A major ingredient behind thousands of influential, chart-topping records, Neve® 80 series consoles are without equal. These classic analog desks — made famous in the Sound City documentary — deliver three-dimensional nonlinearities and analog heft that infuses your mixes with vibrancy and color.
Developed in partnership with AMS Neve exclusively for LUNA Recording System, Neve Summing Extension emulates the entire summing circuit of an iconic Neve 80 series console — including its coveted 1272 bus amplifiers — giving your LUNA mixes all the color of Neve's most cherished analog desk.
This article includes:
Now You Can:
- Easily add width, depth, and character to your mixes with the first authentic emulation of Neve analog summing
- Sum individual channels or your entire mix through Neve's iconic 1272 line amplifiers
- Harness the complex nonlinearities and musical clipping of Neve's classic 80 series console
- Use per-bus Headroom, Trim, and Impedance controls for subtle tone sculpting over your entire mix
Genuine Neve Summing for your Mixes
Far beyond a “summing plug-in,” Neve Summing is an Extension built into LUNA's mixer that emulates every characteristic of both the source and bus channels — including original Neve 80 series’ console fader taper and pan law. This workflow eliminates the need to manage multiple plug-in windows. Simply use the per-bus Headroom control to add color and dynamic enhancement, then season even more with the selectable Impedance switch.
Why Neve Summing?
When audio sources flow through the transformers and custom-built op-amps of a classic Neve 80 series desk — in particular its coveted 1272 line amplifiers — random analog nonlinearities combine to produce harmonic magic. These summed signals add character, depth, and dimension, for a more cohesive and vibrant mix.
Authentic Down to the Last Detail
For more than two years, UA dissected and studied multiple vintage Neve 80 series consoles and their components — pouring over original service manuals and gaining crucial insight into its Class A transformer/transistor circuitry. UA's team of engineers impeccably emulated all of the original hardware's nonlinearities and clipping characteristics, yielding results that are virtually indistinguishable from the original console.
Get Neve Summing
You can purchase the optional Neve Summing LUNA Extension from within LUNA’s Manage panel. After purchasing, there is nothing to download, as the extension is built into the fabric of LUNA.
Using Neve Summing
Neve Summing imparts the sound and headroom characteristics of a Neve console bus channel directly into the LUNA summing buses. You can add Neve Summing to Bus and Main tracks.
When you change the Neve Summing setting for a bus, the faders for the bus and for all tracks that feed the bus will change position because of the difference in fader taper between LUNA native summing bus and Main channels and Neve Summing bus and Main channels.
To add Neve Summing:
- In the Input row of a bus or the Main track, click the Summing button, and choose Neve Summing.
- Set the controls for Headroom (HR), Trim, and Impedance.
To adjust controls on multiple tracks, select multiple tracks, then change the controls on one track. A Track Group (Command+G) or Selection Grouping (Track > Selection Grouping, or Control+G) must be enabled to adjust Neve Summing settings on multiple tracks at one time.
Neve Summing Controls
Headroom (HR)
The headroom setting increases or decreases the amount of headroom in the channel, and the amount of saturation. As you turn this up to the top of the range, you can get saturation and even distortion characteristics. You can rotate the knob or double-click it to choose a value from the drop menu. The headroom control is gain-compensated, so the volume changes are minimal when changing the headroom control. The Low impedance setting is louder than unity gain, even with gain compensation.Headroom enables adjustment of the internal operating reference level for Neve Summing so that the signal is not “pushed” into processing as much. Headroom enables best practice operating level matching, or it can be used creatively to expand the sonic range of the summing processor.
By fine-tuning Headroom, the nonlinear I/O distortion and compression response characteristics can be tailored independently of signal input levels. Increasing Headroom (by rotating the control counter-clockwise) allows signals at the input to be pushed higher before they are processed.
Headroom can be set in 2 dB steps from +4 dB to +28 dB by rotating the HR knob. When the HR knob is in the straight up 12 o’clock noon position (the default position), the HR value is 16 dB.
At higher dB values (clockwise rotation), signals will push into processing more easily. Set the control to a lower value (counter-clockwise rotation) when less processing and less color is desired.
Tip: Headroom is increased as the dB value decreases.
Trim
The trim setting allows you to compensate for gain changes introduced by the summing headroom and impedance controls, and allows you to increase or decrease the overall level of the summing bus. You can rotate the knob or double-click it to type a value. This continuous knob lets you adjust the level at the output from the 1272 line amplifier. The available range is ±6 dB.
Impedance
This setting changes the impedance character of the bus or Main channel from low to high impedance. The default is high impedance. The Low and High bus impedance settings provide different audio character and gain levels, and one or the other might be more appropriate for your audio material and bus. Generally, the Low impedance setting is louder than the unprocessed audio. Impedance offers different tonal options by switching the input impedance of the 1272 line amplifier. 300 Ohm (LO) and 1200 Ohm (HI) values are available. Click the Impedance switch to toggle the value.
Bypass
Bypass is useful for comparing the processed signal to the original, unprocessed signal. Click the OUT/IN switch to toggle the bypass state. When bypassed, the VU meter is unlit and native CPU resources are conserved.
Fader appearance
Console Summing LUNA Extensions change the behavior and appearance of the LUNA buses and Main track to display accurate fader tapers. When you route tracks to a bus with a summing model enabled, the fader tapers on the bus or Main track and the source tracks change.