In pictures: Yoad Nevo's London studio

Welcome

Despite an initial love of prog-rock and the flamboyant glam of David Bowie, Yoad Nevo was inspired by the emerging post-punk/electronic pop scene of the 1980s.

Having initially worked with a wide spectrum of recording artists in his native Israel, Nevo then undertook a seven-year stint at Townhouse and Olympic Studios in London, mixing records by Goldfrapp, Duran Duran, Bryan Adams and Air.

Nevo then embarked on the design and launch of his own NevoSound studio complex. Made to measure, the studio hosts Nevo’s classic, state-of-the-art analogue/digital hybrid Neve V51 64/96 mixing desk.

Currently working with up-and-coming artists such as Giggs and Sia, Nevo is also a senior consultant and designer for audio plugin developer Waves, and the owner of several patents in the field of digital signal processing.

Future Music magazine went to meet him in London and got to see behind his studio doors...

Neve desk

“The Neve desk sounds so amazing - everything you run through it. In fact, I think it’s almost unfair how good it sounds because you don’t have to do anything - you just push a fader up for acoustic guitar, for vocals, drums or any combination with the analogue synths. I worked a lot on VR consoles and classic ones from 1968, but this one has something about it and I love the way it sounds.

“My Neve is very old; it’s from 1981 so it’s a classic. It was the first one to have dynamics on all the channels, but the last one to have the old design - the Class-A circuitry and transformers on the input and output.”

Waldorf Micro Q

“This is by far the most sophisticated synth on the market. It has so many parameters; you can do anything with it and it sounds amazing.”

Clavia Nord Rack 2X and Access Virus A

“This [Nord] is probably the most solid-sounding virtual analogue synth. I just love it.

“I’ve had this [Virus] since it first came out, som time around ’97.”

Roland TR-909

“It’s the shit, basically. I hardly use it any more though. Sometimes I’ll go and sample the same kick again, though, or run it through a guitar pedal or something.”

Waldorf Microwave

“A wavetable synthesizer with a really cool filter.”

Akai S1000

“I love this sampler. It has such a big, fat sound for drums. Nothing compares to it really.”

Roland Chorus Echo SRE-555

“I really love sending stuff through it from the desk or even from the computer to record back while playing and get those really cool delay sweeps.”

DAWs

“I like to have a good workflow on all the major ones. At times I will choose to do a project on one of them, but I’m kind of up to date with all the versions and features to the extent that I could do a project on all of them for as much as the set of features allows.

“I would say I feel equally at home in Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase or Nuendo. And Ableton, as much it allows. The mixer page is not as comprehensive, but it has other great features in the Session view.

“I think there are some unique features in Logic that are not found in other programs, so Logic is still my first choice these days.”

Other synths

“I actually have over 50 hardware synthesizers, and maybe half of them are analogue. If I had to choose one, I would probably recommend a Dave Smith Prophet 08, because it’s analogue but it’s very modern; it has all the synthesis tools that you can expect.”