When working with recorded audio, it is often crucial to return to a previous processor setting to achieve a desired sound. In-The-Box, this is achieved via presets. With classic hardware, you will most likely need recall sheets.
I have had the luck to work on a Trident TSM console recently. There weren’t any available recall sheets for this console on the high seas of the internet at that time, so I buckled down and made my own. Now, I’m giving them away in hopes that anyone will be able to perform a recall on a TSM console/channel employing these sheets in the future.
In my youth, my father used to play the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack LP frequently. The opening song, New Attitude by Patti LaBelle, has a perfectly produced intro. To this day, that 35 seconds of recorded, touchstone music helps to maintain my returning pursuit of Timeless Music. Much further down the road, the technique and process of how to create a great recording of a great performance of a great song brought me to the name Rupert Neve. Mr. Neve’s personal dedication and professional effort is behind some of the greatest musical tools ever created. In audio school, the word was that if you wanted to make a “real record”, use the Neve console; when you are serious, you will buy a Neve.
60 years later, there are a plethora of emulations of varying quality of Mr. Neve’s timeless circuit designs, software and hardware. One of the emulations most faithful to the “sound” of Mr. Neve’s original designs is the Seventh Circle Audio N72 Microphone Preamplifier. At a gain setting of 50dB and below, purportedly, it is identical. But if you want external access to the crucial microphone impedance settings, you’ll need to embody a piece of Rupert’s original enthusiasm for music and it’s preservation, and bust out the soldering iron and drill.
Here’s a guide in pictures.
The impedance jumper posts are next to the blue Carnhill transformer.Up is 300ohms, corresponding to (OFF). Down is 1200ohms, corresponding to (FLIP).
In 2018, I was able to do a session with Bonnie Sims, leader of the Colorado Front Range powerhouse Bonnie and The Clydes. We’d be working with Robbie Nevil on some new music that needed vocals. The songs would eventually be pitched and sold via a music licensing service, which means the song could end up really anywhere, from a car commercial to a feature film. The session was expectedly fun and went quite smooth. With all the hours of hard work, I hoped the songs would get some air under their wings. Well guess what….. One of the songs, I See Red, was used for a sexy Polish film called 365 Days. Last week, that film hit #1 on the Top 10 Popular Movies in the U.S. on Netflix.
Of course, I didn’t think ahead, but here’s the movie on my Netflix account. Unfortunately, I’m a week late with this screen shot, but #3 is STILL on the podium!
And when a movie is a hit, the songs in the movie can get huge! I See Red is currently at #1 on the Spotify Chart Global and U.S. Viral 50.
I am over-the-moon for Bonnie and Robbie! Their hard work has just paid off big time. As a musician and songwriter, you are constantly putting things out there. A video here, a new single there, trying to get some traction in a loud and noisy world. Glory like this doesn’t come along very often. I only flew ProTools for the vocal tracking session and I can feel it shining on me too. Bonnie truly found another gear in that session, and the quality of output has only been going up from there!
U87 into a Neve Preamp; gorgeous. And it’s still growing; the Youtube video for the song is approaching 9 MILLION VIEWS as of the writing of this blog. Do yourself a favor and check out what all the buzz is about!
