A REVOLUTIONARY sound engineer from Newton Abbot, who crafted the tone of some of the world’s most famous rock bands died earlier this month. 

Rupert Neve, 94, was the inventor of a bespoke studio recording desk that offered a unique tone, to which artists from the likes of Fleetwood Mac to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers attribute some of their success.  

The pioneering sound engineer was born in July 1926, and died at his home in Texas on February 12.

Neve’s pioneering design for a recording console sparked a sonic revolution that started in the US, and reverberated across the world. 

His engineering masterpiece, officially called the Neve Console 8028, was a hand-wired recording desk, only four of which were ever made. The bespoke wiring is thought to have created much-desired the signature tone.

One of those four Neve desks was located at the equally legendary Sound City studios in Los Angeles. This particular recording console soon acquired a near mythical status in music history. 

Seminal artists to have recorded with ‘the Neve’ in Sound City, including Guns and Roses, Metallica, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen to name just a few. 

Dave Grohl, frontman of the rock band, the Foo Fighters, described the sound of the desk as a ‘warm representation’ of whatever he recorded. He said: ‘What’s going to come out the other end is this bigger, better version of you.’

Rupert began designing recording equipment in Plymouth city centre, in preparation for a visit from Winston Churchill in 1950.

His invention remains a much-revered artefact of rock history. The innovation is said to have defined the direction of travel for the world of sound engineering for decades; ‘the Rolls Royce of recording desks.’

His analog audio equipment designs became an essential component in music recording, live sound production and home hi-fi systems.

Rupert and his wife, Evelyn, moved to Wimberley, Texas, in late 1994 and became US citizens in 2002. In 2005, they acquired premises near where they had settled in the Texas Hill Country and established Rupert Neve Designs.

A spokesman for the company said: ‘Millions of people worldwide listen to music every day produced using equipment incorporating Rupert’s designs somewhere in the process.’Shortly after he was born, the family relocated to South Africa and then South America.

Rupert showed an enthusiasm for electronics from an early age, repairing and building radios as a boy while growing up in Argentina and aged 17 he joined the Royal Signals, which provides communications support to the British Army. After the War he built a mobile system to record choral groups and public events onto lacquer disks. He also supplied public address systems for events involving Princess Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth II, and Winston Churchill.

In a later interview, Dave Grohl described how young bands seeing ‘that’ desk in Sound City studios for the first time, were in awe. ‘They just want to smell it’, he said, nodding to its legendary status. 

‘This desk will outlive us all.’

Rupert is survived by his wife of nearly 70 years, Evelyn and five children.