Vintage King Restores A Custom Neve 8078 Console For Prime Studio

Back in 2023, when we spoke to Gerhard Buchbauer of Prime Studio in Austria, he mentioned that Vintage King was in the process of restoring a vintage Neve 8078 console to add to the studio’s already impressive offerings. Fast forward to this year, and the console is now in pristine working condition, being used extensively in their brand new Studio D, and from what Gerhard tells us, it fits seamlessly into the Prime Studio workflow.

We sat down with Gerhard recently to find out more about the entire refurbishment process. Read on to learn why Prime Studio chose Vintage King to lead the process of acquiring and restoring the console, what their goals were for the refurbishment, how the pandemic added further challenges to the process, and why the console is the right choice for their global clientele. 

What’s been happening at Prime Studio since we last spoke in 2023?

We have been busy expanding our studio facility with an additional Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 control room alongside a recording room, which was built to serve in additional work situations like green screen video shoots, artist and product photography, as well as social media production.

The construction work for the new rooms took approximately two-and-a-half years, and we finally installed the studio equipment during the first quarter of 2025, right after we received the Neve 8078 from Vintage King.

What drew you to this particular Neve console for your studio?

Normally, 8078s are huge, but this is a mid-sized console, and we had been on the lookout for a Neve console in this particular size for quite a few years. It offers expanded monitoring functionality as well as the special 1095 preamp/equalizer modules, which are nearly impossible to find anymore. It’s got 54 audio channels and a very decent 32-channel monitoring facility, which is what we were searching for. 

Only a few consoles of this type have been made, and they are highly sought after because of their unique tonality, which is why they are barely available for sale. We found out about this particular console around the beginning of the pandemic, got in touch with the previous owner, and he was willing to sell, so that's how it all started. We were lucky! 

How did Vintage King become involved in the process?

It was super important for us to have a smooth transaction. The console was situated in Chicago, and we are in Europe, which is quite a long way across the pond. Also, during the pandemic, we weren't allowed to fly to Chicago, so we needed a partner to do the brokering, decommissioning, packing, and transportation so that we could be sure from the beginning of the whole acquisition process that everything went smoothly. That's when I got in touch with Jacob Schneider at Vintage King. They helped a lot in acquiring the desk, getting it to the Vintage King facility, and then we went more in-depth into the technical aspects of the restoration.

What was your goal for the restoration of the console?  

We wanted this console to be as close as possible to its original specs to make sure its particular sound will be available for many years to come, which is why we wanted to have it restored in-depth. Also, as this console is especially going to be used for mixing at Prime Studio, it was highly important for us to have a solid and reliable automation system as well. 

It was actually in very good shape; the previous owner took very good care of it. The customizations that had been made throughout the years, which were useful, have been kept and refurbished as well. 

Due to our technical needs in the new control room, we also decided to modify the desk and get a remote patchbay, which involved a lot of work on the looms during refurbishment. That was a lot of additional work for the tech guys at VK, and they did a tremendous job! It’s a pristine desk, fits perfectly in our room, fulfills our needs, and works perfectly. 

Tell us more about some of the refurbishments that were made. 

Besides recording, we mainly use the console for analog mixing, so we had to make sure that it has a working moving fader system. As I mentioned before, we wanted to have a reliable automation system, so we decided to replace the GML fader system that came with it, which unfortunately was not complete, with a new Martin Sound Flying Faders II system. We upgraded the console with that, and now it is a rock-solid system. 

We've been using this system on another desk in Studio A for many years, so we're also quite used to it. It does a very good job, so it was also important for us that we had the same workflow here in Studio D, which speeds up things when changing rooms. We also changed the layout of the patchbays so that they fit better into our work environment. 

What was most important was to have a stable moving fader system to work with Pro Tools and to integrate everything that we already had at the studio with the console.

Were there any challenges during the restoration process?

With vintage gear, and a console especially, it is getting more and more difficult to get replacement parts. For this specific task, it was quite challenging to get some potentiometers for the auxiliary sends, and we had to wait quite a while to get those parts. But VK did a great job in seeking where to get the parts, getting everything in time, and being able to restore the desk to its former specs because this was the goal we wanted to achieve; to keep it as original as possible, as with all our equipment. 

At Prime Studio, we specialize in offering our clients rare and really great-sounding vintage equipment, so it's very important to have it sound as original as possible. It was quite a challenge and more so because of the fact that it was done during the pandemic. 

As far as I remember, from the time we acquired the desk to it being at the studio took about four-and-a-half years, but it was worth the wait. It’s finally here and is already in use every day, so it was a great investment, and I think it will do a really great job over the next few decades! 

What was it like working with the VK team on the restoration?

Working with the guys is always great! Every time we start a new project, we get in touch, go through details, and discuss what is going to make sense or what we should do differently to get things working the way we would like it to. We had a lot of Zoom conversations about technical things, laying out the new patchbay system, and other aspects regarding the refurbishment of the console. 

The thing with such a huge desk is that it’s always a big deal to get it properly packaged and crated. It was sent over by air freight, and that was a very, very demanding task for the guys at VK to fulfill, but everything went smoothly, and it worked out flawlessly. The console arrived in pristine condition. Everything was safe and nothing had been broken, which can happen with transporting something this far, but everything was perfect. 

It’s really a blast working with the guys; it’s smooth and straightforward, and we're very happy to have support from VK.

How has the console impacted the workflow in the studio?

This console offers a very straightforward signal flow, which is what we were searching for anyway, because we're used to the Neve 80 Series workflow specifically. Everything is at hand, it is technically super reliable, and it prints that unparalleled sound to all signals being sent through it. That’s the way we prefer working on projects, as it lets you clearly focus on your final goal of supporting and enhancing the sound of great musical performances.

This console also offers a great monitor master section, so it is really straightforward and easy to do headphone mixes for performing artists in the recording session, which is crucial. It has the big advantage that we can completely do an analog monitor mix for the artists, which means that there are no latency issues at all. We have a hybrid setup, so we're recording using a Pro Tools system here, and considering the AD/DA conversion, there was always some latency that we wanted to get rid of for a few years now. This console really helps with doing that.

Like I mentioned before, we are prepping all our rooms now to offer complete analog monitoring systems so that signal-wise, everything is happening before the signal hits the DAW, so the musicians can really concentrate on the performance and are not interrupted at any time by any latency issues. 

Gear is great for supporting and enhancing the sound, but it needs to work, be reliable and stable, and the workflow needs to be fast, and this is exactly what this console offers.

Are there any other new pieces of gear, any other upgrades that you’re excited about?

We are concentrating now on renewing our monitoring systems in all the studio rooms, starting with Studio D and Control D. We have implemented a Wolff Audio monitoring system, which is completely analog, and we will change all our rooms to the system and adapt the wiring and everything to make sure that we have a completely latency-free monitoring system for all of our rooms. 

There is a lot of cool stuff happening in the digital domain, a lot of development going on, and we're always very curious and looking at the happenings in the market. We’re also always checking out and testing things that enhance workflow and audio production, both in a recording and mixing situation.  

Are there any exciting projects that you're working on that you can talk about?

We are currently doing a very nice production with an LA-based musician called Kirk Andrés Wilson, who is a great pianist and singer. He joined us in June this year to do recordings at Prime Studio, and we're currently in the process of mixing his new album.

Over the years, we have also made a name for ourselves in the industry as a recording studio that specializes in sampling of acoustic instruments. We recently put out a very nice virtual grand piano from Ravenscroft Pianos, which is situated in Arizona, USA. We are currently working on a new sample-based virtual instrument, which will expand our existing Prime Studio® product range based on the Native Instruments KONTAKT platform, and the 8078 plays a huge part during the recordings and refinements throughout the whole production of this new product. 

We’re currently doing the sampling process, and it will hopefully be ready to go to market by the middle of next year, so maybe there is a chance to get Vintage King involved with that to have a great sales partner for that product!

Learn more about this custom Neve 8078 console and see photos of the restoration process in our Around The Shop blog.

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If you’re interested in purchasing a vintage console for your studio, we're here to help! Contact a Vintage King Audio Consultant via email or by phone at 866.644.0160.