In the 1960’s a gentleman named Dick Swettenham worked as a Service/Design engineer for Abbey Road Studios. In the early 1970’s he began to work for Olympic Studios where he controlled Design and Maintenance. He approached the owners of Olympic stating that if they allowed him to order the necessary parts, he could build a desk that was far more musical than anything available at the time. They ga
ve him the ok, once the desk was completed and commissioned most of the great rock musicians of the era which included Jimi Hendrix, started to book time at Olympic. Most British and some American recording artists were now using Olympic Studios so Chris Blackwell of Island Records decided that if he built a studio around a Helios console he would save money and also have his own studio busy with artists wanting to record on the Helios console. But he was a client of Olympic, it would be impossible for him to request that Dick Swettenham of Olympic to build a console that would be in direct competition with Olympic, so he put up the finance for Dick to go into business. And so Helios was born. Seven consoles were built for Island, which included mobile studios. At this time Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells was selling well for Virgin Records, so Richard Branson had Helios build three consoles one for The Manor Studios, one for the Manor Mobile, and one for Townhouse Studios. The Who built Ramport Studios, around a Helios, The Rolling Stones built the legendary "Rolling Stones Mobile", 10cc built "Strawberry Studios" and so the story goes on, even the Beatles built “Apple Studios” around a green Helios console. The Helios became known as the Musicians Choice of Recording Consoles!
1. Alvin Lee/Ten Years After
2. Apple Studios/The Beatles
3. ARC Studios
4. Ginger Baker
6. Barbarossa Studios
7. Berwick Studios
8. Erik Clapton
9. Dawbreaker/Seals and Crofts
10. John Entwistle
11. Folkwange Hochschule
12. Hansa Tonstudio
13. Harry J Studios
14. Island Studios, Studio 1 (Desk #1)
15. Island Studios, Studio 1 (Desk #2)
16. Island Studios, Studio 2
17. Island Studios, Hammersmith
18. Island Studios, Mobile Unit
19. KPM Studios
20. Ronnie Lane Mobile
21. Le Maison Rouge
22. Le Maison Rouge Mobile
23. London Weekend Television
24. Love Records
25. Mainos Television
26. Manor Mobile
27. Manor Studios
28. Manor Townhouse/Shorefire
29. Steve Marriott
30. Paul McCartney
31. Media NL
32. Musicland
33. Norway Radio/Trondheim
34. Olympic Studios 1 (Pre "Helios" Swettenham design).
35. Olympic Studios 2 (Helios #1)
36. PSC Canada
37. Ramport Studios/The Who
38. Release Records
39. Rolling Stones Mobile (Helios #3)
40. Leon Russell
41. Russian Hill Audio/Funky Features/Steve Miller
42. Strawberry Studios/10cc
43. Studio 70
44. Talent Studios
45. Telemetropole
46. Tempo Studios
47. Universal Sound
48. Webcapital Radio Music
49. Web Education/ CET Teheran
50. Ron Wood
FACT: Led Zeppelin, Alvin Lee, Bad Company, Bad Finger, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Bob Marley, David Bowie, Deep Purple, Donovan, The Eagles, Eric Clapton, Faces, Fleetwood Mac, Frank Zappa, Free, Humble Pie, Jeff Beck, Jethro Tull, Jimi Hendrix, King Crimson, Leon Russell, Marc Bolan & T.Rex, The Moody Blues, Mott The Hoople, Nazareth, Paul McCartney, Peter Frampton, Queen, The Rolling Stones, Steve Miller, Stevie Winwood, Supertramp, Traffic, Uriah Heep, The Who, 10CC, and countless others all recorded on Helios consoles. Come to Shorefire and hear why, it's the sound of ROCK!
