For me it’s like piloting a flying saucer or riding your own sound wave
-Phil Lesh
For those of you who don’t know about the wall of sound (really…how could you not?) what follows is a brief essay on the topic.
U.S. Blues
Promised Land
Brown Eyed Women
Mexicali Blues
Tennessee Jed
Black-Throated Wind
Scarlet Begonias (first played)
Beat it on Down the Line
It Must Have Been the Roses
El Paso
Deal
Cassidy (first played)
China Cat Sunflower>
I Know You Rider
WRS Prelude>
WRS Part 1>
Let it Grow
Playin’ in the Band>
Uncle John’s Band>
Morning Dew>
Uncle John’s Band>
Playin’ in the Band
Ship of Fools
Big River
Ramble on Rose
Me and My Uncle
Bertha
Around and Around
Wharf Rat>
Sugar Magnolia
Casey Jones
One More Saturday Night
The date was 23 Mar 1974. The location was the Cow Palace. The occasion was the first concert that utilized the famous Grateful Dead wall of sound. There was nothing like this before, and there’s been nothing like it since. Many things made the wall of sound unique. I suppose that first and foremost in peoples minds was the sheer immensity, or volume of equipment. Although there were several configurations, one of the most commonly discussed is the one that consisted of 586 JBL speakers and 54 Electro Voice tweeters, powered by 48 600-watt McIntosh MC – 2300 amplifiers generating a total of 28,800 watts of continuous (RMS) power). Including scaffolding, the entire setup weighed in at around 75 tons. The gear took a full day to erect. This required two, (or three depending upon who you listen to) rigs, that would be leap-frogged between shows. The equipment required 2 flatbed trailers and 1 x 40’ semi plus a large crew just to handle it all. This obviously was not only cumbersome, but costly as well, and ultimately led to the demise of this glorious era in the band’s history.
The second thing is the actual quality of the sound. It was said that it was designed such that the sound was good up to 600 ft from the stage, and ‘acceptable’ for up to 1/4 of a mile away; (wind dependent)That people in the back of the hall could clearly hear if someone on stage were speaking in a normal level. The total system was comprised of 6 sub-systems. Each sub system was electronically separate from the others and had a specific function. Each musical voice went through its own unique system: vocals, piano, drums, lead guitar, rhythm guitar and bass each had their own specific channel(s) of processing.
In the vocal sub-system, signals from each of the vocal microphones were brought together by a Differential Summing Amp, which allowed phase purity to be regulated and the sound transparency maintained. These were matched differential Bruel and Kjaer microphones that were hooked up out of phase, only one of which is sung into. After that the vocal signals were processed through a crossover into four frequency bands, which in turn were amplified to the various speakers. Physically speaking the speaker cones were arranged very close together allowing the whole surface of the cluster to behave as one uniform working surface. This causes a large mass of air to be moved at once, without overdriving any one speaker. Additionally the centre cluster of the vocal system, comprised of high and mid range frequencies, was curved, dispersing sound cylindrically. The low frequency vocal speakers were arranged in a column. This arrangement allowed all frequencies to be equally well heard by the audience.
The piano sub-system was essentially a miniature version of the vocal system. A crossover divided the frequency range into three parts. Highs and Mids went through a cluster of 5 inch and 12 inch speakers. Lows went through a column of 15 inch speakers. There was a separate volume control for each of the pickups so that the sound could be balanced by the pianist.
The guitar sub-system was actually the simplest and had both guitars going through columns of twenty 12 inch speakers.
The drum sub-system consisted of two independent parts. The bass drum had one amplification channel and sixteen 15 inch speakers arranged in a column. The other drums and cymbals were miked through a crossover which separated the signal into Highs, Upper Mids, and Lower Mids, and fed them to Tweeters, 5 inch and 12 inch speakers. This second part of the drum system used two channel stereo with identical speaker columns on both sides.
Lastly we come to the most interesting of all, the bass sub-system. We can’t properly discuss it, without also discussing the bass guitar, which really was the bass sub-system. The guitar known as Mission Control was built by the legendary Rick Turner of Alembic, with the electronics designed and built by George Mundy. A quadraphonic design. There were three pickups covering all of the strings, and two quad pickups that had a separate signal for each string. Controls allowed selection of band width filter, centre frequency of the filter, type of filter, and mixing of filtered and unfiltered sound. Each of the strings on the bass had its own amplifier. A digital decoding system allowed selection of any one of sixteen quad spatial arrangements, and eight in stereo mode feeding into 4 separate stacks of 9, 15” speakers.
This separation via the sub-systems was designed to produce an undistorted, clean sound in which qualities like brilliance, transparency, presence, and clarity are unique and substantial dimensions, which has never been duplicated by modern systems.
The third thing about the wall of sound, and to my mind the most beautiful was the ability, in theory at least for the musicians to have control of the sound themselves. This was achieved a number of ways, but primarily through the philosophy of the design itself. The entire set of speakers is arrayed behind the band. This eliminates blind spots for the audience. It also essentially eliminated the need to fully rely on monitors and the pesky echoes that can come with their use. This design allowed the band to hear exactly what the audience heard. In turn this enabled them to adjust their sound on the fly, and in theory eliminate a front of the house sound man, because they had full control of their own vocals and instruments.
Don’t think this was a one and done design. The Wall was a holistic system that evolved and morphed continuously over the course of several years, with the never obtainable goal of the perfect sound experience for the audience, and ease of use for the band, technicians, and roadies, until it was ready for public consumption. Unfortunately, it only saw tour use from 1974 to 1976.
No discussion of the wall of sound can be complete without the mention of the man behind its inception. Augustus Owsley (Bear) Stanley III. There were of course many people to be credited with the design and build of the system, but it was Bear who was the shaman behind it all. He deserves his own story here at PGH, and I’m sure that he will get it someday.
Besides being the catalyst of the Wall, he was also sound engineer, band financier, designer of the iconic Steal Your Face logo, the guy responsible for ensuring that every session, and every concert was recorded, and of course he was the premier underground LSD chemist of all time…
“change any or all of the parameters of sound or form in the music at microscopic, atomic musical levels as well as macroscopic formal levels with almost relativistic speeds.”