Rupert Neve Designs 5057 Orbit Summing Mixer

Name: Rupert Neve Designs 5057 Orbit Summing Mixer
Brand: Rupert Neve Designs
Rating: 5 (10 reviews)

16-channel Class A Summing Mixer with Silk Red and Blue Saturation, Stepped Switching, and Custom Dual-tap Output Transformers

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Item ID: 5057

Rupert Neve Designs 5057 Orbit Summing Mixer

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Legendary Rupert Neve Sound for Your DAW-Based Studio

Drawing from over six decades of analog console design excellence, Rupert Neve Designs’ 5057 Orbit 16-channel summing mixer brings the legendary Rupert Neve sound to your DAW-based studio. Fortified by Rupert’s revered Class A circuits, custom audio transformers, and Silk Red and Blue circuitry for variable harmonic saturation, the 5057 Orbit adds impressive flexibility to your setup, while enhancing lifeless, in-the-box mixes with authoritative weight, warmth, punch, depth, and clarity — without sacrificing the automated convenience of your digital audio workstation.

The sound of hits

The Rupert Neve Designs 5057 Orbit enhances your mixes with the definitive tone, power, and three-dimensional imaging that only a Rupert Neve Class A analog summing mixer can deliver. Bolstered by Rupert’s renowned custom audio transformers and Silk Red and Blue circuitry for variable harmonic saturation, the 5057 takes the sound of your studio to the utmost level of professionalism, yielding radio-ready product that blasts right out of the speakers. Engineers at Sweetwater who have worked on a vintage Neve console agree that magical things start to happen as you push a mix bus into saturation.

Push it

Driving a vintage Neve console into its “sweet zone” created gorgeously musical-sounding, non-linear harmonics that glued so many classic records together with uniquely rich, thick texture. And this is what the 5057 Orbit can do for your studio. Why use an external summing solution that provides little more than a carbon copy of squeaky-clean, in-the-box sound? The 5057 Orbit gives you the best of both worlds: amazing lushness, depth, and harmonic complexity — while retaining all the benefits of your DAW-centered workflow. In the Orbit, Silk saturation starts to realize its full richness as you drive the stereo outputs harder.

Drive it

The 5057 Orbit is fitted with a highly customized dual-tap output transformer configuration originally developed for RND’s renowned Shelford Channel that supplies both a main output and a -6dB output — the latter letting you robustly drive the Orbit to achieve increased transformer harmonics without clipping the next device in your signal chain. This proprietary transformer drive is a hallmark of the inimitable Rupert Neve sound — the sound of countless classic hits.

Purist signal path

With its precision-fixed channel levels, mono summing, and audiophile-quality stepped switching for mix bus attenuation, the 5057 Orbit’s purist signal path exhibits vanishingly low crosstalk and exacting +/-0.1dB channel matching. Rupert Neve Designs’ painstaking engineering results in broad, deep, and pinpoint-accurate stereo imaging that reveals every minuscule detail in your mixes.

The building blocks of your dream studio

While the 5057 Orbit is an extremely valuable tool in and of itself, multiple Orbits may be combined using the rear-panel Link connection for higher channel count. The Orbit is also designed to be deployed as a building block in an expandable summing system that includes the RND 5059 Satellite for flexible summing and routing, and the 5060 Centerpiece for more complex mixing and monitoring needs. These Rupert Neve Designs units are the core of an analog modular console system rivaling that of any world-class conventional studio.

Rupert Neve Designs 5057 Orbit Summing Mixer Features:

16-channel +/-21V Class A mix bus delivers massive headroom
Silk Red and Blue modes with Texture control for precisely dialing in your desired amount of classic tone
Dual-tap output transformers create rich harmonic character without clipping the next unit in the signal chain
Mono switches for precisely centering any mono mix elements such as lead vocals, kick, snare, and bass
Outstanding linearity and accuracy (>+/-0.1dB/channel)
Ultra-low crosstalk for beautifully open stereo imaging and sonic depth
Expandable for higher channel count via bus link to other 5057 units
Fast, repeatable DAW-based recall — plus rich, unparalleled Rupert Neve Designs sound quality
Robust, compact 1U chassis design with DB-25 inputs and XLR outputs
Combine with other Rupert Neve Designs summing units to form a world-class modular mix system

Resources

First Look: Rupert Neve Designs 5057 Orbit Summing Mixer

Feb 2, 2021

Rupert Neve Designs 5057 Summing Mixer Demo

Feb 2, 2021

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Tech Specs

Type: Analog Summing Mixer
Channels: 16
Faders: 2 x Rotary Pots
Inputs - Line: 2 x DB-25 (1-8, 9-16)
Outputs - Main: 2 x XLR (main), 2 x XLR (-6dB out)
Other I/O: 2 x 1/4" TRS (link in/out)
Rackmountable: Yes
Power Source: Standard IEC AC cable
Height: 1.75"
Width: 19"
Depth: 9"
Weight: 10 lbs.
Manufacturer Part Number: 5057

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Reviews

5.0

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I have been a fan of Rupert Neve and his designs for many years, so when RND was launched and starting putting out products, I was pulling out my wallet and adding to my studio. I have bought preamps, tape saturation, EQ, compressors.... and now this. It's all built extremely well, it's all very practical and functional, and it all sounds great. This is no exception.

I haven't really put this through a serious torture test yet, but early use is very pleasing. I'm using it a bit differently perhaps than most... I'm using it to add 8 more channels of summing to my API Box2 desk, and using the additional channels on the RND for hardware effects returns.

Sound is exactly as advertised and expected. Some day I may add more....

I have been working on the RND 5057 for about two years, and have completed many mixes with it. It's a great piece of gear. If you are a hybrid mixer, this box really injects some of that classic transformer sound into your mixes. Running all 16 channels through this box changes the sound into a subtle, but absolutely noticeable way. The trick is to hit the summing mixer hard, and use the -6dB outputs to help manage the level so you don't distort your converters on the way back into your DAW. If you hit the 5057 at conservative levels, it's fairly transparent. But if you hit it hard, right at the big sweet spot, it imparts a classic transformer console vibe to your mixes. The 5057 won't fix a bad mix, but it will noticeably improve a good mix. I have not tried the 5059 or 5060, as this has really been all I need for my hybrid setup. I have tried other summing mixers, some quite a bit more expensive than this, but this one has been the winner, I've enjoyed it a lot more than other summing mixers that cost more. In my experience, when you hit certain other summing mixers hard, you get nice transformer saturation and a wide sounding mix….but the cost is that the center of the mix fades into the background, and the focal point disappears. Not sure how they do it, but the 5057 keeps the center in focus, and up front. It makes the mix feel like it's carved out of wood. It will take a bit of trial and error to find the sweet spot and really learn how to use the 5057, but it's well worth it.

After working with the Rupert Neve Designs 5057 Orbit for a few weeks now, I can confidently say this piece of gear has earned a permanent place in my workflow. The Orbit delivers exactly what I've been missing—dimension, glue, and personality without compromising detail. The standout feature for me has been the Blue Silk function. It adds an undeniable weight to my mixes—the kind of low-mid authority that makes a track feel grounded and intentional. The stereo image widens without losing focus, transients are preserved with incredible precision, and the mix takes on that elusive 3D quality that's nearly impossible to achieve strictly in-the-box.

So there is mystique around analog summing and a huge debate around digital vs analog. I did the ITB summing for years and then sent my stereo mix out to a EQ and bus compressor and back in. I then compared full ITB with a EQ and compressor on my master bus instead of hardware. Was my analog gear better? Not really, just different. Like comparing two different plugin EQs. The analog were a little wider and fatter. By about 2%.

Now I said, I can make it better with true analog summing. So I got an interface that could do 16 in and 16 out with ADAT and a Ferrofish Pulse 16 and the Neve 5057. I sent the 5057 stereo output to my EQ and my bus compressor. Set up my busses in my DAW and sent each bus to a stereo ADAT output.

How much better was this analog summing vs what I was doing before? Maybe another 2%.

The Neve and the whole analog summing seems to bring the details forward and you can hear the tracks more individually and clearer but as a whole it sounds more cohesive. Compared to the full ITB or the ITB where I sent the master fader to my analog EQ and compressor.

The ITB versions seemed slightly more muddy and center focused. Not mud that you can eq out. But that everything was more squashed to the center. The neve gave everything breathing room, but also made it gel like a nice compressor.

I was kind of expecting watching Star Wars on a 15" black and white tv as ITB and analog summing like seeing Star Wars at an Imax in Dolby Atmos. It's not even close to that big of a difference. There is a difference and not like they only sound different. There is a sonic difference and there are phase differences and physical feeling differences. But not massive stark contrasting differences. It's up to you if analog summing is a way you want to go or if you want to introduce it into your workflow. If you're already set up and can easily just drop in the Neve 5057. Try it out. If you have to do something like me and get a new interface and a converter and new cables etc...maybe work up to summing as a goal and buy pieces with that as an end game. I feel that if you have nothing in your studio, start with good outboard pre's first and a interface that has a lot of I/O.

I just can't say enough good things about this piece. When I pass audio through the 5057, I get that width and depth that I have always wanted but could not achieve with software and plug ins. The separation is effortless. I have tried the silk settings and they are awesome. But I haven't needed them because the clean signal is so polished and stands up on its own. I fully understand now why the "Big Boys" use the hybrid systems, the recall and detail of digital, with the big three-dimensional analog sound.