Rupert Neve 517 - 500 series DI/Pre/Comp - Manual (Page 6)

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sound may well have a flawed data bank! Quality recording equipment should be capable of retaining
“natural” sound and this is indeed the traditional measuring stick. And “creative” musical equipment
should provide the tools to manipulate the sound to enhance the emotional appeal of the music without
destroying it. Memory and knowledge of real acoustic and musical events may be the biggest tool and
advantage any recording engineer may possess.
One needs to be very careful when one hears traces of distortion prior to recording because some flavors
of distortion that might seem acceptable (or even stylish) initially, may later prove to cause irreparable
damage to parts of the sound (for example, “warm lows” but “harsh sibilance”) or in louder or quieter
sections of the recording. Experience shows that mic preamps and basic console routing paths should
offer supreme fidelity otherwise the engineer has little control or choice of recorded “color” and little
recourse to undo after the fact. Devices or circuits that can easily be bypassed are usually better choices
when “color” is a consideration and this particularly is an area where one might consider comparing
several such devices. Beware that usually deviations from linearity carry at least as much long-term
penalty as initial appeal, and that one should always be listening critically when recording and generally
“playing it safe” when introducing effects that cannot be removed.
1. Tsutomu Oohashi, Emi Nishina, Norie Kawai, Yoshitaka Fuwamoto, and Hishi Imai. National
Institute of Multimedia Education, Tokyo. “High Frequency Sound Above the Audible Range,Affects Brain Electric Activity and
Sound Perception” Paper read at 91st. Convention of the A.E.S.October 1991. Section 7. (1), Conclusion.
2. Miland Kunchur,Depart of Physics and Astronomy, University of South Carolina. “Temporal resolution of hearing probed
by bandwidth restriction”, M. N. Kunchur, Acta Acustica united with Acustica 94, 594–603 (2008) (http://www.physics.
sc.edu/kunchur/Acoustics-papers.htm)
3. Miland Kunchur,Depart of Physics and Astronomy, University of South Carolina.Probing the temporal resolution and
bandwidth of human hearing , M. N. Kunchur, Proc. of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA) 2, 050006 (2008)
517 USAGE NOTES
The 517’s feature set allows it to be used in many different ways in the studio. Here are a couple
creative things to try:
For vocals, take two mics, your favorite condenser plugged into the Mic Input, and a SM57 or SM58 set
up 6 inches closer to the vocalist and plugged into another mic pre, then into the 517 Inst Input. Adjust
Vari-Phase to taste, and maybe add some light compression from the 517 followed by your usual vocal
compressor, which may behave even nicer because of that touch of “pre-compression” from the 517.
The 517 can also be a very useful tool on multi-miced sources like drums. A snare drum mic for
instance can be amplified, compressed and phase alligned to the rest of the kit (especially the
overheads) when changing mic placement alone isn’t satisfying. This technique can be extremely useful
when recording in a home studio environment, with fewer placement options available.
Used with a synthesizer, the blend can be used to mix together or alternate between the tones from a
room capture off an amp and the direct signal. As the blend is turned towards mic, the “room” signal
becomes more prevalent. When blend is closer to direct, the signal is drier. The variphase, silk and
compressor controls may also be incorporated for additional effects.