Rupert Neve

Sound and Vision 1986

Rupert Neve, Record Plant Recording Studios, LA 1986

Looking back on all your years in the industry, what do you think your most significant contribution has been?

Well, it’s hard to say that there’s any one contribution. I think I fell into the professional field in the early ’60s at a time of opportunity which has never existed since. It was just when the idea of stereo was taking root. In the late ’50s, the record companies began recording everything 2-track stereo in case stereo really caught on. The studios were finding this to be a very expensive thing to do, and very impractical. They were looking for some better ways of doing it. Big companies were producing audio consoles in a very stylized format. There was Siemens of Austria, and Neumann, and one or two other German firms. There was PYE and EMI in England, and one or two firms over here in America. The time was ripe for someone to come in ....