Neve 33115
The mic pre that keeps turning up in the racks of people who actually make records.
Overview
The 33115 is a Neve mic pre and EQ module. It shows up in studio gear lists the way a good wrench shows up in a mechanic's toolbox - as a thing that gets used. A 1998 gear inventory in Mix (June 1998, p.270) lists a Neve quad box with 33115 EQ alongside a Studer A80 MkII. Another Mix (August 1994, p.229) classified ad from the same period priced a 33114 at roughly a thousand dollars and a 33135 at nine hundred. The 33115 sits in that same 33-series family of modules, and the fact that these numbers were quoted in classifieds at all says the secondhand market treated them as known quantities.
According to the source material, the 33115 is a mic preamp and EQ module designed to live in a console or a rack. The engineer in that piece describes the result as "creamy." The context matters: he'd just rejected an AKG C12 as too sharp, so the Neve was doing the softening work.
Nobody buys one 33115. The people who own them own two, because a single mic pre is a curiosity and a pair is a tool. EQ lists it alongside API 312s, Telefunken V76s, and John Hardy M-1s in the same rack.
The Studio Sound console listings from the mid-nineties show a Neve Melbourne 12/4/2 desk fitted with twelve 33115s. A separate 1998 Mix ad mentions a "Neve quad box with 33115 EQ." So the module wasn't only a mic pre. It carried EQ as part of its function, and it was common enough in Melbourne-frame consoles that dealers could quote configurations by module count.
The source material does not say when the 33115 was made, what it originally cost, what its frequency response or gain range is, or how many were built. What it does show is that the 33115 was a 33-series Neve module that working engineers specified by the pair, that appeared in console frames and outboard racks alike, and that was listed by name in classified ads.
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