H2 Audio: 0011 Mic pre/EQ

When H2 Audio reached out about getting their 0011 mic preamp/EQ reviewed, my good friend and session drummer Michael Urbano came to mind. Michael has worked on records with Todd Rundgren, Trina Shoemaker, Sheryl Crow, Eric Valentine [Tape Op #45, #133], Cracker, Matt Wallace [#128], Jack Joseph Puig, David Bianco [#104], and John Hiatt, plus many other great artists, engineers, and producers. People love working with Michael because he brings an artist and producer’s sensibilities to what he works on. He listens carefully to the song, always has constructive ideas, and – bottom line – he makes everyone’s job easier, so the track sounds its best. He always has excellent feedback on the sound of the drums and the track, with helpful suggestions on mic’ing and engineering. I love working in the studio with him, and in the last decade or so he’s been doing more recording himself at his home studio. Michael has recently joined the team at 2200 Studio, formerly known as The Record Plant, in Sausalito, CA. He has also had a fair amount of experience working with a vintage Helios console, but I’ll let him tell that story. I was excited to hear Michael’s take on the 0011! -JB

H2 Audio’s 0011 preamp with EQ is a faithful reproduction of the famed Helios 0011, sometimes referred to as the Type 69. The list of records made on Helios consoles reads like a Who’s Who of some of the best albums ever made, including, well, The Who’s Who’s Next, not to mention Quadrophenia and Tommy. It’s ridiculous when you look at the list: the Rolling Stones’ triple threat Exile on Main Street, Let it Bleed, and Sticky Fingers – fuck it, throw in Some Girls too. Bob Marley & the Wailers' Exodus, The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, David Bowie’s Low and Heroes, Queen’s A Night at the Opera, Traffic’s The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, Electric Light Orchestra’s Face the Music, Supertramp’s Crime of the Century, AC/DC’s Back in Black and Highway to Hell, Peter Gabriel’s third album, Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life for crying out loud, and... every... damn... Led Zeppelin record. This is just a fraction of the classic records made on Helios consoles. Dude, stop; I'm killing myself here. This list doesn't even seem real, but it is.

I tried the H2 0011s out in an awesome-sounding studio, with amazing-sounding drums and guitars, and fantastic mics. They shined. It's obvious that the folks at H2 Audio put some real work into these. I'll get sappy and say that this faithful reissue of Helios’ 0011 Mic Pre and EQ is H2’s love letter to rock 'n' roll, but I can also save you some time from reading the rest of my pontificating: Do whatever you can to buy some of these preamp/EQs. Sell your car if you need to. They are incredible. But why take my word for it? I’ve been lucky enough to make a living for a lifetime in music, and I know about the struggle it takes to get the right sound to come out of the control room speakers – just the right combination of processors in the signal chain to get the magic. Am I right? We all know that the mic preamp and EQ are a big part of that chain.

I used the H2 0011s on a variety of sessions at 2200 Studios in the rooms where recordings such as Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key of Life, Sly and the Family Stone’s Fresh, Prince’s For You, and Rick James’ Street Songs were tracked, along with records by Metallica, Santana, Grateful Dead, Tower of Power, Montrose – there I go with these damn lists again. The point is that this room sounds outstanding and has a lot of history.

When H2's Perry Tell dropped by 2200 with eight channels of H2 Audio 0011 preamp/EQs in a 4 rack-space unit (modules require H2 Audio’s dedicated chassis), the first thing I noticed was, damn, doesn't that eight-pack of preamp/EQs look classy? They are formidable. The second thing I realized was that when I moved the H2 0011s to the top of one of our racks, they were heavy! Of course, its legacy is spiritually heavy, but I’m talkin’ literal weight here. Again, formidable. There’s a lot of iron in this thing, with two transformers in each pre.

We quickly patched in the H2 0011s in Control Room A at 2200. I set up my drums and started mic’ing them up. 2200 is lucky to own the mic collection from Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, CA, where such artists as as*... (Creedence Clearwater Revival, Vince Guaraldi, and Dave Brubeck, among others. -JB) So, here you have this studio with an amazing-sounding room, a well-tuned drum kit, killer classic mics, and now, our control room blessed with 8-channels of brand-spankin’ new H2 0011s. Let's just say that's not a bad signal chain. We got down to business with drum recording, and let me say it again, these shine! These amazing H2 0011s are a recreation of a very particular thing, so if I'm gonna namedrop all this history and then talk about the new 0011s, I better have known some actual vintage 0011s as well. I?do, I did, I have. My buddy Jason Carmer [Tape Op #140] had a vintage Helios console in his studio. If you know Jason, you know he is always onto some cool shit, and he loves the rock. The first time I heard my drums through his Helios console, I was stunned. I was hanging out a lot with Jason back in those days and fell in love with that sound. I loved it... loved it! So, I have my own version in my mind of what those vintage 0011s are about, and I'm pretty damn obsessed with most of the records I listed previously. I enjoy referencing things when chasing a sound, and those records collectively are like a holy grail to me.

Our first move was to get a tight, clean punchy sound. Done. Perfect. How do I describe it? Faster than a Neve and slower than an API. I’m not a scientist or a trained engineer, but the sound without EQ (not overdriven) was tight and clean. It just sounded good. I don't know why. Is it okay to say I don't care? I just think it sounds stellar: Clean, high quality but not sterile sonics, achieved – elegant with some 'tude. Next, I wanted to go for some overdrive and saturation. These H2 0011s also do that just right. This is where H2 Audio has slightly altered the original 0011 blueprint by adding a transformer-coupled output amplifier from the original Helios designs, which lets the H2 0011 drive a 600 ohm load up to 25 dB without clipping. This seems to make it easier to dial in that sweet spot with the H2 0011s, whereas I remember some engineers needed to use a pad to work with saturation on the vintage 0011s. So, fine-tuning the saturation point to get just a taste of glue makes the sound pop out of the speakers. It's an amazing thing. Saturating even further is just so badass. Like the sound of the drums on Queen's "Somebody to Love.” I hear some of that overdrive with the H2 0011. I know Roy Thomas Baker and Roger Taylor were another pretty badass part of the signal chain, but the drum sound on that track is what I'm talking about here. I got that sort of thing going over at 2200 Studios with these H2 0011s, and I was in heaven. It's like high quality dirt, and I say that with the utmost reverence since that kind of dirt is basically magic to me.

The H2 0011 has a 3-band inductor-based EQ and can be used at line level without the preamp. I'm no expert, but the top end (when we pushed it up a bit) sounded – how do I say it, "open?" It's bright and present without being harsh at all – I can hear the air. The low end is amazing: Tight but fat. Drums sound thumpy, and the mids are just there and present. We carved frequencies this way and that and sources still sounded good. We had several exceptional engineers at 2200 using the H2 0011s, and once they learned the way the EQ worked they loved them too. Everyone was drawn to them, and they kept getting rave reviews at the studio.

It may have occurred to you that there's more to recording than just tracking drums! Guilty as charged. I was at several sessions where the H2 0011s were used for guitars, and people were freaking on the sound. We had a super heavy band, Return To Nagoya, in the studio playing in a fully distorted, dropped-down to C flat tuning. I could feel the distortion on the guitars, like particles in the air in front of me, and their tone was amazing. All of the instruments had vibe for days. I realize these comments are not very technical, but I’m simply looking for a good-but-not-boring sound. The Helios always brought that out, and these H2 0011s sound like the original vintage channels to me and are just so damn special. H2 Audio (we saw what you did with the name there, guys) has gone the distance with these units. They're not cheap but are worth every penny. An amazing job of bringing Helios back to the present day! The H2 Audio 0011s are such a valuable, powerful, classic, and unique tool for the studio – the records they were on speak for themselves. Like I said earlier: Sell your car if you have to.