 George
Shilling reviews:
Helios
EQ1 Lunchbox
A
brief history lesson: the late Dick Swettenham was a maintenance
engineer at Olympic Studios in its late 1960's heyday. In the early
1970's he built a rather wonderful desk for Olympic and subsequently
a number of Olympic clients' private studios. When Island Records
wanted Swettenham to build a desk for Basing Street Studios legend
has it that his Olympic employers were none too happy, so he left
and went into business with the Helios name. As time went by, gear
fanatic and music producer Tony Arnold started to buy old Helios
consoles and acquired seven of them for export to the US. With a
c.1973 desk built for Eric Clapton as his reference, Arnold set
about replicating Helios modules carefully including all the faults
of the original to begin with. In the course of his research he
found that the original desks' 20dB pad used a centre-tap from the
Lustraphone input transformer. These sounded better than later
Helios desks, which used Beyer transformers with resistors rather
than a centre- tap for the pad. Arnold approached Sowter to copy the
Lustraphone transformers. He then built a console for Elvis Costello
and Chris Difford's Helioscentric Studios and put in 20 original
Helios modules and 18 new modules. Over a period of over two years
incremental modifications to correct problems with the original
modules were carried out on the new ones. Each time these were
carefully compared to the originals to make sure none of the
modifications had any detrimental effects. Cyril Jones of Raindirk
helped with some aspects of problem solving. Having acquired the
Helios name, Arnold set about perfecting the EQ1 modules we now have
here.
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The originals' unreliability was always a bugbear for Arnold, so the
new units are built to military specifications by CLI who amongst
other things makes tyre-warmers for Formula One racing teams. The
front panels are dipped in paint and the discrete circuitry is
bulletproof. Modules from subsequent production runs will feature
phantom power (which is already included in the rack version).
The
lunchbox comprises a flight case with two vertically mounted Input/EQ
modules alongside a panel with 6 bantam sockets for mic and line
inputs and outputs - very convenient if you encounter bantam
patchbays, a nuisance when you occasionally don't - and an IEC mains
socket. There are no LEDs or lights anywhere. And with everything on
the front, there is no need to open the back of the box.
The
Input section features a three-position toggle switch for mic/padded
mic/line input and a stepped control for gain.
I
had a couple of the original modules in a lunchbox for comparison:
the old ones sometimes sounded slightly smoother. This is probably
due to the new ones' extended high-frequency response, which if
audible, is not necessarily preferable to my ears. But any
difference is extremely subtle. One vast improvement over the
originals is in the build quality and reliability - crackly knobs
are understandable on something almost 30 years old, but the
originals were notoriously unreliable.
The
stepped gain fixed 10kHz high frequency band is gentle and open,
wonderfully enhancing clarity without introducing harshness. It goes
in 2dB steps from -10dB to +10dB, although I have an inkling which
way it will generally be turned. The Mid band comprises a selection
of eight switched frequencies from 0.7 to 6kHz. A toggle switches
boost or cut, with an uncalibrated pot giving a roughly 10dB range.
Gain for the Low frequency band is also controlled by uncalibrated
rotary pot giving a maximum boost of approximately 10dB at 30, 80,
120 or 240dB. These are 'boost only' frequencies. The frequency
selector becomes an attenuation switch below zero, with cuts in 3dB
steps down to -15dB at a fixed 75Hz shelf. I thought I might miss
the ability to cut low-mid frequencies, being something of a fan of
subtractive EQ, but with the Helios, boosting always sounds so good
that I quickly adapted to this way of working. One Helios aficionado
I spoke to testified to the glory of "F'BAAF" (Full Boost
At All Frequencies) on the Helios desk he had used! On the low
frequency gain pot there is a click at the off-extreme. The
originals had a low-frequency boost of 1dB even when the EQ was
bypassed. For purists this has been retained, but the click position
gives you the option of switching it off. A high-pass filter gives
15dB/Octave cut at 40 or 80Hz, which is bypassed if the EQ is
bypassed. A proper phase switch circuit is incorporated, the
original design for this being something of a bodge.
By
modern standards the features and control are limited. But here the
sound is everything. You know you're in heaven when just about any
setting sounds good, not just one compromise setting, which can be
the case with many desk EQs. I recorded and processed all sorts of
sources and the Helios always imparted a wonderful openness and
clarity. If I were to own just one input module the EQ1 would
certainly be near the top of the list.
A giant from a previous era returns in style, and in a portable
package to take wherever you go.
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Reproduced
with kind permission from www.George.Shilling.Com. Copyright ©1997
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