“He was the Steve Jobs of audio”: how Rupert Neve changed the sound of music | Music

“Min my opinion, all different rock records are not based on a structure or a melodic line, or a rhythm – but on a sound, ”said Brian Eno in 1979. He was giving his historic talk, The Studio as a Compositional Tool , in New York, showing how, in a recording studio, “you can do what the classical composer couldn’t: you can extend the timbre of any instrument endlessly … and you mix it all up. as you wish”. The mixer, he said, “is really the central part of the studio.”

This weekend, the music community said goodbye to an essential part of this mixer history: Rupert Neve, the British-born sound engineer and innovator whose beloved creations over a career staggering 80 years have changed the sound of recorded music. Neve, who died at the age of 94, was to music what Steve Jobs was to computers and Terence Conran was to design. “Rupert Neve. I can’t describe your influence on anyone who’s ever made music, ”1975’s Matty Healy posted to Instagram on Sunday. Songwriter Frank Turner said, “The sound of every record you love has been shaped by his work.”

In 2015, Neve reflected on one of his first innovations: “You bring in a group of musicians and do a recording; and they find that the guitar is a bit lost. So what are you doing? Are you bringing all the musicians back? Scouring the various nightclubs and so forth that they all disappeared into last week? Collect them again and re-record? Very expensive, difficult. A revolution was necessary. “Is there a way to change this mix?” he wondered. “Well, EQ occurred to me.”

Equalization, or equalization, is the process of managing and balancing different frequencies in a sound – giving it more or less bass, perhaps, or removing some disturbing harmonics. It allows sounds and instruments to fit together in a mix and is an essential component of mixing consoles. Neve’s signature EQ design would become one of his flagship achievements, precipitating what would become the “Neve sound”.

As a child, Neve had fun repairing and building radios before volunteering for communications with Royal Signals at the age of 17 during World War II. After returning to England, Neve developed a mobile system for recording choirs and public events, as well as sound systems used by Princess Elizabeth and Winston Churchill. In 1960 he was commissioned to build his first audio mixing console. His first company, Neve Electronics, was born in 1961.

Neve designed the altarpieces for several of the world’s best recording studios, including Abbey Road, Kinks’ Konk Studios, New York’s Electric Lady, and George Martin’s AIR studios in London and Monserrat. “George had become a trusted friend, much more than a client,” Neve recalls after Martin’s death in 2016. “I wasn’t a musician and he helped me understand the finer nuances of his approach. .

The venerable Sound City Studios in Los Angeles also housed a Neve console. When Foo Fighter Dave Grohl learned that the resort’s Studio B was going to close, he inquired about the purchase of his rare Neve 8028, having maintained a loving attachment to the mixing console since Nirvana recorded Nevermind over two decades. earlier. “The Neve cards were considered the Cadillac of recording consoles,” Grohl told NPR. Unfortunately for Grohl, the Neve was in Studio A and not in Studio B. The head of the studio told him, “I would sell my grandma before I sell this board.”

When Sound City closed its commercial operations in 2011, Grohl was the first to buy it. He went on to cast him for the lead role in the 2013 movie Sound City, his love letter to the studio and the culture around him. “Whether it was Tom Petty or Lindsey Buckingham or Chris Goss or Josh Homme,” he told NPR, “everyone had a story about sitting in front of this board… it’s kind of a ‘spiritual experience.’ Neve appeared in the film talking to Grohl, who was intimidated. “When Rupert Neve starts to get this deep, technically I – I’m lost,” he confessed. “He’s a genius.”

Neve will hold a special place in music history as a man whose genius reliably hummed in the background. Even his 1997 technical Grammy, a lifelong achievement, pales in comparison to his musical heritage. As an Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry said in a tribute: “It’s amazing how a man can touch so many lives in a positive way and yet most people won’t know who he is… but we do !!!!!”