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Pro audio gear and live sound have always gone hand in hand, but taking consoles and outboard rigs on the road is making a big comeback. In particular, FOH engineers for Green Day, Dua Lipa, Lana Del Rey, and many more have been utilizing Rupert Neve Designs gear, including 5088 consoles, 19” rackmount units, and 500 Series modules.
With this in mind, we caught up with Vintage King Audio Consultant and live sound expert Hayden Flack to discuss some of the benefits of using Rupert Neve Designs gear in these settings. Read on to learn how the brand's pure analog power and coveted tone could play a role in your touring set-up.
“Shelford Channel is the ultimate, premier front-end channel strip. They are on every microphone for Paul McCartney and a few other major league tours,” Hayden says. “Newton Channel is also a fantastic option, and can be easier to control. In the live setting, this can be a huge plus, especially with fewer knobs to turn in a dark amphitheater.”
If you’re looking for preamps and want to work them into your rig’s Dante flow, the RMP-D8 is an incredible option. This 2U rackmount unit features eight Class-A mic preamps with the weight and tone you’d expect from Rupert Neve Designs gear, along with 48V phantom power, polarity reverse, input pad, and high-pass filter controls.
That’s not all, though, as the RMP-D8’s onboard converters and Dante capabilities are gamechangers. The unit features 24-bit/192 kHz Mastering-Grade Converters with precision-controlled internal clocking and enhanced jitter reduction. The Dante section includes a Primary Dante Network Port, which provides the main Dante Network connectivity and connection to a controller on your computer. There’s also a Secondary Dante Network Port for Redundant network applications.
“It’s the best of both worlds, true RND-style preamps with Dante I/O,” Hayden states. It’s extremely simple and effective to add to any Dante-based system.”
DI boxes have always been indispensable tools in the touring world, and Rupert Neve Designs offers an extremely well-rounded family of options in all shapes and sizes. Each box or rackmount unit shares the same design concept, utilizing custom Rupert Neve Designs transformers and discrete FET input stages. There’s the RNDI-8 (8-Channel), RNDI-S (Stereo), RNDI (Single-Channel w/ Instrument/Speaker Level Option), and RNDI-M (Single-Channel w/o Instrument/Speaker Level Option).
Moving on to the world of compression, Rupert Neve Designs offers a wide range of options. In terms of standalone dual-stage and stereo compressors, there are the OptoFET and the Diode Bridge Compressor. The OptoFet is the brand’s latest release and combines two distinct compression styles into one unit, with dual-stage and dual-band modes that let you creatively assign the compressors.
“I’d go with opto compression for smooth vocals and acoustic stringed instruments, and then use aggressive FET compression for loud vocals, bass guitar, and drums,” Hayden says. “Then you can blend both compression styles for unique effects. It can also be used as a bus compression option when combining at least two units in stereo.“
The Diode Bridge Compressor is a single-unit stereo bus compressor that can add weight and tonality to anything that passes through it, just like the legendary 2254.
“We’re talking that classic Rupert Neve bus compression here, it brings out transients which are often lost or squashed with digital compression found on live mixers,” states Hayden.
The Master Bus Processor has a two-channel design, with Channel A and B both featuring comprehensive compressor and limiter sections (along with Red and Blue Silk), followed by a Stereo Field Editor.
While the Master Bus Processor focuses on compression, limiting, and stereo field, the Master Bus Transformer has five sections, several of which can be brought into or out of the signal flow. Things start with an Input section, followed by a two-band EQ with three octave ranges, an optical compressor, a Width section, and an advanced Silk section, which lets you blend Blue and Red together, before ultimately hitting the Output stage.
“The MBT has simple controls and can make an instant impact on your sound,” Hayden says. “The MBP has similar concepts, but lets you take more surgical control for more precise results.”
“If you want to sum your busses in the analog domain, these summing mixers allow you to retain headroom, transients, and stereo imaging,” says Hayden.
Rupert Neve Designs offers three summing options: the 5060 Centerpiece (24x2), 5059 Satellite (16x2+2), and 5057 Orbit (16x2). Both the 5059 and 5057 are rackmountable, befitting touring racks. The 5059 Satellite has more features, including Level, Pan, Insert, and Stereo-2 Sends. The 5057 Orbit provides a simpler solution with the same tone, depth, and clarity.
While we’ve mostly talked about using studio-based pro audio gear in the live setting, it would be foolish of us not to mention the 5045 Primary Source Enhancer. This piece of gear from Rupert Neve Designs is specifically designed for FOH Engineers and has been used by the touring crews of Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, blink-182, Nine Inch Nails, and many more.
So what makes the 5045 so special? It reduces feedback! The scourge of every live sound engineer and patron alike. The 5045 is similar to a noise gate in that it reduces gain when no signal is present, but it does so without filtering or digital processing. The controls are extremely simple, and your sound stays intact the way you have it dialed in.
“The 5045 is literally the best invention since sliced bread,” Hayden says. “Every single venue and tour needs these. Total feedback elimination without sacrificing tone. Nothing else on the market comes close.”
“Lots of hired gun FOH guys fly with a 500 Series rack and inject it into the digital console they happen to be using that night,” Hayden states. “Also, if you’re in a higher channel count situation with a lower budget, 500 Series can be the perfect answer.”
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