JBL - Greatful Dead's Wall of Sound
 

Everyone knows the Graetful Dead used McIntosh amplifiers exclusively. They also had the same dedication to JBL speakers, too.

http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/q...allofsound.jpg

Dan, you've hit on a topic that is close to my heart! The WOS ran at 26.4 KW's, Ivan's Room is a few KW's short of equalling the Wall. The tweeters were made by Electrovoice, all the cone speakers were JBL's.

A few bits of audiophile related and other trivia:

1- John Curl was an engineer for the Wall, he designed a special preamp for the vocal microphones (using B & K capsules) used in the system.

2- Curl hired a brash young engineer named Mark Levinson to build the mic preamps.

3- Levinson used to sell his early gear by setting up his amps driving JBL speakers stacked up as they were in the Wall.

4- The Wall was so heavy that it required a specially designed stage to hold all the weight. There were two stages constructed, so that one was in use and the other was being set up at the next venue on tour. The stages leap-frogged one another around the country.

5- People I have spoken to who experienced the Wall in person said it was utterly amazing. One fellow told me that he did not realize how loud it was until he tried to have a conversation with the person next to him- clean sound!

6- There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert. And sadly, there never will be again. :tears::tears:

7- The WOS is why I own McIntosh gear. Until his departure Jerry Garcia's on-stage guitar amp was an MC2300. :yes::yes:

Grateful Dead's wall of sound
 

This photo is always awe-inspiring to see! :yes:

Pete

US Blues........Thanks for that. Great tidbits of information. Of course there was the Grateful Dead's resident chemist Owsley Stanley, too. I drank a little of his punch at a Winterland Grateful Dead concert in 1969, and wasn't right until well into the next day. Phew!!! Those were some wild days in San Francisco back in the late 60's. :dazed-7: :D

Dan- maybe everything WAS right until the next day. :smoking:

A couple more tech tidbits- the WOS was actually a collection of six separate systems that were stacked together. There were 2 guitars, a bass that could play quadrophonically (each of the 4 strings had it's own MC2300 and could be played through half of each stack of bass speakers), keyboards, drums and vocals. Each musical voice had its own system and there was no mixing of sounds, except for the drum microphones and the vocal microphones, but they stayed within their own system.

The speaker arrays were designed as transmission lines, with the entire Wall operating as a point source to minimize phase distortion. The bass speaker towers were the physical height of the lowest note available on a 4 string bass- 38 feet. The center speaker cluster produced the vocals and the keyboards had a smaller curved speaker array on stage left (in your photo the keyboard cluster was not yet finished, note the curved stacking of individual speaker cabinets).

PS- For the faithful, or folks with deep interest in technical matters, there is a wonderful book called "Grateful Dead Gear" that details the guitars, basses, drums, PA's and recording dates of the band through their 30 year history.

Things like this are a real reminder of a different time. I lived on the East Coast at that time and I never saw the Dead live. I wish I had heard the famous wall of sound.

Sometimes, I miss the 60s.

Me too... :smoker:

My good friend Allan Markoff provided the JBL speakers & Mac Gear at Woodstock. He is mentioned in the "For the Love of Music" book.

I saw the Dead 2 weeks before Jerry died... not to sound morbid but he seemes kinda lifeless that night... This was after the Dead had fired off an open letter to their fans basically saying: "don't come to the shows without tickets expecting a 'miracle' (as it were)... This was also after a roof collapsed in MO on a bunch of fans who had climbed onto a roof to see the show from an outside-the-venue location. Much disintegration and gate-crashing abounded at that time. 7-6-95 was the STL show, my birthday I might add.

You're only 15???:eek2:

:D

Bob

I was a regular tour head from 77-90, but then things went downhill from there (IMO). After 90, I wouldn't travel far and wide to see them anymore. Just a few shows here and there. Besides the "seedy" tour scene, it was pretty apparent that Jerry was having difficulty, so much so that they began to turn Jerry's rig volume down. It was too painful to watch..He was on stage but he was in a different place. Very sad:tears::tears:

'Twas the anniversary of my mother's birthing of twins: Michael Hy and Michelle Jo, hence my moniker.

Me during my wonderfully misspent youth. 22 years old and living on the road. Life was good.

http://analogtubes.com/tubeshop/tnt.bmp

Wow.. cool photo...what bands set up was that?

Great history and info guys!

I have always liked my Curl Halo amps, but there latest models seem somewhat cutback.

Was not John also involved with the THX stuff and the Mobile Sound 1/2 speed albums too?

I saw Kenny G one of several times at the Universal Amp Theater and they had MC gear, I no I was looking down on it. This was pre-digital cameras and cell days.

Great stuff, funny yet neat to look back.

Are there any really decent books that talk about all the names from the hey day like Bob Carver, all the companies, devorces etc he had, the Altec and more JBL history etc....

John Curl designed some of the early and most legendary of Mark Levinson gear including the JC2 Preamp. The ML2 mono amplifier began as a Curl design but was completed after Curl left MLAS

That particular one was Ted Nugent. I toured for about 15 years, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Santana, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, The Clash, The Who, George Duke and Stanley Clarke, The Talking Heads and about a dozen more. After touring I went to work for Westlake Audio.

This particluar rig is a 5 way all JBL speaker system powered by bridged mono JBL 6233 power amps. The one in the picture is the stage left side of the "small" rig.

Greetings-
I have been reading this thread with interest- I am a big Dead fan, as well as JBL, and of course McIntosh.
My fav year of Dead music is 1974, when the WOS was in use. The music and the sound are unmatched.
Those of you who are Deadheads know that "Bear" Owsley Stanley passed away recently, and there is a fascinating interview with him online:
Remembering Owsley "Bear" Stanley | Grateful Dead
and more of the interview is avalable here:
20110330-Wed2000.m3u
Bear was really the vision behind the WOS even though he was not an engineer. He started with the Dead in the 60's, supplying them with the PA system they started with, which was his Macintosh home system at the time. In the interview he explains the whole story, as well as how he realized that the music scene was behind the times technologicly in those days and what he did to change that.
Joe

Joe...thanks for the link. Much appreciated.

Dave

Sent from my iPhone using A.Aficionado

Before the Wall of Sound, their gear was transported in this famous Studebaker truck, which has recently been discovered. I thought this article from Hemmings Motor News might be of interest. I thought it was interesting.

A long, strange trip: Grateful Dead Studebaker truck found | Hemmings Blog: Classic and collectible cars and parts

Very interesting and thanks for sharing!

This is funny... I just ordered a print of this photo and had it framed for my new room. Picked it up yesterday.....

Awesome thread guys - keep it up ! This is great info !

Josh...if you don't mind where did you order the print from?

Dave

Sent from my iPad using A.Aficionado

Dave below is the link...

http://www.rpechner.com/Music/Gratef...637035&k=yb958

I bought the 20 x 30 print and it is true photo quality! This site is authorized thru the original photographer and has other great photos (also did some photos for the McIntosh book...)

Below is the framed print I just picked up!! :D

Attachment 16974



Attachment 16975

Josh...nice:thumbsup::yes:, thanks for the link. Think I'll order a print of the WOS.

Dave

Thanks Dave! I think it turned out nice :D and you can see the McIntosh amps really well...

Josh...I agree, looks great. Thanks again for the link:thumbsup::yes:

Dave

It has been stated here that the Dead used Mac amps exclusively in the WOS but that is not my recollection. In fact if you look at the video: "Video by Justin Kreutzmann of my photo shoot for McIntosh Labs featuring Bob Weir singing a song and hangin' at home." on the Smugmug site: Pechner Productions : Music you'll see some Phase Linear 700s. I also remember seeing a number of Crown DC300s used in the wall. My first amp was a Mac integrated and my second was a DC300 so I was paying attention.

Indeed, I only this morning hit the internal links -- 1954 Studebaker one-ton pickup, recently discovered (where they show a video and playing the tune "Truckin'.") larger-than-life, etc. -- so I had missed those opportunities the first time I looked at the original link:

A long, strange trip: Grateful Dead Studebaker truck found | Hemmings Blog: Classic and collectible cars and parts

Here's an internal link I had originally not clicked through:

www.gratefuldeadtruck.com

There's quite a bit here. I think it's cool.

Indeed, the Wall of Sound was something well ahead of its time for sure....

It utilized mostly McIntosh MC2300 amplifiers....about 26,000 watts....we use up to ten times the power in a typical arena system these days...

The JBL's were D130's (the 15") not sure on the 12" and 5"....

The horns however were electrovoice...

The clever omni-directional differential microphone set-up so they could have the microphones and sing in front of the system without feedback....
Unfortunately though, the vocal sound was compromised due to the type of microphone the needed to use, lots of "popping" and "shhhh'ing" and reduced bandwidth...you can hear this in the Grateful Dead Movie....however, it was effective and the results were well ahead of other live sound solutions of the time.

The custom Alembic Bass guitar that Phil used had two normal pickups as well as a quad pickup which was sent to its own PA stack (two stacks split into two zones each for each of the four strings), this was done to reduce, or in fact nearly eliminate intermod distortion, he could play chords on the bass and have them sound incredibly clear.......very innovative....

So yes, we must not forget the things which contributed to the development of modern concert sound....which JBL has been a major part of with their driver development.....

Great to see a thread on the Wall of Sound.....:thumbsup:

:roflmao: So that was it :laughin:

Very interesting post. That picture says so much. It's awe inspiring, and so much history. thanks for posting.

Serendipity defined: A long day dealing with computer issues at work; psychologically preparing for my wife's hospital stay starting tomorrow; a few Thai Chang beers (6.3%!); Neil Young's Decade playing on the stereo; and finally--totally unexpectedly--finding this thread.

I saw the Dead twice in Maryland (home state :)) while in high school in the late 70s and early 80s.

Dan, my absolutely favorite audio writer in the universe, wow, San Francisco in the 1960s??? That is the stuff of legends...

Masterlu, the "owner" of my absolutely favorite audio forum on the internet, your friend was involved in Woodstock with their McIntosh gear?? This is very very cool...

And the Dead, their magical wall of sound powered by McIntosh, just as in my room? This is pedigree...

I am heading to bed with a big smile...

ron

I saw and heard the WOS on several occasions. I probably attended Dead concerts a dozens times between about '73 and '82, give or take. Also saw the Gerry Garcia Band a few times as well.

Half the stage was taken up by those two sets of huge drum kits.

And they didn't do lame-ass one hour shows. Three or four hours, or longer, was the norm.

Right, I forgot about that. Reminds me of Ray Charles. I saw him in 1993 at a Christmas Dinner Show at the Hotel New Otani in Osaka, Japan. He just kept playing and playing. His guys had to literally pull him off the stage. Now that's dedication and passion for music.

ron

Wow this brings back memories,

I remember my first concert was the Dead at what was Giants Stadium IIRC 1977 I had just picked up my first high end system consisting of a C26 and MC 2505 and was drooling the entire concert over the stack of MC2300's about ten high just for the back towers about midway through the stadium. IIRC I counted about 45 or more but the rest of the day was a bit foggy for some reason.

I do recall I was worried the tower of amps was going to topple when they started playing Donnie and Marie (A little bit country ?) over the system after Waylon Jennings left the stage and the Dead were preparing :smoking: for the concert. People started to climb the towers in protest and boo loudly.

I find it funny how they spent so much for the best equipment at the time to make their concerts sound the best and everyone was content listening to their bootlegs on crappy cassettes that were inaudible.

During my summer break from college in 1973, I went to the Watkins Glen concert to listen to the Greatful Dead, The Band and Allman Brothers. At that time I was more into the Allman Brothers. Being young at that time, I didn't apreciate all of the gear that was on the stage. My memories are more of how hot and wet it was, as well as watching many girls walking around topless.

Paul
I was there too. What I remember is being very wet, thirsty and hungry. Like you I was more interested in the Allman Brothers. To this day, I can't believe there was more than 600,000 people there. I also wasn't interested in audio gear as long as the music sounded good(and it did).

An interesting story about the Watkins Glen show and McIntosh. Because of the size of the venue the Dead decided they needed more MC2300 power amps to drive some more PA speakers for that show. A member of the Dead's road crew flew from Watkin's Glen to Binghamton in a helicopter (both cities are near one another in Upstate NY) with a wad of cash in his pocket to buy 5 more power amps.

Turns out the factory was closed for Summer vacation, but a local dealer got the President of McIntosh on the phone, who then drove to the factory with his family in the station wagon loaded up for vacation, to sell the Dead 5 more amps. At this point permission was obtained from the Binghamton police department to land the chopper by the factory door to load in the 5 MC2300's and fly them back to Watkin's Glen. The amps were so heavy (125 lbs. each) that the chopper had a difficult time getting airborne! But as often happened, providence smiled upon the Grateful Dead and they got the amps to the concert site and were able to get that much more sound to the assembled faithful.

For many years afterwards the Dead had in their PA 5 MC2300's with no serial numbers, because the amps had not gone through their final testing process.

PS- Over the years I have conversed with a number of people who attended this show, and very few of them remember the music played, never mind the PA system. :thumbsup: