Helios thread

[JustinS]

Hey Butta, love to see the copper side... which transistors did you end up using??

 

[cuelist]

[quote author="uk03878"]The original console was noisy, had "crosstalk like you wouldn't believe, way up into RF", had little headroom and ran very low levels internally.... Distortion in the EQ, and most of the other circuits, is "badly asymmetrical" and the settling time from saturation to full recovery after removal of the signal is "about a weekend"! [/quote]

Does this sound like Mr Swettenham new what he was doing??

 

[soundguy]

[quote author="cuelist"]Does this sound like Mr Swettenham new what he was doing??[/quote]

well, at the risk of sounding argumentative, Led Zeppelin 1, 4, houses of the holy, snippets of physical grafitti, Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet, Deep Purple Machine Head, Free Fire and Water and *countless* others all pretty much sound like Mr. Swettenham either knew what he was doing or had the most holy fucking accidental discovery EVER.

I use circuits to make records. I could honestly give a rats ass about what these circuits look like on a scope or a distortion analyzer. Records are meant to be listened to, not looked at. That sounds really arrogant, but if it sounds good I really could care what the white lab coat has to say about it. I have a console for film production dialogue mixing that has the most useless specs for music recording, cross talk is just ABSURDLY high for music, but the console was designed for dialogue (not kick drums) and lots of compromises were made based around the specific use of the design, so for what we use it for, dialogue, it is heralded as one of the best mixers ever built for our industry, but to look at the crosstalk specs for music, for instance, its really laughable. At the end of the day, the dialogue tracks sound amazing on it, so thats all that matters.

Not trying to be an ass, just dropping some perspective, I'll take the worst specs on paper that sound like a helios any day of the week...

dave

 

[JustinS]

Hey Butta,

What's your take on this with your electro bypass at C5??

There does seem to be a drawback with this approach, however. Even though you are by-passing the HF around the ele cap, the slower, phase-shifted HF is still going to come through the ele?s. So, even though the sound is a little clearer, it is still prone to some high-end ?smear?. This is probably why some respected designers just use electrolytics or tantalums and leave the film cap off altogether.

Flatpicker

Justin

 

[kpeek]

I don't know if these would work for the inductor:

Hammond 193B, 12H, 100ma, 155 ohms, 600VDC

Enclosed, 4-hole mounted chokes. Tolerance of 15% on both inductance & resistance. Inductances measured at rated D.C. current. Minimum 8" long leads. Units will exhibit less inductance at slightly higher currents or more at lower currents. Perfect for high voltage power supply filtering, case matches power transformers & tube audio output transformers.

They are easliy sourced for about $25US.


These are normally for power supplies so I don't know how they would sound. It maybe easier for Sowter to make a 12H inductor.

 

[Guest]

Email from Sowter

"Hello Simon

We make 12H EQ inductors using a gapped M6 core.
The price and size would be the same as our type 9810 which is 10H.

"

And guess what - here is the info for the 9810..

"9810 Neve T1295 EQ Inductor
A 10H inductor tapped at 7.0, 3.0, and 1.3H. DC resistance 739/619/405/267 ohms approx. Mumetal can with colour coded leads.


£34.08 "

Somebody mentioned a Neve inductor earlier in the thread...

 

[Tekay]

That was me!
The inductors in the new upright moduls looks very much like Neve inductors! May be Carnhill is the sourse?

 

[Bear]

In the interest of being cheap, what poor-boy input transformers look technically adequate to substitute? Obviously I wouldn't expect a total reproduction in performance, but the cheaper I can do most of the channels, the easier it is to afford to build a small console.

Bear

 

[Kev]

Tekay ,

are you deep in prototyping this project or are you just following the thread with interest .... like me ?
if you are me, drop me an email

 

[Tekay]

Kev ! for now I'm only following the project! No time for prototyping right now! But I will take a closer look at a modul soon!

 

[Guest]

bump!!!!!
Anybody got a status on what's happening with the protoypes......

 

[strangeandbouncy]

Dear All,

I am the lucky owner of several Helios bits that are in daily use. i own three channels of turquoise passive channels from the MCA desk. These are my favorite posession in the whole wide world. Beyer mic tx's. The hump in the bass eq is nothing to do with input tx. since it is there on the line input too( no tx). I also have two simpler channels that allegedly were fx rtns from the strawberry desk, but they are black in colour. Also beyer tx, and fixed mf(boost only at 1k4 or 2k8 and wierd bass at @200hz - also wicked mic pre's. i also had the great pleasure in owning two Black active 3b eq's with Sowter 3374 mic transformers - still available btw. These were the best pre's i have ever used, but only slightly better than the beyer ones. - PERIOD! eq was also cool, but not as cool as Passive ones. I also had one red channel from 10cc desk - totally cool with switchable HF frequencies. I also had two compressors from MCA desk. They had A+D boards, but difffernt ratios/controls. Couldn't get them working, and they are long lost.
I have never seen a lustraphone one, but my ex-boss Roger Quested, of monitor fame, was Glyn Johns Tape-op at Olympic back in 1967. Imagine! his first session was The Stones-Jumping Jack Flash! for Top of the Pops( they had to re-record in those days because of Musicians Union, followed by Led Zep One as his first Album!!!!!!!!
i used to use the Ramport/TownhouseIII late Helios in the past. it was in shocking condition, but ROCKED! I loved it and started my love of Class A gear here at his desk.
www.larking.com have a cool 20:8:16 of the same vintage(1979?) for sale from a Finnish Film co. only £25K!!!!! and yes, I would, if I had that kind of money . . .

If I can be of any assistance to anyone - inductor values etc, please let me know.

i have a few schematics too. passive eq, output driver card . . .

BTW, what do the colour codings meen on the pre-amo card transistors? do they need to be matched or what?

Big Love to ALL . . . .

Andy P

ps Helios is my favorite secret weapon in da studio . . . . Spread the word . . .

 

[MikoKensington]

I've been intrigued by the voodoo of Helios. I was thinking about this thread the other day.

 

[soundguy]

here's the real voodoo about helios and something Ive talked about alot with friends: is it that the consoles are amazing OR is it that the bands that more or less defined the history of modern rock made their records on them? The Led Zeppelin helios records are my favorite, I doubt thats any coincidence though...

dave

 

[CJ]

Or was it the smack?
Jimmy was strung out during the whole second album.
I like it when they toured with Jeff Beck and Bonham came out and tossed Jeff's drummer's kit off the stage before they came on.
:razz:

 

[soundguy]

the second album was recorded in 1969...

the misinformation surrounding led zeppelin is pretty intense.

I only say this having heard it from the horses mouth.

dave

 

[fum]

These records would have come out great no matter where they were recorded ( I think they would have found a place that had what they needed regardless). I shudder to think how many times I've spun these records.

One thing I do wonder is what kind of reverb they were using back then? Was it all just large plate reverbs, or....

When did Lexicon really emerge on the market? When did EMT hit?

I guess this is all in tangent to this thread, but what they hey... :?

ju

 

[strangeandbouncy]

Sounds like 2 seperate mono EMT plates on "stairway to heaven to me", one left and one right. Whenever I am at a studio with two plates, this is my fav set-up. Slightly different rt's. Much better stereo than a single stereo plate, which is much muddier.

 

[CJ]

Led Zep 1 recorded after 24 hours of rehearsal.
I used to have this underground fort in my back yard when I was a kid. Plywood walls with day-glo artwork, a mescalito poster, concrete floor with carpet, stereo with spaekers built into the wall and two albums. Lee Michaels fourth, you know, the one with Frosty's hand solo, and Zep 1 complete with dayglo spiral painted on the center label. It was the favorite hangout in the neighborhood with kids jumping over the fence to huff down at all hours. When ever I got a phone call, mom would unplug the extension cord in the garage a couple of tiimes to signal me. One time these friends of mine she hated were down there. She put a garden hose down the trap door and let er rip!
:razz:

 

[chrissugar]

Hi Andy [strangeandbouncy]

Please can you upload somewhere the schematics you have?
Thanks.

chrissugar