Hi

I'm thinking of going into the 'I want a vintage console' phase and Im very intrested in both the Neve 8068/8078.

Could anyone give me any vital information/anything to take into mind/personal experiences and a few hi quality pictures of these consoles as they are virtually non-existent on the web.

Anything would be appreciated

Thanks a lot for this

I'm I assume you are indepandant.y wealthy???

Hi

There's a few low quality ones here

Aurora Audio

make sure you're aware of what shape it's in and what's involved in order to get it up to par. if the desk isn't 100% original make sure you know what mods have been done and who has done them. MKII is preferable to MKI if you decide on an 8068.

8078 has 4 band EQ as opposed to 3 bands on the 8068. 8078s are harder to find than 8068s.

do your homework, or you may find you payed dearly for a romantic notion.

Make sure your power is completely steady for smooth use - otherwise
it will cause cards to keep going.

There is an 8068 currently for sale at Primal Gear in Nashville. There are a few decent pics of it at the link below.

NEVE 8068 CONSOLE GREAT CONDITION

Be ready to put money into it and have a good tech on speed dial...doesn't matter if its described as being perfect..they never are[especially beware of the brokers descriptions!!].chasing 25 plus year old bad switches,relays,faders bad caps/meters and mods is an ongoing thing..and can get frustrating & expensive really quickly.
I have a friend in LA who bought a nice one for 90K and has put another 30k into it and a year later it still needs stuff done to it.
but oh man does it sound GREAT!

Here´s Max Martin´s 8068:

I worked in a studio for 7 years that had a great 8068.

They do sound awesome. Especially for rock vibe. Think "Appetite for Destruction".

They always need stuff done to them. It's the nature of them and mainly why I'll never own one without a staff. The owner worked on that console all the time. I can't afford to do that.

Check to see if it's transformer inputs or non transformer inputs, they came in two options (8068). They were great for Salsa, Hard rock, Disco too, you want to talk about MEAT on tape, they could deliver it in spades.
I remember awesome patching ability on the rear panel, never turn it off, works best with Studer A 820 or 827's.
I haven't worked on one in 25 years. I would in a heartbeat.
Hope you have a lot of little screwdrivers, time, and friends who can help you keep it up.

You don't see many good salsa consoles these days.

man don't i know it. i had hoped my merengue console would cut it, but alas, it didn't .

Here's another chestnut in need of airing out:

ROFLMAO

Hi

I'm sorry but that's BS... you couldn't get any 80 series console with or without transformers. You are thinking about 81 and later series consoles.

The main problem with the 8058/68/88 is that the 12 channel wide buckets of modules were too heavy for the lower ISEP rails that support the back connectors to the modules. As a result, they rails sag and engagement of centre module's connectors in the bucket are compromised causing intermittent connections.

This is fixed by fitting bracing bars between the upper and lower ISEP rails.

Check that they are fitted!



PS What I think you are trying to say is check if they are all discrete transistor op amps or IC based OP Amps (BA440 vs BA640). My take on this is that it's audiophile hype and rumour. Neither amp is class A and the later amps were vastly superior performance... the BBC would not accept consoles fitted with the discrete amps due to their poor overload recovery. Neve thought the IC amps were better, the BBC laboratories thought the IC amps were better and I share their point of view. It's the iron makes the sound more than choice of amplifier.

Yeah, you're probably right about that, I got in years after the board did, but the head engineer said you have to check because there were some with transformer input, ours wasn't one.
How? I don't know, I'm no Neve expert, I just know about the desk I worked on and that was a looooonnnng time ago.

Hi Geoff,

Where can one get the blue gray cap that covers the LP filter? I have a 31102 module that is missing the cap on the LP filter. Is it best just to improvise and find some blue gray plastic sheet and have some one cut it out?

Are you sure it was an 8068 or 8078 that you worked on? I've never seen an 80xx series console without a million transformers inside.

I'm sure. It was in NY, it may still be there.

What studio was it?

Hi

The 8058/68 was the last standard console I had a hand in the design of before moving from Head of the Electrical Drawing Office to Custom Design Engineer in Sales Engineering. It was my suggestion to mix the channel and monitor solo busses into individual windings of the solo bus transformer.

The consoles either used a 31102 (modified 1084) or 31099 (modified 1073) channel amplifiers. They were modified in that the mic section, including transformer, was in the channel amplifier (31099, 31102) while the line input, including transformer, was in the routing unit and then sent back, post a level pot, to the channel amplifier. The routing unit also included the transformers for the channel insertion return.

These consoles were unique in that they were in line and also the bus amps were inside the bus assign modules at the top.

Neve never made a single 8000 series console (or 53 series for that matter) that wasn't full to the brim with transformers.

Methinks your memory is playing tricks... mine does sometimes and I put it down to my being 62!

Hi

On my site's Ask Geoff forum I have put, on the Neve Secrets forum, a list of the suppliers for most of the difficult to obtain Neve parts. You just register, I upgrade you to member, and then you can view this free info.

+1 for 8868.
In 2 years ours has had the usual maint... pots a little scratchy, 2 bulbs in VU meter's burn out, a couple LEDs
One resistor in an EQ channel, and a cap/resistor in a line module.

This includes having to be powered down and partially disassembled due to potential flood water (it didnt raise that high ,whew)

Like any other desk of this type, you're going to want to have at least a tech in the area, and someone (likely yourself) who is capable of going through each channel on a monthly basis to check for noisy pots/issues.
These boards at the ham AND the cheese

scott

I remember thinking they sounded like they were full of transformers, but, it was in the days before I started digging into the guts of them, It definitely had a combination of the aforementioned preamps in it. Maybe you been to the studio, Big Apple?
It could easily been my memory, when my son got sick I didn't sleep a wink for three years, nope, not one wink, got real sick after the third year and 2.5 months, I don't remember everything before that. I'm better now (debatable) but you really are on target with that. My son is doing great. Just bought him an SG, used, he's stoked!
Great job on that console if you haven't heard that before. I loved working on it.

I have an 8058 and I absolutely love the sound. That being said, and as my friend Roundbadge stated, I poured a bunch of money into it. I was told it was in good shape, but ultimately it needed new tantalum caps, etc... To make a long story short, I've spent about 30k getting it up to spec (which also includes buying 4 31102s that were absent) and I'm still dishing it out. Tanner is absolutely correct about the sag, that's the biggest issue with these desk. But once you get it all straightened out, they're amazing. Just passing signal through it and you'll wet yourself. For me, the perfect set up is an 8058/58/78 and an API side car.

Fred Hill once told me 8058s sounded better than 8068s but i can't clearly remember why now, something about the summing amps i think.

could someone elaborate on this? thanks.

how much is an 8068 these days?

I was quoted time ago something like 100k, and that was "as is", which means you have to put another 20-30k to take it completely apart and go thru every single switch, pot, cap, etc. Then if you want automation prepare $$ to put in some FF (FF v.2 now).

So I believe a good refurbished one with FF might go for what a brand new Duality costs today? (€160k+vat), except that it comes with half the channels and no recall. Not that the Duality sounds better or somthing, mind you, but at the end of the day it's about tools that get you through. 8068: Great desk, awesome sound, but big investment and high maintenance. I'd say it's a console only for busy facilities (with a tech in staff).

Well, at least the Neve has less things to reset, compared to others desks, each time you switch songs.

I gather you've never worked on an 8068?

Its like comparing driving around in a BMW compared to a Rolls Royce.

And the maintenance headaches is the same as owning an SSL console. If you are a one man show you need to feel technically savyy enough to fix certain problems that come up.

Amen brother.your's sounds ssooo good.pure rock n' roll custard pie
I think your pretty covered with the API racks now..next best thing to a 1604/08


..

No I never used a good 8068, but I played a bit with a really old and cracky Neve, dont remember which 80xx, that was so *fixed* by the technical stuff (officials at some gov radio) that the only original pieces left were on the top of the surface; almost everything inside was replaced after, as it was falling apart day in day out.

didn't sound too good either, compared to what the original should

An 8068mkII in excellent condition is a great ride for working on any kind of music. Its really a great sound coming off the board. Just monitoring off the board alone is a nice rush.Its actually a big dissapointment going back into digital off it. The biggest pet peeve though are the EQ's. As much as i love 31102's(my favorite of the Neve modules) the EQ is pretty limiting in terms of really digging or fixing tones.

But i hear you about working on badly maintained classic consoles. Some studios in the 90's weren't really kind to them. Its probably why i don't like working on API consoles. Everyone i ever worked on broke down in some way or another in the middle of the session. But i saw the same thing with SSL consoles. Lots of raggedy maintained consoles. I am talking real dogs & they really sounded like them. But one thing to remember this was back in the days when studios were running 24 hours aday so the turn over on sessions was great. To have someone on staff 24 hours aday was out of the question.

Also you could never really make a studio tech happy no matter how hard you tried.

There was always something as an engineer or studio owner you did wrong to the equipment all the time.