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Brokered by Providence: Tony Maserati’s Vintage Neve 5316

Providence Sound and Vision is honored to represent Tony Maserati for the sale of his Neve 5316 console. It was the centerpiece and sound of so many of his hit records over the years and now it’s ready for its new owner to carry the torch. In this video, Tony talks about this history, partial discography, and care put into this console.

Do you have a beloved recording console that you’re looking to broker through Providence? Contact us today with a brief description and photos of your console and we’ll let you know if we’re interested!

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Jeff Ehrenberg: Hi, Jeff here with Providence Sound And Vision. I’m here with Tony Maserati and his beautiful Neve 5316 console. 

We’re going to be brokering this console for him and before we put it on the market he’s going to tell us a little bit about the history of the console, and some of the records he made on it.

Tony Maserati: I’d like to tell you a little bit about this 5316 that I’ve had now for 20 years. Many of you may know that I work in a hybrid way, in essence, I do my automation and a lot of work internally – in the box, as its called – in Pro Tools.

But, I also have a lot of hardware inserts and I do summing externally. Even before I got the Neve, I would do summing on my SSL, if I happen to be at Record Plant or Hit Factory or Jungle City or a place like that. Sometimes I would even put my controller on top of the big giant Neve or SSL console that happened to be in the room. 

After a while, I started working in dedicated rooms, in my own spaces. I built a small studio control room in my barn, up in the country above New York City. And I often would travel a lot, so I would do work in the box and then bring it to the barn and split it out. 

The Neve soon became the center of that work – one of the biggest records of course done on the Neve was the Jason Mraz record, We Sing We Dance We Steal Things. That whole album was done using the Neve as my summing.

I also had a lot of analog hardware inserts that I used at that point as well. I even have a rack of 31114s – which are the eqs that are in this 5316 – that I would use as well as hardware inserts.

The main focus and the main reason why I purchased the Neve was to add color, to create a sound that gave me 1. more headroom than an in the box mix and 2. was something familiar to me, because I was used to mixing on consoles. I just didn’t want to use the automation on a console any longer.

This Neve is about 1974, I purchased it from a gentleman who ran a voiceover studio. I had it serviced only by experienced top techs in New York and here in Los Angeles as well. We never changed anything at most we just recapped. We kept the patch bay as it was when I purchased it. We did very little to change anything at all. Obviously if something was damaged we tried to find and sourced original material to replace it. Richie Boisits was one of the techs that I relied on in New York City, he worked at Hit Factory and Sony Studios. At the time here in Los Angeles, I’ve been lucky enough to get the services of Lawrence Malakos who also works at East West Studios. So again, I’ve tried to stick with top techs who know Neve consoles and I’ve done very little to change anything about the console.

Throughout its history I’ve mixed John Legend through the console, I’ve mixed Kelly Roland, I’ve often even today we’re using it on an artist named Gant, and I’ve mixed all of his records using the Neve. It’s a sound that I use and rely on – I’m selling it because I’m quite mobile these days. You know, going to Europe, bouncing from east coast to the west coast, and anywhere in between. So maintaining the Neve and calibrating the Neve has become a little more cumbersome. And that’s why I’ve decided to let go of this console, and as you can imagine it’s quite difficult to do.

We’ll go into the modules themselves as well, its a 12 channel console with four groups, obviously stereo bus. Everything is original, it has just been calibrated and recapped by Lawrence. It currently has two compressors in line of 11 and 12 and I like them. You can plug into them separately on the patch bay, they actually have meters as well.

I use those, all the time and love them. The summing – its just got so much headroom and thats the biggest reason why I’ve kept this for so long. I don’t necessarily use the monitor section, but have in the past when I was doing recording. The Neve has been at the center of a fair bit of my work, one of the records I used the Neve for: in 2009 I was working on Alicia Keys’ record. I was actually mixing in a hotel room nearby her studio. Any chance I got I would run up to the barn studio a couple hours North and I would print things through the Neve. And even to this day I work that way with my analog setup including the Neve. 

Perhaps I’ll like the sound of a bass or vocal or whatever it happens to be that’s coming through the Neve and I’ll just commit it and print it and then bring it back in. Which is one of my favorite ways of working because I get the best of both.

Some of you may also know my plugins from Waves, in the guitar plugin and the vocal plugin, I took an IR of one of the 31114s – some of you may know my plugins have different settings. So you start with a male voice or one, two and three, whatever it is, and each one of those settings is a different equalization that comes directly from this Neve console. That, to me, was very useful during the Jason Mraz record – I would do that quite often. Waves has a plug-in that allows you to grab an IR of an EQ which is just terrific and it works really great. John Legend was done in a very similar way, I can’t think of a project that I didn’t use the Neve for because it’s based on my whole setup. 

Quite often, I’ll be working in the box and I’ll think ‘oh I need just a little extra’ and I’ll put it through the Neve and get that extra that I need whether it’s the headroom or just the sonic quality of it. 

So I’m very excited that Jeff Ehrenberg and his company decided to broker this console with me. Those of you who know me and know Neve, know that this kind of piece of equipment is a family heirloom and I’ve known Jeff for a very long time and I know the projects that he’s worked on and the people he works with and I’ve always been happy to work with him. He’s always taken care of me, so if there is anything that you need, any questions you might have for me, please reach out to Jeff. Obviously if you are interested in seeing the console in person reach out to Jeff and we’ll make that happen.

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