Bob Heil
Encyclopedia
Bob Heil is an American
sound and radio engineer most well-known for creating the template for modern rock sound systems. He founded the company Heil Sound
in 1966, which went on to create unique touring sound systems for bands such as The Grateful Dead and The Who
. He invented the Heil Talk Box in 1973, which was frequently used by musicians such as Peter Frampton
, Joe Walsh
and Richie Sambora
, and is still in use today.
Heil has been an innovator in the field of amateur radio
, manufacturing microphones and satellite dishes for broadcasters and live sound engineers. In the late 1980s Heil Sound
became one of the first American companies to create and install Home Theaters, and Heil has lectured at major electronic conventions and taught classes at various institutions.
He has won multiple awards and honors, and in 2007 he became the first manufacturer to be invited to exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
.
. He became a proficient theater organ musician at a young age, beginning to perform at various local restaurants at the age of 14. At the age of 15, he became house player for the Wurlitzer
theater organ in the Fox Theater in St. Louis. During that time he learned how to tune and repair the organ.
In his teens he also became an avid amateur radio
operator, and began designing and building homemade transmitters, amplifiers, and antenna systems.
restaurant in St. Louis, playing the instruments 6 nights a week. After having played the organ for eight years solid, Heil opened a successful professional music shop in the small town of Marissa, Illinois
.
In 1966 he founded Heil Sound
, experimenting with live sound systems and becoming the technician to several venues around St. Louis, from auditoriums to bowling alleys. Large sounds systems at the time were comparatively weak and primitive; in 1965 The Beatles
had played New York
's Shea Stadium
using only a Shure
Vocalmaster PA system plugged into the baseball park's announcement system.
the Grateful Dead
were scheduled to play a concert at the Fox Theater in St. Louis. For the tour they were using a sound system run and developed by "Bear" Augustus Owsley Stanley III. Owsley, who had a pending drug charge for producing copious amounts of LSD
, was under orders not to leave the state of California
. Owsley had been arrested on February 1 for leaving the state while at a Grateful Dead show in New Orleans, with police detaining most of the Dead's sound system as well.
Someone at Fox Theater gave Jerry Garcia
Heil's phone number, and Heil remembers Garcia calling to say "Hey man, I heard you have a really big PA
." Heil had been toying and tinkering the Fox Theater's massive Altec Lansing A-4
speaker cabinets for some time, in the hopes of building a massive sound system to more appropriately fill the theater. Heil promptly came to the Fox and replaced the 15-inch speakers with JBL D140
s, and added an array of four radial horns on top of each stack
. He has stated "That made a huge difference. No one was putting radial horns into PA systems; they were just doing speakers in columns, like the Vocalmaster. The horns are what give the system intelligibility — you can actually understand the lyrics." His stack riggings resulted in an unusual frequency range from below 200 Hz
to well over 15 kHz.
Heil also brought in a modified Langevin studio recording console
, uniquely adapted for live work. Heil's friend Tomlinson Holman
, then a young student at the University of Illinois, had helped with the rewiring. Holman would go on to create the THX
theater sound protocol. Heil himself created an electronic crossover in the console to control speaker output. Beyond the PA system that night, Heil also supplied the mixers, saying "My two roadies, Peter Kimble and John Lloyd, knew all the Dead songs — they were big fans. So that night they moved the PA, set it up and mixed the show."
Heil also had a unique technique to handle the feedback
problems; a small second microphone taped behind each main microphone. He stated "We would run the microphones out of phase from the monitors, something that nobody had been doing yet. Since they were out of phase with the microphones and the FOH
system, anything that leaked in from the monitors would be canceled out. As a result, we could get these things incredibly loud before they would feed back. That's one of the things that Jerry Garcia really loved."
The show was a success, and the Grateful Dead asked Heil, his crew, and his sound system to join them on the road. Heil's setup would later become a template for the modern concert touring sound system.
After touring with the Dead, Billboard
reported publicly that a small Midwest sound system purveyor had snagged the position. Shortly after the article Heil received a call from the management of The Who
. They had been experiencing a bumpy start to their US tour, and Heil brought a more refined and powerful version of his sound system to their shows. He's stated "We did the Who's Next
tour for a year and a half, across the US, to Europe and back here again." The tour created a bond between Heil and Who guitarist Pete Townshend
, who commissioned Heil to create the quadraphonic sound system he had envisioned for the live tour after the release of their Quadrophenia
LP. According to Heil, "We set up two 15-channel Mavis consoles together, put speakers in four corners and we were able to fly Roger's [Daltrey] voice around the room. When we did Madison Square Garden
with Quadrophenia, the PA was enormous. I think we had on each side six to eight 15-inch speaker bins, six to eight radial horns, and about a dozen tweeters. We could get about 110dB
to 115dB on that stage before feedback. And the Who loved it, man, because it was loud, and they loved loud."
Heil toured with multiple other major acts of the 1970s, including Joe Walsh
, Peter Frampton
, and Jeff Beck
.
, and manufactures a variety of microphones for professional use.
Heil Talk Box
The Heil Talk Box was made famous after being used by Joe Walsh
, Peter Frampton
, and Richie Sambora
. It was the first high-powered Talk Box
on the market, which could reliably be used on high-level rock stages. The first Heil Talk Box was built for Joe Walsh
's Barnstorm Tour. It was developed in 1973. Heil later sold the rights to Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc.. Frampton frequently used a Heil Talk Box after receiving one as a Christmas present from Heil in 1974, and it can be prominently heard on his 1975 album Frampton.
Amateur radio
In the late 1970s Heil Sound entered the amateur radio
market, with Heil ostensibly working to fix problems in the industry involving poorly transmitted and received audio. He applied science he had learned from Paul Klipsch, Don Leslie, Martin Wick, and the Bell Labs
Fletcher-Munson curves. He developed his HC series microphones, intended for amateur radio communication. Heil Sound was also an early installer of large satellite dishes for radio. Heil Sound is currently the largest manufacturer of microphones and audio products for the amateur radio industry, with over 100 dealers worldwide.
Heil's PROLINE microphone products are popular among commercial broadcasters and live sound engineers.
Podcast
In May 2011, Heil became the host of a Ham Radio podcast "Ham Nation" on Leo Laporte's
podcasting network, TWiT.
Home theaters
In the late 1980s, Heil Sound entered the home theater movement becoming popular in the United States
. His company became one of the first to design and install Custom Home theater systems and nationally, with over 3,000 audio/video systems as of 2010. Heil installed the very first DSS System, which he placed at the St. Louis office of Bob Costas
. He was also on the original test team for the RCA
DirecTV
dish system.
and NAB
shows in Las Vegas and Trebas Institute
in Toronto
. He has published five books on music and sound technology.
the year before. He was later awarded the 1989 "USA Satellite Dealer of the Year" by the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association
in Las Vegas. In 1995, he received the very first "Live Sound Pioneer Award" at the Audio Engineering Society
Convention" in San Francisco.
Heil won the Parnelli Award
for Innovator of the Year in 2007. Also in 2007, he was invited into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
to put up a display of his historically important gear, which included the first modular mixing console
(the Mavis), his custom quadraphonic mixer (originally used in the Quadrophenia tour
), and the very first Heil Talk Box
. He was the very first manufacturer to be invited into the Hall.
. He has two daughters and one step-son. He continues to play the Wurlitzer Organ at the Fox Theater, and has a classic car collection, chiefly of 50's Thunderbird
s.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sound and radio engineer most well-known for creating the template for modern rock sound systems. He founded the company Heil Sound
Heil Sound
Heil Sound, Ltd. is an American manufacturer of professional audio equipment based in Fairview Heights, Illinois. The company was founded by Bob Heil in 1966, and is well-known for inventions in live sound, the Heil Talk Box and a variety of high-quality microphones and headsets for use in...
in 1966, which went on to create unique touring sound systems for bands such as The Grateful Dead and The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
. He invented the Heil Talk Box in 1973, which was frequently used by musicians such as Peter Frampton
Peter Frampton
Peter Kenneth Frampton is an English musician, singer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold over 6 million copies...
, Joe Walsh
Joe Walsh
Joseph Fidler "Joe" Walsh is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has been a member of three commercially successful bands, the James Gang, Barnstorm, and the Eagles, and has experienced notable success as a solo artist and prolific session musician, especially with B.B...
and Richie Sambora
Richie Sambora
Richard Stephen "Richie" Sambora is an American rock guitarist, producer, musician, singer, and songwriter who is the longtime lead guitarist of the rock band, Bon Jovi. He and frontman Jon Bon Jovi form the primary songwriting unit of the band...
, and is still in use today.
Heil has been an innovator in the field of amateur radio
Amateur radio
Amateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...
, manufacturing microphones and satellite dishes for broadcasters and live sound engineers. In the late 1980s Heil Sound
Heil Sound
Heil Sound, Ltd. is an American manufacturer of professional audio equipment based in Fairview Heights, Illinois. The company was founded by Bob Heil in 1966, and is well-known for inventions in live sound, the Heil Talk Box and a variety of high-quality microphones and headsets for use in...
became one of the first American companies to create and install Home Theaters, and Heil has lectured at major electronic conventions and taught classes at various institutions.
He has won multiple awards and honors, and in 2007 he became the first manufacturer to be invited to exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
.
Early life
Bob Heil was born in the 1940s in IllinoisIllinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. He became a proficient theater organ musician at a young age, beginning to perform at various local restaurants at the age of 14. At the age of 15, he became house player for the Wurlitzer
Wurlitzer
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, was an American company that produced stringed instruments, woodwinds, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electronic organs, electric pianos and jukeboxes....
theater organ in the Fox Theater in St. Louis. During that time he learned how to tune and repair the organ.
In his teens he also became an avid amateur radio
Amateur radio
Amateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...
operator, and began designing and building homemade transmitters, amplifiers, and antenna systems.
Career
In his early twenties Heil began designing and building various theater pipe organ installations in the Holiday Inn NorthHoliday Inn
Holiday Inn is a brand of hotels, formally a economy motel chain, forming part of the British InterContinental Hotels Group . It is one of the world's largest hotel chains with 238,440 bedrooms and 1,301 hotels globally. There are currently 5 hotels in the pipeline...
restaurant in St. Louis, playing the instruments 6 nights a week. After having played the organ for eight years solid, Heil opened a successful professional music shop in the small town of Marissa, Illinois
Marissa, Illinois
Marissa is a village in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. The population was 2,141 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Marissa is located at ....
.
In 1966 he founded Heil Sound
Heil Sound
Heil Sound, Ltd. is an American manufacturer of professional audio equipment based in Fairview Heights, Illinois. The company was founded by Bob Heil in 1966, and is well-known for inventions in live sound, the Heil Talk Box and a variety of high-quality microphones and headsets for use in...
, experimenting with live sound systems and becoming the technician to several venues around St. Louis, from auditoriums to bowling alleys. Large sounds systems at the time were comparatively weak and primitive; in 1965 The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
had played New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
's Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium
William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, usually shortened to Shea Stadium or just Shea , was a stadium in the New York City borough of Queens, in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. It was the home baseball park of Major League Baseball's New York Mets from 1964 to 2008...
using only a Shure
Shure
Shure Incorporated is an American corporation originally founded by Sidney N. Shure in Chicago, Illinois in 1925 as a supplier of radio parts kits. The company became a consumer and professional audio-electronics manufacturer of microphones, wireless microphone systems, phonograph cartridges,...
Vocalmaster PA system plugged into the baseball park's announcement system.
The Grateful Dead concert
On February 2, 1970, jam bandJam band
-Ambiguity:By the late 1990s use of the term jam band also became ambiguous. An editorial at jamband.com suggested that any band of which a primary band such as Phish has done a cover of be included as jam band. The example was including New York post-punk band Talking Heads after Phish performed...
the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
were scheduled to play a concert at the Fox Theater in St. Louis. For the tour they were using a sound system run and developed by "Bear" Augustus Owsley Stanley III. Owsley, who had a pending drug charge for producing copious amounts of LSD
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
, was under orders not to leave the state of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Owsley had been arrested on February 1 for leaving the state while at a Grateful Dead show in New Orleans, with police detaining most of the Dead's sound system as well.
Someone at Fox Theater gave Jerry Garcia
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...
Heil's phone number, and Heil remembers Garcia calling to say "Hey man, I heard you have a really big PA
Public address
A public address system is an electronic amplification system with a mixer, amplifier and loudspeakers, used to reinforce a sound source, e.g., a person giving a speech, a DJ playing prerecorded music, and distributing the sound throughout a venue or building.Simple PA systems are often used in...
." Heil had been toying and tinkering the Fox Theater's massive Altec Lansing A-4
Altec Lansing
Altec Lansing is a line of professional, home, automotive, computer, and multimedia audio products first developed in 1936. They were used in many studios as monitor speakers...
speaker cabinets for some time, in the hopes of building a massive sound system to more appropriately fill the theater. Heil promptly came to the Fox and replaced the 15-inch speakers with JBL D140
JBL
JBL is an American audio electronics company currently owned by Harman International. It was founded in 1946 by James Bullough Lansing. Their primary products are loudspeakers and associated electronics. There are two independent divisions within the company — JBL Consumer and JBL Professional...
s, and added an array of four radial horns on top of each stack
Guitar amplifier
A guitar amplifier is an electronic amplifier designed to make the signal of an electric or acoustic guitar louder so that it will produce sound through a loudspeaker...
. He has stated "That made a huge difference. No one was putting radial horns into PA systems; they were just doing speakers in columns, like the Vocalmaster. The horns are what give the system intelligibility — you can actually understand the lyrics." His stack riggings resulted in an unusual frequency range from below 200 Hz
HZ
Hz is the International Standard symbol for Hertz, the unit of frequencyHZ may also stand for:* Habitable zone, the distance from a star where a planet can maintain Earth-like life* Hamilton Zoo, in New Zealand...
to well over 15 kHz.
Heil also brought in a modified Langevin studio recording console
Mixing console
In professional audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a sound board, mixing desk, or mixer is an electronic device for combining , routing, and changing the level, timbre and/or dynamics of audio signals. A mixer can mix analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer...
, uniquely adapted for live work. Heil's friend Tomlinson Holman
Tomlinson Holman
Tomlinson M. Holman is an American film theorist, audio engineer, and inventor of film technologies, notably the Lucasfilm THX sound system. He developed the world's first 10.2 sound system. Earlier, Holman developed what was known as the Holman Preamplifier, for the Apt Corporation. He holds a...
, then a young student at the University of Illinois, had helped with the rewiring. Holman would go on to create the THX
THX
THX is a trade name of a high-fidelity audio/visual reproduction standard for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, gaming consoles, and car audio systems. The current THX was created in 2001 when it spun off from Lucasfilm Ltd...
theater sound protocol. Heil himself created an electronic crossover in the console to control speaker output. Beyond the PA system that night, Heil also supplied the mixers, saying "My two roadies, Peter Kimble and John Lloyd, knew all the Dead songs — they were big fans. So that night they moved the PA, set it up and mixed the show."
Heil also had a unique technique to handle the feedback
Audio feedback
Audio feedback is a special kind of positive feedback which occurs when a sound loop exists between an audio input and an audio output...
problems; a small second microphone taped behind each main microphone. He stated "We would run the microphones out of phase from the monitors, something that nobody had been doing yet. Since they were out of phase with the microphones and the FOH
FOH
FOH is a three-letter acronym which may refer to:*FOH Holdings, parent of Frederick's of Hollywood*Formula One Holdings, a company which nominally controls the commercial aspects of Formula One...
system, anything that leaked in from the monitors would be canceled out. As a result, we could get these things incredibly loud before they would feed back. That's one of the things that Jerry Garcia really loved."
The show was a success, and the Grateful Dead asked Heil, his crew, and his sound system to join them on the road. Heil's setup would later become a template for the modern concert touring sound system.
Major tours
The WhoAfter touring with the Dead, Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
reported publicly that a small Midwest sound system purveyor had snagged the position. Shortly after the article Heil received a call from the management of The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
. They had been experiencing a bumpy start to their US tour, and Heil brought a more refined and powerful version of his sound system to their shows. He's stated "We did the Who's Next
Who's Next
Who's Next is the fifth studio album by English rock band The Who, released in August 1971. The album has origins in a rock opera conceived by Pete Townshend called Lifehouse. The ambitious, complex project did not come to fruition at the time and instead, many of the songs written for the project...
tour for a year and a half, across the US, to Europe and back here again." The tour created a bond between Heil and Who guitarist Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
, who commissioned Heil to create the quadraphonic sound system he had envisioned for the live tour after the release of their Quadrophenia
Quadrophenia
Quadrophenia is the sixth studio album by English rock band The Who. Released on 19 October 1973 by Track and Polydor in the UK, and Track and MCA in the US, it is a double album, and the group's second rock opera...
LP. According to Heil, "We set up two 15-channel Mavis consoles together, put speakers in four corners and we were able to fly Roger's [Daltrey] voice around the room. When we did Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
with Quadrophenia, the PA was enormous. I think we had on each side six to eight 15-inch speaker bins, six to eight radial horns, and about a dozen tweeters. We could get about 110dB
DB
DB may refer to:In science and technology:*Decibel , a logarithmic unit of measurement in acoustics and electronics*Dubnium , a chemical element*DB connector, a size of D-subminiature electrical connector...
to 115dB on that stage before feedback. And the Who loved it, man, because it was loud, and they loved loud."
Heil toured with multiple other major acts of the 1970s, including Joe Walsh
Joe Walsh
Joseph Fidler "Joe" Walsh is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has been a member of three commercially successful bands, the James Gang, Barnstorm, and the Eagles, and has experienced notable success as a solo artist and prolific session musician, especially with B.B...
, Peter Frampton
Peter Frampton
Peter Kenneth Frampton is an English musician, singer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold over 6 million copies...
, and Jeff Beck
Jeff Beck
Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...
.
Heil Sound, Ltd.
Heil's company Heil Sound, Ltd. is based in Fairview Heights, IllinoisFairview Heights, Illinois
Fairview Heights is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. The population was 17,078 at the 2010 census. Fairview Heights is a dominant shopping center for Southwestern Illinois and includes numerous shopping plazas and the St...
, and manufactures a variety of microphones for professional use.
Heil Talk Box
The Heil Talk Box was made famous after being used by Joe Walsh
Joe Walsh
Joseph Fidler "Joe" Walsh is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has been a member of three commercially successful bands, the James Gang, Barnstorm, and the Eagles, and has experienced notable success as a solo artist and prolific session musician, especially with B.B...
, Peter Frampton
Peter Frampton
Peter Kenneth Frampton is an English musician, singer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold over 6 million copies...
, and Richie Sambora
Richie Sambora
Richard Stephen "Richie" Sambora is an American rock guitarist, producer, musician, singer, and songwriter who is the longtime lead guitarist of the rock band, Bon Jovi. He and frontman Jon Bon Jovi form the primary songwriting unit of the band...
. It was the first high-powered Talk Box
Talk box
A talk box is an effects unit that allows a musician to modify the sound of a musical instrument. The musician controls the modification by lip syncing, or by changing the shape of the mouth...
on the market, which could reliably be used on high-level rock stages. The first Heil Talk Box was built for Joe Walsh
Joe Walsh
Joseph Fidler "Joe" Walsh is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has been a member of three commercially successful bands, the James Gang, Barnstorm, and the Eagles, and has experienced notable success as a solo artist and prolific session musician, especially with B.B...
's Barnstorm Tour. It was developed in 1973. Heil later sold the rights to Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc.. Frampton frequently used a Heil Talk Box after receiving one as a Christmas present from Heil in 1974, and it can be prominently heard on his 1975 album Frampton.
Amateur radio
In the late 1970s Heil Sound entered the amateur radio
Amateur radio
Amateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...
market, with Heil ostensibly working to fix problems in the industry involving poorly transmitted and received audio. He applied science he had learned from Paul Klipsch, Don Leslie, Martin Wick, and the Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
Fletcher-Munson curves. He developed his HC series microphones, intended for amateur radio communication. Heil Sound was also an early installer of large satellite dishes for radio. Heil Sound is currently the largest manufacturer of microphones and audio products for the amateur radio industry, with over 100 dealers worldwide.
Heil's PROLINE microphone products are popular among commercial broadcasters and live sound engineers.
Podcast
In May 2011, Heil became the host of a Ham Radio podcast "Ham Nation" on Leo Laporte's
Leo Laporte
Léo Gordon Laporte is an Emmy Award winning, American technology broadcaster, author, and entrepreneur. A former resident of Providence, Rhode Island, he now lives in Petaluma, California with his wife Jennifer and two children, Abby and Henry....
podcasting network, TWiT.
Home theaters
In the late 1980s, Heil Sound entered the home theater movement becoming popular in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. His company became one of the first to design and install Custom Home theater systems and nationally, with over 3,000 audio/video systems as of 2010. Heil installed the very first DSS System, which he placed at the St. Louis office of Bob Costas
Bob Costas
Robert Quinlan "Bob" Costas is an American sportscaster, on the air for the NBC network since the early 1980s.-Early life:...
. He was also on the original test team for the RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
DirecTV
DirecTV
DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
dish system.
Lectures, publications
Heil has consistently worked as a teach and lecturer, often appearing at major electronic and satellite conventions. He has taught classes at CESCES
CES may stand for:*Closed ecological system, an ecosystem that does not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system*Constant elasticity of substitution, an economics production function*The ISO 639 code for the Czech language...
and NAB
NAB
NAB may stand for:* Name and address book* National Assessment Bank, an internal exam used by the Scottish Qualifications Authority* National Association of Broadcasters, the industry group representing the commercial radio stations and television stations of the United States** NAB Show, an annual...
shows in Las Vegas and Trebas Institute
Trebas Institute
Trebas Institute is a private, bilingual, post-secondary college specializing in the recording arts with campuses in Montreal, and Toronto.- Faculty :...
in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. He has published five books on music and sound technology.
Awards
Since the 1980s, Heil has won a number of awards and honors. He was the "International Amateur Radio Operator of the Year" in 1982, an award which had been held by Barry GoldwaterBarry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
the year before. He was later awarded the 1989 "USA Satellite Dealer of the Year" by the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association
Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association
The Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association is the national trade organization representing the consumer satellite industry in the United States, including the two largest service providers, DirecTV and DISH Network, manufacturers, installers, and distributors of satellite...
in Las Vegas. In 1995, he received the very first "Live Sound Pioneer Award" at the Audio Engineering Society
Audio Engineering Society
Established in 1948, the Audio Engineering Society draws its membership from amongst engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or products for audio, and persons working...
Convention" in San Francisco.
Heil won the Parnelli Award
Front of House Magazine
FRONT of HOUSE Magazine is a worldwide news service for live audio professionals. Published by Timeless Communications, Corp a Nevada corporation. The magazine comes in digital or "analog" format and is available free of charge to qualified professionals, enthusiasts, and students of event audio...
for Innovator of the Year in 2007. Also in 2007, he was invited into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
to put up a display of his historically important gear, which included the first modular mixing console
Mixing console
In professional audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a sound board, mixing desk, or mixer is an electronic device for combining , routing, and changing the level, timbre and/or dynamics of audio signals. A mixer can mix analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer...
(the Mavis), his custom quadraphonic mixer (originally used in the Quadrophenia tour
Quadrophenia
Quadrophenia is the sixth studio album by English rock band The Who. Released on 19 October 1973 by Track and Polydor in the UK, and Track and MCA in the US, it is a double album, and the group's second rock opera...
), and the very first Heil Talk Box
Talk box
A talk box is an effects unit that allows a musician to modify the sound of a musical instrument. The musician controls the modification by lip syncing, or by changing the shape of the mouth...
. He was the very first manufacturer to be invited into the Hall.
Personal life
Heil lives with his wife Sarah in Belleville, IllinoisBelleville, Illinois
Belleville is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city has a population of 44,478. It is the eighth-most populated city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area and the most populated city south of Springfield in the state of Illinois. It is the county...
. He has two daughters and one step-son. He continues to play the Wurlitzer Organ at the Fox Theater, and has a classic car collection, chiefly of 50's Thunderbird
Thunderbird
-Creatures:* Thunderbird , a legendary creature in Native American culture* Dromornithidae, an extinct Australian family of birds* Thunderbird , a term used in cryptozoology to describe large, bird-like creatures-Computing:...
s.
See also
- Heil Sound, Ltd.
- Talk box
- Quadraphonic sound
- amateur radioAmateur radioAmateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...
Further reading
External links
- Heil Sound Blog
- Ham Nation Podcast