[4][6] Kolbe studied with Hans Erich Apostel (1901–1972), head of the Austrian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) from 1946 to 1948.

[9][10] The Hot Club Seven played for United States military forces and in Soviet Army officer casinos in Austria.

In 1950, Kolbe gave lectures titled Introduction to Jazz Music at the Österreichische Radio-Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft (Austrian radio transmission company (RAVAG),[11] and had his own jazz program each week on Thursday and Friday nights at the RAVAG radio station, Wien I.

[17] From 1955 to 1975, Kolbe worked as a freelance recording engineer and producer for Columbia International (CBS Masterworks).

For this, Kolbe received the Grand prix du disque, an "Académie Charles Cros Diplome".

[21][22] In 1970, Kolbe accompanied the organist, Edward Biggs across Checkpoint Charlie to Leipzig, East Germany to record Bach's works in the Thomaskirche for CBS.

[23] In 1957, Kolbe returned to Switzerland and in 1960 he founded the Phonag Record Company in Winterthur, with the label Helvetia.

In April 1966, Kolbe improved his equipment from three small portable microphone mixers without equalizers, dual meters and a ReVox tape recorder to a portable 3-channel tube mixing console, designed and manufactured by Hans Leonhard (Leonhard Electronics, Zürich).

This console, which had switchable equalizers co-designed by Kolbe, was used in his studios in Winterthur and Lindau and on most on-location recordings for CBS and Phonag.

[30][31][32] In 1968, Kolbe was a listed member of the Krautrock band, Brainticket, playing keyboards, potentiometers, generators, and sound effects.

Phonag's rental lease finished on 30 September 1980 and engineer Robert Lattmann entered into a new contract with the hotel as owner of the studio.

[22][38] For instance, he was engaged by the Leonhard electronics company to plan and construct an auditorium for Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., and another for the Bank for International Settlements, both located in Basel, Switzerland.

[40] Although Kolbe continued to contribute to occasional recording projects, from this time, he concentrated on acoustics and control room design.

[12] Kolbe said, "I started a consultancy service for concert halls, theaters, industrial buildings, domestic, etc.

You have to understand the sort of environment that musicians require in a studio, control room or concert hall.

[22][41][42] Kolbe commented, "The development of TDS by the late Richard C. Heyser is, in my opinion, one of the greatest steps forward in acoustics since the work by [Wallace Clement] Sabine (1968–1919).

With today's recording techniques most of the music is done in the control room which means that you need space both for the instruments and the sound.

[22] In 1986 and 1987, Kolbe contributed to the development of the first head-related ear-recording system for acoustic measurement and recording purposes.

The goal is to achieve as natural a sound as possible so that things such as equalization [EQ] can be used as an effect, rather than as an attempt to compensate for coloration and/or bad acoustics.

The moment you have a neutral reference point I find that EQ settings tend to become less drastic and are often of the order of several dB or so.

Later, he adopted Ahnert and Feistel’s EASE (Enhanced Acoustic Simulator for Engineers), an industry standard for 3D electro-acoustic and room-acoustic modelling.

[45][46] In 1960, Hellmuth Kolbe met Ursula Plischke-Delabro in Vienna, where she was working in a recording studio, and they married in 1966 and had two children.

[47] During a recording session, Kolbe would make extensive notes on the musical performance, including the mistakes.

Kolbe was fluent in reading complex musical scores and always prepared himself carefully for a pending recording session.

His trips to the US were punctuated by visits to jazz clubs and restaurants where he could enjoy spicy food from places such as Korea, Thailand, and China.

Kolbe posthumously received the Richard C. Heyser TEF Award "for his revolutionary work in the use of TDS in room acoustics and recording" in 2005.