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The other facility provided by the 1290 is an input select switch that provides settings for "LZ" (300 ohm) and "HZ" (1200 ohm) mic input loads as well as an oscillator input. The rest of the design is pretty much straight off the drawings of other class-A channel amps.
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Instead Neve used several 12k resistors strategically placed to minimize pop-inducing interaction between the gain stages being routed, and for the most part it worked quite well. On the 1290 their is no such "OFF" position. To avoid a very nasty (and potentially damaging) 'pop' when switching from two to three gain stages Neve engineers thoughtfully put an "OFF" position between them. Remember that gains up to 50dB use only two active gain stages, while the 55dB and above positions use all three. I mentioned in an earlier post about the various functions handled by the 'gain' knob on Neve channel amps: mic and line pad networks, signal routing between various gain stages, actual gain of one stage, etc.
VOLTAGE OUTPUT OF A NEVE 1073 PREAMP FULL
The preamp provides the same 20dB-80dB gain range design as the full blown Neve channel amps had save one practical difference - no "OFF" position between 50dB and 55dB gain settings. Because of its limited real-estate, however, the 1290 module only had room for the 10468 input transformer with any output transformer to be used located elsewhere outside the module. Housed in a module the exact same size as the 1272 (5.25" H x 1.8" W x 8.5" D), the 1290 featured the full mic preamp treatment with both preamp stages and an output stage. One is very much based on their common mic pre design and the other is. They apparently never intended them to be used for actual tracking duties.Īs far as actual, proper, class-A microphone amplifier modules that lacked EQ I know of exactly two models Neve made. That's it (as far as I have been able to determine). for the talkback mic in some early consoles. Given the reduced price of these non-EQ capable modules, coupled with their relative abundance (at the time), they quickly became the alternative choice for people who wanted a vintage class-A Neve preamp but who didn't have the coin for a full-blown channel amplifier.Īnd in the interest of full-disclosure (and because more informed readers are likely shouting at their computers right about now) I will concede that Neve did in fact use the 1272 as a microphone amplifier. Some enterprising folks realized that, given their component compliment, 1272's could rather easily be modified for mic preamp duty, so they got modded and/or sold off as well. So back in the 1980s, as people started tearing apart older Neve consoles to rack up and sell off the channel amps they were left with lots of 1272 bus amp modules. I must say I am personally a fan as evidenced by my own Rascal Audio microphone amplifier designs. Whether it is better or worse is in the ears of the beholder. Above this, however, and you have to squeeze more gain out of one or both stages, which can sound good, but technically differs from the performance of the proper mic preamp design at higher gains. As such it can be modified for proper mic preamp use up to 50dB total gain. While intended for lower total gains, the 1272 bus amplifier nevertheless makes a great alternative to the proper mic preamp modules in that it shares the same input and output transformers as the mic preamps as well as one of the preamp stages and the output stage. Gains up to 50dB are provided by one of the preamp stages and the output stage, while higher gains use both preamp stages with the output stage. Neve's proper class-A microphone amplifier design, used in all their channel amplifiers discussed so far in this series, consisted of a 10468 mic input transformer (a twin-bobbin, hi-nickel affair wound by either Marinair or St.Ives), two, identical preamp gain stages, an output stage, and a large, steel-core output transformer (wound only by Marinair). So why has a bus amp become so popular as a mic preamp? To understand why this is so it is worth briefly discussing what actually made up a proper microphone preamp back in the class-A days of Neve. So question: can you name a Neve module that features a class-A mic preamp without the EQ? "Of course," some of you just said, "I have a pair of 1272's, and they don't have EQ." The 1272 is probably the most well-known class-A Neve mic preamp module that lacks an EQ, but did you know the 1272 wasn't actually a mic preamp at all? It was a bus amp used to drive bus outputs, aux sends, etc. Everyone is familiar with the Neve class-A channel amps, especially the 10 which are back in current production (and, of course, those who have read my previous Neve installments now know far more about lots of other models!).