey at the incorporation of New Appearance Design (NAD) around 1976.

The first NAD console was a BCM10 and very odd it looked with its extruded aluminium side flashes and black padded top. The design carried better onto the 8058/68 but disappeared on most subsequent consoles. All that remained was the colour, the custom knobs, lower case writing and those wonderful custom fader facias.

So any black consoles you see, built after 1976, are phonies? Again, generally yes, because a few philistines out there have re-sprayed old Neve consoles in black and other colours, but there was just one, very special and unique custom console, that left the factory post 1970 and was painted black.

This console was built for the Who's Ramport studio in 1977 and this 40 Channel 24 track console was REALLY built "money no object"!

The silk screening of the module front panels was achieved in two stages. First, a regular layer of white painted legends were printed and, over this, a second print of transparent orange. When installed in the studio ultra violet lamps shone down onto the console and the lettering and scales glowed a luminous orange.

Unlike the regular Neve woodwork, the cladding for this console was made from solid Rosewood and the buffer was black leather. I recall at the time that there was a request for the buffer to be made from one piece and much mirth was derived from imagining how we could get a single section of leather around one foot wide and twelve feet long ! In the end the buffer was manufactured in sections, stitched together.

This wonderful console is still going strong at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, who are just one of many of the Neve studios we were able to help by supplying previously unobtainable spare parts.

-Copyright © 2002 Geoff Tanner