Rupert Neve- the audio engineer extraordinaire passes away, passing on a legacy
If I had my say about my career when I was a teen, I would have said that I wanted to be a rock musician- never mind the fact that I didn’t, and still don’t, know how to play an instrument or sing.
I grew up in a rather conservative household with conservative dreams of becoming a worker-guy; you know, like a software engineer.
But once I became a regular worker guy, if someone had told me I could become anything I wanted, I would have opted to become a sound engineer.
Never mind the fact that I don’t know the first thing about sound engineering.
The idea that the sound studio is as important an element in the music making process as anything is nothing new.
I think this idea came to the forefront of our sonic consciousness during the 60s, with the rock n’roll explosion.
Listening to many an album from that era, one got the distinct sense of how audio manipulation not just adds to the aura of the music but actively becomes part of the compositional process.
Rupert Neve, the British-American audio engineer who recently passed away, has been at the forefront of innovations that made audio mixing an art in its own right.
His take on EQ design and sound manipulation has influenced and defined music for eight decades. In other words, if you are a listener of modern pop music, you have listened to Neve’s handiwork.
Even if he was not involved in the production of a work you are consuming, you can be sure that his influence is all over that piece of work.
One of my favourite audio engineers is Nigel Godrich (Among other bands he works with are Radiohead- my favourite band).
Listening to any album or song for which Godrich has lent his considerable talents, you get the same sense of wonder that you get while listening to those records from the 60s which are considered some of the finest in modern music.
It’s not so much the sounds these producers create as the sonic possibilities that their ingenuity opens to us- sparking alive our imagination, which is awe-inspiring.
It’s like they open a portal for our imagination to free-float, and that portal is opened using the mechanics of music on the fabric of music. It’s trippy, alright.
But contemporary sound engineers like Godrich couldn’t do what they do unless Neve hadn’t opened the path for them.
Neve was not just ingenious but also brave — to imagine that the studio was not just a place where recording happened but also a tool that could enhance the musicality of what you were creating.
That was an act of imagination combined with vision.
But it’s not just in artistry that he excelled but also in creating the tools necessary to bring his vision to life- in the form of studio equipment either created or improvised by him.
Such visionaries come once in a lifetime. And in his case, he left behind something we enjoy musically across our lifetime.
