AMS (Advanced Music Systems) were a manufacturer of professional studio equipment.AMS - Neve About Us
Retrieved on March 16, 2009 The company later merged with

Neve Electronics Neve Electronics was a manufacturer of music recording and broadcast mixing consoles and hardware. It was founded in 1961 by Rupert Neve, the man credited with creating the modern mixing console.

to form

AMS Neve AMS Neve Ltd is a privately owned audio engineering company who specialise in digital and analogue music consoles, outboard equipment and post production consoles. AMS Neve was the result of the amalgamation in 1992 of AMS (Advanced Music Systems ...

Background

AMS was established in 1976 by

Mark Crabtree Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Fi ...

and Stuart Nevison. They were

Aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astrona ...

engineers who moved into the design of professional studio equipment for the manipulation and control of

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

. The first product designed by the company was the DM-20 Tape Phase Simulator. This initial product was used by ELO,

10cc 10cc are an English rock band formed in Stockport in 1972. The group initially consisted of four musicians – Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme – who had written and recorded together since 1968. The group featured t ...

and

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

, who used it on the Wings' '' London Town'' album in 1978. AMS was floated on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

in 1985. In 1990,

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

bought AMS, merging it with

in 1992 to form AMS Neve, which continues to manufacture professional recording equipment under the Neve and AMS Neve brands. In 1995, Crabtree acquired AMS Neve.

Notable products

DMX 15-80 Digital Delay Line

In 1978, AMS introduced the world's first

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

controlled, 15-bit

digital delay line A digital delay line is a discrete element in digital filter theory, which allows a Signalling (telecommunications), signal to be delayed by a number of sample (signal), samples. If the delay is an integer multiple of samples, digital delay lines ar ...

, the AMS DMX 15-80.AMS - Neve History 70s
Retrieved on March 16, 2009 One of the early users of the AMS DMX 15-80 was Manchester record producer

Martin Hannett James Martin Hannett (31 May 1948 – 18 April 1991), initially credited as Martin Zero, was an English record producer, musician and an original partner/director at Tony Wilson's Factory Records. Hannett produced music by artists including Joy ...

who would go on to own quite a few of the devices. By 1979, the DMX 15-80 was augmented with pitch changing capabilities. The AMS DMX 15-80S - the stereo version of the DMX 15-80, with stereo inputs and outputs - was introduced in 1980. The delay is identical to the DMX 15-80, but with the addition of two input level controls to re-generation controls (one per channel). In 1981 the DMX was upgraded to include the Loop Editing System, with which loops can be created and they are either run continuously or triggered for special effects and drop-ins. This paved way for the use of digital sampling. The DMX later included pitch changing and up to 32 seconds of delay.

RMX-16 Digital Reverb

In 1981, AMS released the RMX-16 digital reverberator.AMS - Neve History 80s
Retrieved on March 16, 2009 In addition to a range of reverb types, the RMX-16 had a program ("Non Lin 2") which digitally emulated the drum sound of a compressed and gated room microphone, copying the effect used on the

Phil Collins Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and lead singer of the rock band Genesis and also has a career as a solo performer. Between 1982 and ...

recording ''

In the Air Tonight "In the Air Tonight" is the debut solo single by English drummer and singer-songwriter Phil Collins. It was released as the lead single from Collins's debut solo album, ''Face Value'', in January 1981. Collins co-produced "In the Air Tonight" w ...

''. (Collins' drum sound was created by a combination of a room microphone compressed by the "Listen Mic" compressor of an early SSL Console, in combination with cutting off the reverb sound with a noise gate.)

AudioFile

In 1984, AMS released the AudioFile, one of the first 16-bit hard disk based recording systems dedicated to

post-production Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments. The ...

. The Audiofile saw considerable use in television post-production and was seen by dubbing mixers as a huge technological breakthrough. After decades of mixing on 16mm magnetic film stock, in which mix decisions were extremely difficult to undo, the ability to undo and make changes instantaneously provided dubbing mixers with new opportunities for experimentation in their work.

Logic 1 (Logic Series) Digital Console

In 1988, AMS released ''Logic 1,'' the first dynamically configurable, fully automated

digital mixing console In professional audio, a digital mixing console (DMC) is a type of mixing console used to combine, route, and change the dynamics, equalization and other properties of multiple audio input signals, using digital signal processing rather than a ...

for professional applications. This was followed in 1990 by ''Logic 2'', an expanded version of the Logic design in a large format console.

Awards and recognition

The founders of AMS have been recognised with awards for their contributions to the recording and broadcast industry. In March 2000, Crabtree was the recipient of an Oscar at the Academy Awards for the design and development of the AMS Neve Logic Digital Film Console for motion picture sound mixing. Crabtree was subsequently awarded a second Oscar in 2004 for "significant contributions to the evolution of digital audio editing for motion picture post production". Nevison was awarded a Fellow of the Association of Professional Recording Services (APRS) in 2015.

References

External links

AMS Neve
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ams (Advanced Music Systems) Audio equipment manufacturers of the United Kingdom Companies based in Burnley Electronics companies established in 1976 Manufacturers of professional audio equipment Manufacturing companies of England