A 'Neve'er ending story (with pics)

Okay,

So here is what I have been up to over the past 2 months!!!!

Most of that just spent trying to source the parts form all over the world... one of the disadvantages living in Africa...












Some Background.

I had a client who had a bunch of old Neve 1271 cartridges he bought from a guy. The 1271 for those who don't know had a BA183AM board a 31267 on input (I wired them as per the JLM diagram when I racked them as pres ) and an LO1166 on Output and was typically used as a line amp much like the 1272.

He was sold them as working... which turned out not to be the case since someone had tried to stuff the rest of the cards, but couldn't tell an emmiter from a collector and that meant I had to rebuild the 'working' cards and I recapped them with some quality BC axials while I was at it.

I had 8 of these little beasts to rack and he needed them to take up as little space as possible... so we went with a 2U rack per 4 channels, each with the JLM Hot Rod Mod (Thanks to Greg for the boards and Joe for the design), Go Betweens, 2 DI's per rack and in the end it all got rather hairaising and required a lot of planning to fit it all in.

On Joe's advise I decided to keep the PSU onboard and build an external transformer box, and put the fuse on the transformer box for easy replacement and a nice lengthy cable to keep it far away and it is amazing how quiet they are now.

I designed some custom panels which I had engraved and I had Purusha silkscreen the rear panels for me as well as provide the racks.

All in all I think it turned out just spiffy, though I must warn you... don't try this at home... with all that off board wiring it took double the amount of time I budgeted for!!! But it was fun and I'm glad it is nearing the end and will end up being put to use making some fine sounding recording!

Soon I get back to my own DIY and that LA-2A is looking VERY tempting

Cheers

Matt

:shock: wow :shock:

One of these day, i'll have some Neve stuff like this...

Great job, professional look, nice clean layout...

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

thats purty

Absolutely, a beautiful build... nice work Matt !!!

The 1272 Hotrod is a solid preamp... I love mine !!!

Very nice job :thumb:

Very nice, as always. So this was a comissioned build? That's sucks. All that beautiful work and iron and you don't get to keep it. Parting is such sweet sorrow. :wink:

Wow--that's a lot of neeb in a small space. That rack is a couple of inches shallower than my 2U and I'm only putting 2 channels in mine. Nice job all around, Matt!

:thumb:
A P

DUDE!!!!
Whata great job you did, very clean and beautiful!!

kudos!

:guinness: :guinness:
Fabio

Hey Matta, apart your kindly words your an inspiration....i really dig the front panel design!! yeah the inside box work too! the transformer case awesome!

don't try this at home... with all that off board wiring

Click to expand...

what are you thinking? that's why i let go mine a week ago! :green:

Hey Guys,

Thank you all so much for your good wishes and compliments, I feel like blushing

Very nice, as always. So this was a comissioned build? That's sucks. All that beautiful work and iron and you don't get to keep it. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it is VERY much a commissioned build! I WISH all that lovely Iron was mine, but alas it isn't

I don't feel TOO bad as I already own my own pair which I built a while back and right now there is more sweetness in these leaving cause it means I get paid, Hah hah!! I can actaully afford some Xmas presents now :green:

Here is my own unit:



Cheers

Matt

Matt
i`m out of words.
best regards
pedro

rock out with your.......out!

damn, I suck.

Fantastic work, as always, Matt! The box looks just capital.

What struck me in particular was, I used yellow LEDs on a bunch of my boxes, starting out replacing pilot lamps behind yellow jewels. I decided I didn't like the look of yellow, and switched to lavender. Anyway, the yellows look great on your frontpanel. The holders make it work and maintain that classic feel.

You people.......with your fancy boxes and perfect silkscreen.

You make me sick.

It looks way to good.

:evil: :razz: :thumb:

AWESOME!
VERRRRRY nice indeed!
Mattia.

Matta,
good work, and nice build - would like to see more of this stuff :thumb:

Hah hah,

Thanks for all the kind words... to those that may or may not remember here is the 'Ghetto Box' the first DIY piece I ever made, almost a year and a half ago... a dual Green Pre and a Calrec EQ...



I drilled over sized holes and had to put on metal washers around the push button switches because it looked so bad without them.


I hated the metal work part and so I decided that since I was putting so much time into these projects I may as well go the extra step and do a nice panel. Most of them have non silk screened rears, but the last couple have had them.

Here a couple pieces I've built for myself:









I'm slowly growing my personal collection and one of these days, prob next year I will rack them all and shoot a couple pics, I think they look kinda neat :?

The scary thing is 2 years ago I hadn't even soldered a cable... but through this Forum, books like the one you can see in the Neve pics and scouring the net it is slowly all making sense :thumb:

Cheers

Matt

Speechless...............drooling......
File those babies under contemporary art...

W.

Great looking stuff!

Hi Matta,

Hu gaan dit(?), sawubona!!

Very nice projects you got under your belt....for 2 years of DIY, that is impressive.

All the best,

glide 1