[Dixielandjazz] 1926 recording

[James Kashishian]

Dick wrote:

>Englishman, (your countryman - be proud) Rupert Neve is said to be the
>inventor of the modern mixer. 

I'm not all that sure that Rupert would be that much help in solving the
mysteries of 1926 recording.  His big effort was really in the designing
of a truly marvellous, even for today, mic preamp....not to mention some
classy EQ bits.

I first saw his mixers here in Spain in the late 1960's.  He was married
to a Spanish speaking woman (South American), and was therefore able to
get a lot of his mixers into Spain, due to some knowledge of the
language.  Not a bad thing, mind you.

He sold his company, Neve to Siemens in the 90's, and went on to develop
a new company called Focusrite.  He sold one Focusrite mixer, a few EQ's
& mic preamps under that brand, then sold that company.  He now licenses
his name off to people like Amek (analogue mixer company). 

Eventually, Siemens bought AMS, another English company.  AMS ate up
smaller Neve, became AMS Neve, A Siemens Company.  I was already the
Spanish distributor for AMS when they became this new company.  Little
"one-man-band" Kash Productions S.A. became sole distributor in Spain
for AMS Neve products, to much teeth grinding at Siemens, Spain!  My
sales were way over the top of the Siemens team, so they lost!  (Nice,
the little guy wins from time to time!)  Then, AMS Neve became private
again, having bought itself back out of Siemens.

AMS Neve, plc used their digital technology + Neve's experience from the
very expensive Capricorn digital mixer to become one of the biggest
names in digital mixers for music, film and broadcast.  They still do
analogue (the new, and very expensive 88), and boast of excellent EQ &
preamps. 

You can hear 650 channels of AMS Neve digital audio on the new Matrix
film, and the next Matrix (which is already being mixed) is using 850
channels!!! 

Recently, Rupert's original design of the 1081 mic preamp/Eq unit has
been brought back, with every inch the same as in the early '80s.  It
sells well in the U.S., where they like the retro thing. 

Jim