Jan 2012 Update

The Helios channel strips have arrived. One of them needed to be returned for some technical issues but one of them is working real well. I sampled Steve's guitar sound for Hairless Heart (electric guitar) using the exact recording chain that was used back in 1974 in the studio. That is an H&H IC100 tranny amp head with a HiWatt 4x12 cab (with the purple fanes), a 57 Les Paul, and a custom pedal board with a Cry Baby Wah Pedal, an MXR Phase 90, a Schaller volume pedal, a Shaftesbury Duo Fuzz and a Marshall Supa Fuzz and a Coloursound Octivider, recorded with a Shure SM 57 with the Helios channel strip. The guitar samples sound almost IDENTICAL to Steve's sound on this song. A close friend of mine who has been following this project for year's now suggested that I try and do Hairless Heart next for a couple of reasons, one, is it probably the easiest Genesis song to perform and play EVER and that there are a bunch of new sounds on this track so I agree with this approach. The floaty organ in the beginning needs a couple of channel strips to record the Leslie (rotating) speaker in stereo so I have to put this off until the second Helios channel returns (should be within a couple of weeks). By the way, these are being made with official licensing of Dick Swettenham (God Rest His Soul) by an English chap named Tony Arnold (who now lives in France). Tony was a very well know technician in the English music scene of the 60s, 70s and probably worked on every Helios desk ever made. He has a real passion to make these new channel strips with all the exacting details of the original designs. The design that GENESIS used with both the Island Mobile and at the Basing Street studios, was the Helios Type 69. To this day, Tony actually calls all of his customers to offer whatever support you may need with these Helios units. When he heard that one of my units wasn't working right, he offered to send me one ASAP from the UK to get me up and running right away. I purchased mine from Vintage King and without getting into a lot of details, it turned out that I would actually get mine quicker if Tony sent the replacement unit to VK first and they would expedite it to me... had something to do with customs and bunch of other export/import issues. So, if you ever think you might want to get some of these, rest assured that they are being made as a labor of love with all the support one might expect. Back to the floaty organ sound... one of the real interesting parts of this sound is UNIQUE to the T Series Hammond Tony used, that is, this sound is mostly a PERCUSSION stop on the organ mixed with a very low drawbar setting. I will be sampling this soon, as I said, and will probably give away the sample sound to anyone who is a customer of Shabby Chic Samples and want to get a preview of the organ samples that I will eventually make available through the site. The early work on the track are sounding real good to me and I am sure that you will hear the payoff of all this background work of focusing on getting the right sounds for the project. Hope you had a Happy New Year and thanks for supporting this site. Jim K - Keeper of the Shrine jkleban@nc.rr.com