Recording the Helicopter Sounds for 'Echoes' with a Neumann Mic and Leslie Cabinet

The helicopter-like shriek that swoops through the middle of “Echoes” wasn’t a field recording or a synth patch — it came from a single piano note fed through a rotating Leslie speaker. Richard Wright played a low note on the piano, and the signal was sent to a Leslie cabinet, whose spinning horn creates that wobbling Doppler shift. A Neumann U47 (or similar model) was placed close to the Leslie’s rotating