In this excerpt from “Start to Finish: Vance Powell - Episode 1 - Blackbird Studio A Tour & Setup” Vance Powell gives a brief tour of the custom modifications made to the glorious old Neve 8078 console which forms the centrepiece of Nashville’s Blackbird studio A.
Originally built for Motown’s LA operation in 1978, this console was subsequently bought by Steely Dan’s Donald Fagan. When it was bought by Blackbird’s John McBride he enlisted the services of Geoff Tanner, a former Neve employee who worked on this console when it was built. John says he spent more on the subsequent refurb and modifications than he did buying the console!
Custom Modifications
In the video Vance walks through the mods which include changing the desk from a split to an inline format, moving the faders from the input to the monitor path and re-purposing the front-rear pan control from this Quad-capable console to a small fader role for the input path.
Find out about these and other mods on this beautiful console in the free video extract below:
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