Cycle25.ca YouTube: Bob Heil - "The Science of Audio"

Bob Heil was kind enough to join us live on 13 Feb 2021 for our regular Cycle25 meeting. We have recorded it and posted to YouTube. The talk spans his history with building Heil Sound, the sound system division, and details many of the rock groups he toured with, the building of the Talk Box for Peter Frampton, etc. He then gets into the technical part - the ’Science of audio’ bringing the findings of the early Bell labs and their 4,000 scientists trying to discover why the telephone systems did not sound good….only to discover it was the human ear. This is incredible information that is so necessary to understand for all of us in order to dig out those weak signals. It was a privilege yo have this icon of the Ham Radio community with us!

Be sure to subscribe to the Cycle25.ca Youtube channel to see other great presentations at
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy_0gANQteAstN8wHJR8QPw

 

Really enjoyed watching this video. What a fascinating story. Now, off to the shack to see what did I learn
Thanks for posting
73
EI7KW

 

I there Bob. On the fact of being giffted with being able to distinguish the sound. My first wife was tone deaf and that was hard for me to appreciate what that realy meant. I was brought up in a musical family. I started with violin leasons at school and found it easy to read music. I suppose I had been reading music long before with being a church choir boy and also in the school choir. My uncle happened to be my school music master. He was also the church organist at a local church. Many years before he and my dad had been in the church choir at a local town. I had been Chrisaned there and my uncle realized this as he had been pressent there. He had invited all of his students to bring in their favourite records for Christmas time. I had brought one of my dads records. "Every Valley ". When the record was being played, I was tapping my fingers on my desk along to the sound. My uncle asked me if I was Fred Cliff's son. I answered yes sir. Then I got all of the history of how it came into place how he and my dad had sang parts of the Messia together years ago. 73 de John - G0WXU

 

Very good, Bob knows his kit.

 

Love this guy and his mics. But I disagree about the RE20 mic. Maybe not the mic for ham radio (too bassy without EQ) but nothing sounds better on broadcast. Just a beast.

 

I always knew Bob could talk but MY GOODNESS! He's a neat guy. Bob and I used to talk to each other frequently on 10 meters FM back in the early 1980's between Dayton, Ohio and Illinois. We both were conducting some of the early experiments on 10 meters FM by converting CB radios and finding ways to FM modulate amateur transceivers.

 

Good Stuff. I've spent 50 years on CW, I'm just learning Phone! Thanks!

 

Absolutely priceless! Thank you Bob!!!
Brian

 

Great guy love his products .Was fun to watch him on C-BAND satellite on my 10 1/2 dish. Have recordings somewhere. Stay safe BOB .

 

Ha Ha, tall learning curve that phone stuff, but we all have confidence you'll do fine!

 

I loved the video--for most part.

Why all the hating on condensers though? I understand from a live sound (or radio) perspective, but condensers are the gold standard for studio recording, as well as live recording of acoustic instruments, choirs, and orchestras.

If Heil can make a dynamic with the sensitivity, frequency response, clarity, and low noise of the Schoeps Colette cardioid or omni, I will buy 10 of them.

 

Stick a Fairchild 670 on any mike and it will sound close to perfect;-) If you want a proximity effect then buy the Little proximity enhancer.

I have 25 mikes here, collected over 40 years (including 3 Heil mikes, which are just fine). I am always blown away when people quote the linear characteristics as specs, and then drive them into non-linearity with pre-amps and compressors.

Most mikes today are made in PRC. Typically the elements are made first and the best ones show up in the premium brands. Slightly less performing--and I mean virtually indistinguishable in recording--show up in the clones, such as the MXL brand.

Its a bit ironic that recording studios typically covet 70 year old ribbon microphones, with low output. Its just a propagated mythology! Like using TR-808s or Yamaha NS-10m's.

If you want 'broadcast' on sideband...well.. good luck! They're running UA and ORBAN and all kinds a good stuff to make the mike sound great. Believe me, an RE-20, TLA-102, an S7B, or any ribbon mike with a good pre-amp will all give you that bottom silk...

73
Chip W1YW

 

There are 'most mics,' and then there are quality mics. You will certainly find some quality mics made in the PRC, but consistency is the problem. Rode now manufactures completely in Australia, Neumann and Schoeps are manufactured in Germany, and--speaking of ribbons--AEA and Royer both manufacture in California.

Different microphones (dynamic, condenser, ribbon) and different polar patterns are best suited for different situations. An amateur radio DXer needs a certain microphone. A rock band records in the studio with one set of microphones, and tours with completely different microphones (of course, with some exceptions).

For an orchestra, choir, or pipe organ, Dr. Heil said it best: 'It captures everything in the room!' Perfect. The goal is not purely to capture the sound of the instruments or singers, it is--at least partially--to capture how those instruments or singers sound in the space.

 

You missed the point-- the quality elements go into the high end products and the rejected elements s go into the low end. ALL the high quality PRC mikes are just that: high quality.

My 'space' --that is a reverberant spatial image-- is formed in a Lexicon 224, an AMS RMX16, a PCM-70, a tiled echo chamber, variable phase differential, and so on. This is typical of broadcast and recording environments--when they use it. OCCASSIONALY someone will want the 20-40 ms reinforcement of a bright room on a vocal, but usually 'seating' is best done post-recording with outboard gear or plug ins.

In ham radio, a room sound is usually bad news. A short (25ms) slap echo does a nice reinforcement but almost no one uses a room sound to cut through the pileups Being able o control a pattern is nice, but usually not a big deal on voice , given the above .

I disagree: each and every one of my microphones could be used for ham radio. Its just a waste to have a great microphone on such a limited and low fidelity audio passband, with a crappy compressor to boot. Heil mikes are essentially over-engineered and over-'qualitied' for our application. IOW they work great on SSB, but work equally well in recording in many examples. That is a compliment. Heil products are consistent, high quality, and great values.

If I run a crystal mike through an 1176 compressor and port to the rig, believe me, no one would complain about bad audio. IOW, putting too much emphasis on the mike is kind of a 1950's approach to sound.

My prediction is that someone will create an SDR 'plug in' for SDR radios, with the mike as part of the package, and all our various hardware oriented massaging will be rendered moot;-) The transfer function of the mike will probably be pretty bad compared to other mikes, but the digital processing will make us boom through.

I am amused that a modern emphasis is to rough-up vocals in recordings with sub octave formants and distortion--the very things that mikes tried to fix 100 years ago....

My opinion, appreciate your differs

73
Chip W1YW