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Quick Start: The Newton Channel

Rupert Neve Designs

collapse expand iconDescription

The Rupert Neve Designs Newton Channel is a powerful modern channel strip born from a legendary sonic lineage. Its intuitive design provides classic sound on demand, with all the instantly recognizable character, musical tone shaping abilities, and proven reliability that define a Rupert Neve Designs product. The Newton is equally well-suited for a project studio, large-scale commercial facility or live sound rig.

The name originates with Rupert’s birthplace—Newton Abbot, England—and reflects the sonic journeys of his life: from Newton Abbot to Wimberley, vintage to modern, and everything in between. This is a truly versatile, world-class channel strip capable of bringing any source to life with the classic sound of Rupert Neve Designs.

The Newton Channel includes a fully Class-A mic preamp; a musical, 3-band discrete EQ section; a fast and flexible VCA compressor; and custom Rupert Neve Designs transformer-coupled outputs with Rupert Neve Designs’ revolutionary harmonic color stage: variable Silk Red and Blue. The Newton’s microphone preamplifier contains all the tone and musicality expected from a Rupert Neve Designs piece. This preamp makes it easy to quickly dial in a tight, clean and detailed sound; and with a robust 72dB of gain, including 6dB of fine trim control, the Newton is ideally suited for a wide variety of sources.

While the input stage is tailored to be an ideal match for standard microphone source impedance, it’s equally happy being driven by line levels—so a pair of Newtons can also be used as a high-end mixing tool for any studio. The Newton also includes Rupert Neve Designs’ distinctive variable high-pass filter with a comprehensive frequency range adjustment and independent bypass switch, allowing the engineer to quickly eliminate unwanted noise, rumble, or other low frequency build-up in the source signal.

The Equalizer

The EQ section in the Newton is optimized for speed and flexibility with a simplified set of controls. The low and high frequency shelf bands are controllable with accurate 31-detent potentiometers that provide up to 12dB of gain boost/cut, providing the ability to dial in either subtle or extreme settings as desired.

The parametric mid-band of the Newton EQ section includes another 31-detent potentiometer and a wide range of mid frequencies to boost or cut, switchable from 220Hz to 7kHz. This makes the MF band particularly flexible, allowing for taming low-mid muddiness, boosting mid frequency presence, or removing any harshness in the upper midrange. The carefully chosen fixed Q setting maintains a healthy balance of musicality and precision—just wide enough for brush-stroke equalization without adversely affecting neighboring frequencies.

As with every section of the Newton Channel, the EQ has an independent bypass button for doublechecking settings every step of the way.

The Compressor

The Newton Channel also contains the latest iteration of Rupert Neve Designs’ ultra-smooth VCA
compressor, with +20dB of make-up gain and ample control for any amount of needed compression while maintaining an effortless sound. Also included is a helpful "pre EQ/post EQ" push button to place the compressor either before or after the EQ section, plus an independent bypass button.

Variable Silk

At the end of the Newton’s signal path is the unique and highly coveted variable Silk circuit, providing the power and control to amplify second and third order harmonics by saturating Rupert Neve Designs’ custom output transformers for a vintage tonality.

With the variable Texture knob, the engineer is able to precisely dial in the desired amount of harmonic density—with Silk Red mode highlighting harmonics in the highs and upper mid frequencies, and Blue mode accentuating harmonics in the lows and low mids. From a subtle transformer tonality without Silk, to significantly more color than vintage modules with the Silk/Texture circuit fully pushed, the Newton’s output stage can fill out tracks with enhanced power and sparkle.

Custom Transformer Outputs

The Newton Channel has a custom transformer output stage with a balanced MAIN standard line level output. Additionally, a separate -6dBu XLR output can compensate for high levels of input and Silk harmonic saturation, enabling engineers to fully drive the Newton to achieve more transformer harmonics without clipping the next device in the chain. Both outputs are active and can be used concurrently.
Rupert Neve Designs Newton Channel Strip With Mic Pre + EQ + Compressor With Silk
Rupert Neve Designs Newton Channel Strip With Mic Pre + EQ + Compressor With Silk
Rupert Neve Designs Newton Channel Strip With Mic Pre + EQ + Compressor With Silk

collapse expand iconFeatures

  • Classic Rupert Neve mic pre tone
  • Custom transformers and Class-A line amplifiers
  • Comprehensive 3-band EQ
  • Flexible, intuitive EQ section with fully sweepable mid-band, specially designed for the Newton Channel
  • Fast and Smooth VCA Compressor
  • VCA compressor circuit gently tames transients or applies heavy yet smooth compression; includes a pre/post EQ switch for even greater flexibility
  • Silk Red and Blue Saturation
  • Simple set of controls to dial in subtle richness or over-the-top vintage-style harmonic saturation
  • 31-Position Detented Controls
  • Accurately recall and match your settings with speed and precision
  • Stereo Link Switch
  • Link the gain reduction of two Newton compressors for powerful stereo bus processing
  • Internal Universal Power Supply
  • IEC connection for world-wide AC power from 90–240V located in the 1U rack-mountable chassis

collapse expand iconSpecs

  • Input Impedance: 8,900 ohms
    • Input to Line Output (no features engaged, unweighted)
    • Maximum Input Level: +23.6dBu
    • Noise (unweighted)
    • Line Out (unity gain): -102dBu
    • -6dB Line Out (unity gain): -107dBu
    • Line Out (+30dB gain): -95dBu
    • Equivalent Input Noise @ +30dB Gain (EIN): -125dBu
    Frequency Response
    • <10Hz to 30kHz: +/- 0.1dB
    • <5Hz to 70kHz: +/- 0.25dB
    • <5Hz to 140kHz: -3dB
    • THD+N, BW (<10Hz to 22kHz)
    • 0dBu at 1 kHz: 0.0013%
    • +20dBu at 1 kHz: 0.0007%
    • Input to Line Output (Equalizer Engaged)
    • Noise (BW <10Hz to 22kHz): -90dBu
    • THD+N @ 0dBu (EQ Flat): 0.003%
    • Input to Line Output (Compressor Engaged)
    • Noise @ 0dB Make-Up Gain (BW <10Hz to 22kHz): -91dBu
    • THD+N @ 0dBu (EQ Flat): 0.005%

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