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[compasspnt]

phantom309 wrote on Thu, 09 November 2006 13:02

Funny that the Helios is so well known for the Rock and Roll stuff, but those ECM albums always sounded just gorgeous and pristine to me. Amazing top end, maybe a bit too much reverb for some tastes, but a great contrast in material...usually referred to in Helios threads.

Understood!

I hate a desk that has too much reverb!

[Peter Weihe]

compasspnt wrote on Thu, 09 November 2006 19:57

Understood! I hate a desk that has too much reverb!

When I bought my desk there was no way to get the reverb off.
So we removed the EMT 140 remotes and since then there was no reverb anymore.

Pat Metheny was the first guitarist , probably the only one I saw in a small club with a Lexicon 224 just for his guitar.
I was very impressed.
So I guess that every ECM artist was allowed to take a bit of the ECM reverb on tour with him and finally the Helios was empty and their productions got dryer.
Probably the Talent Studio Helios which was sold is completely dry now.

We had to completey recap my console because of that, the caps were dryed out.

[phantom309]

compasspnt wrote on Thu, 09 November 2006 12:57

phantom309 wrote on Thu, 09 November 2006 13:02 Funny that the Helios is so well known for the Rock and Roll stuff, but those ECM albums always sounded just gorgeous and pristine to me. Amazing top end, maybe a bit too much reverb for some tastes, but a great contrast in material...usually referred to in Helios threads. Understood! I hate a desk that has too much reverb!

Of course I KNOW you just couldn't resist that one...but, of course, I meant that those RECORDS had a bit too much ambience for some. I like that sound for chamber jazz type stuff, but it rubbed more than one reviewer raw. Interestingly (to me, at least) Jon Erik Konshaug's more recent stuff done at Rainbow in Oslo is much drier in comparison. I assume the early stuff was under the Manfred Eicher dictum. wet wet wet.

[Chrisso]

I saw that Talent Studios Helios for sale on a brokerage website for quite a while.
I would have sold my grandmother to buy it, but I had no need for such a large console. The  ECM albums sounded amazing to me, especially the jazz cymbal sound.
A fairly popular studio in the UK is Helioscentric:
http://www.helioscentric.co.uk/Kit%20list.htm

[phantom309]

Chrisso wrote on Thu, 09 November 2006 15:34

I saw that Talent Studios Helios for sale on a brokerage website for quite a while. I would have sold my grandmother to buy it, but I had no need for such a large console. The  ECM albums sounded amazing to me, especially the jazz cymbal sound. A fairly popular studio in the UK is Helioscentric: http://www.helioscentric.co.uk/Kit%20list.htm

Yeah, I liked MOST of the cymbal recordings, but the one record that really bugs me from that combination is "Rejoicing" by Metheny. Great playing, but the ride and the brushes make my teeth itch. It's also kind of dark in some other ways. A weird record sonically.

The Heliocentric desk is a married pair from Island and Ten Years After (A space in time). Some great sounds coming out of that studio these days.

[Biaseelfsu]

Does this look like an ELS shot, from the mid-70's, to you?

BlakesleeHeadEngineer wrote on Tue, 07 November 2006 16:26

haha yeah no doubt! The staff here at ELS put those hard drives in a corner and forgot about um!!! LOL Scared us to death... We rented a bunch of goodies but the Fairchild 670 Dreamhire brought over is AMAZING. Thing looks brand new and sounds like it. We also got those fabled MOTOWN eq's. Here is another look at um Just for you Terry. I just did a string session at Clintonrecording with Reggie Dozier (Motown Engineer) and he agrees with Bob that the units I rent/use were built for the LA studios.......