Classic Neve Consoles 1961 to date (Story #7)

Neve Limiter Compressors, ancient and modern !

After my revelations about the background concerning the design of the Neve 2254 Limiter Compressor I've had a few emails asking for details of other Limiter Compressors produced by Neve so here's a brief run down. . . some of them are a rare as mermaid's tears, chicken's teeth, rocking horse ****, etc.!

2262 This was basically a derivative of the 2254 using a motherboard construction but repackaged into a case that matched the dimensions, fixings, and McMurdo two row connector of the Pye Limiter Compressor produced around the same period. Not that many were made and, ironically, I've seen more Pye compressors in Studios than 2262's!

2264 (and its derivatives) was further derivative of the 2254 and, like the 2262, using a motherboard system of assembly and no more B183/283 Class A Output or transformer buffering the diode bridge. It was designed to slot into the space occupied by a standard 8.75" Neve correction unit and was the only 45 series module that I can recall that used an extruded aluminium top and bottom panel. The motherboard wedged into a slot inside this extrusion, trapped by steel expanding pins. The 2264 used an Ernest Turner Gain Reduction Meter that had to have the edges of its clear plastic bezel milled down to fit the module width. This in turn meant that the side edges of the meter were less than one millimetre thick and VERY prone to breaking when inserting the module into a console or rack! Ernest Turner are long gone but there are other meters that fit better to these modules.

(It's worth mentioning that special versions of both the 2254 and 2264 were made with switchable frequency compensation added to the side chains to enable their use as a De-Esser).

3314 was a 35mm wide derivative of the 2264 for the 53 range of Broadcast Consoles and their custom derivatives. The gain reduction meter was remote mounted.

The next three units are down to me, as Special Orders Manager, in terms of their design heritage (along with all the other hard working techs who assembled them!)

The 33609 (and its 33610, 11, and 12 derivatives) was two 3314 mother boards mounted in a substantial 19" x 2U rack housing along with the PSU card and 2N3055 from the 1777 power supply. It used the aluminium machine turned knobs from the 35mm range of Neve modules and a (legal at the time) EP4 mains connector. A mono version was available in the same case size (a waste of space I corrected later!) and stereo and mono versions were made without the mains PSU for operation on 24 volts. A later version was adapted to fit in the top of 8108/8128 consoles, strung across the complementary power rails. I tried steadfastly to have these units upgraded with a mains neon rocker switch to replace the expensive locking toggle switch and an IC regulator to replace the expensive 1777PSU but the changes (including Sifam Collet Knobs) took place much later, after I had left to firm.

33615 was a 19" x 1U Limiter Compressor made from a 3314 mother board inside a 12" module case. I used a LM3914 LED bar graph display module in lieu of an analogue gain reduction meter and an IC regulator based mains power supply. These units were sold to independent television companies in the UK.

Although not given a "legal" module type number, I designed the ancestor of the Prism rack based on the dynamics unit from the 51 series console in a 19" x 5.25" rack and sold to a very small number of customers due to opposition from the Neve MD (Laci Nester Smith). He was concerned that"competitive" console users would buy them instead of purchasing a Neve console. . . but just cause was found for selling the similar "V" based Prism rack after I had left!

There were also a number of small limiters produced that were designed to fit in the centre of a line amplifier (unbalanced inputs and outputs) and normally used as talkback limiters. The 3300 had separate input and output level pots which made precise level setting a bit hit or miss. The3310 addressed this problem by having a threshold control similar to its expensive siblings. There was also an obscure limiter fitted to one of the many versions of the PSM portable sub mixer (so rare I've forgotten its type number!) and a simple limiter fitted to the BA350 talkback amplifier.

On the subject of custom modules produced by the Special Orders Department, I designed a 19" x 1U tele-distort unit which produced a very convincing telephone simulation, not just because of the precise filter slopes, but because of the distortion generating circuit which could be swept from around 0.01% to 99%. . . and, probably, like me, you were curious why 99% distortion was necessary as I anticipated very low orders of distortion would be used for tele-effects. It turn out that the customer used the 99% to generate background (and unintelligible!) crowd noises.

Much later on (post Neve!) I redesigned this effects unit onto a single printed circuit board with a mains power supply, electronically (or transformer) balanced inputs and outputs, and sweepable filter slopes and distortion range. Besides making a brilliant tele effects module it would make a mind numbing instrument effects unit.

-Copyright © 2002 Geoff Tanner