After 42 years and 6 months, I finally got the chance to speak with Roger Waters for a minute about one of the most incredible, potentially disastrous, nearly fatal, and little known events to happen in rock history; the nearly complete destruction and rebuild of the Pink Floyd sound system on the Dark Side of the Moon tour. On March 5th 1973, Pink Floyd played Cobo Hall in Detroit. About half way into the show, with the sound system at full volume and Alan Parsons at the FOH console, according to Roger when we spoke yesterday, a ballast weight fell from the rafters into a flash pot and caused a massive explosion on stage. The weight itself was blasted into small chunks of flying shrapnel. According to what I was told by the Floyd crew at the time, the explosion ripped a hole in the stage and threw chunks of wood 30 rows into the audience. Roger and Alan Parsons told me separately, that one man was hit in the chest by a chunk of plywood and critically injured. It was a miracle that none of the band or crew were killed. The force of the explosion blew every single driver in every single cabinet in the PA system! Let that sink in for a moment. This was one of the largest PA systems ever constructed to that time, and according to the crew, chunks of drivers showered down on the first ten rows of the audience. I can't imagine their shock. Something that I didn't find out until yesterday from Roger, was that immediately after the explosion, the Floyd crew scrounged together some spare cabinets and built a tiny system, one cabinet per band member, and they finished the freakin' show! That was the beginning of a heroic effort on the part of two sound crews. I was a roadie for Heil Sound at the time. Heil Sound was one of the largest PA companies in the US with two large systems, one for Humble Pie and one for The Who along with lots of other gear to put together smaller one-off systems. We were also one of the only JBL speaker reconeing companies in the mid west. It turned out that Bob Heil had met Pink Floyd some months earlier when he flew to London to purchase a Mavis console for the two big systems. So Bob knew who Pink Floyd was, but most of us on the crew had no idea. The night of March 5th, someone from Pink Floyd, somehow got Bob's home phone number (communication was NOTHING like it is today!) and told him of their plight. Bob rallied a crew, me included, and the next morning at dawn we loaded up a straight bed truck with loads of 15" JBL speakers along with boxes of tweeter drivers, dozens of drivers in all and four Heil 2X12 speakers and a pair of Phase Linear 700 amps, and headed for Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, Pink Floyds next stop on the tour. We met the Floyd crew at the stage door and formed a plan. They would bring in the cabinets and begin constructing the system as planned and as they built the massive stacked system, we would remove the backs from the cabinets and replace the blown drivers with brand new JBLs. If I recall there were only four of us Heil roadies on the gig, so the idea of replacing an entire sound systems driver contingent was really really a tall hill to climb. My job was a little different from the other three. I had to run a thousand feet of speaker wire and set up the Heil quad speakers that Pink Floyd used for the rest of the tour and assist some guy named Alan Parsons to set up and run a little TEAC 2340 quad tape machine. (The Heil speakers are coincidentally in the Rock Hall of Fame, but not because they were used on the Dark Side of the Moon tour, but just because Bob is Bob.) We went to work as quick as we could and worked right on through the day without a break. No lunch, no nothing. Just get the job done. Five O'clock came and the band came out to do a sound check, except there was no functioning PA yet, so they just played with their amps on stage and maybe a little bit of monitor. Nothing out front. I had no idea who Pink Floyd was and from my perspective out front, I thought they sounded kind of sleepy. Ha! 8 O'clock came and went and we weren't ready. 8:30 and we still didn't have the system put together yet. Around 9:00PM, someone made the call to open the doors and people streamed in, excited to hear some band I had never heard of. Odd. Around 9:30PM the house lights went down and a few seconds later, the curtain started to climb up out of the darkness and the PA EXPLODED again, but this time with the first strains of a kind of music that I had never heard before, I was shocked. After about a half hour set, the band took a few minutes intermission. When they came back, they played The Dark Side of the Moon! OMG. All of the tweeters were not yet replaced and we still had a crew member standing on each stack, screwing the backs on cabinets, but the sound was literally breathtaking. The scene was epic. I found myself standing next to Alan, while he smoothly swung back and forth between the FOH console and the little TEAC tape machine. He had gobs of white leader between each sound effect and in near total darkness, would fast forward the tape to the next SFX and cue it up. Then back to the console for a vocal ride or guitar ride and then back to the play button on the little tape machine. I say I found myself because at the first notes of the first song, I began to have an out of body experience like I had never experienced before. I had no idea who Pink Floyd was and was in no way expecting the sonic feast I was experiencing. I was an audio snob up to that point, and believed I knew how sound systems should sound. Oh no, I had no freakin' idea how sound systems should sound. That much was clear. The Pink Floyd PA, with brand new JBL speakers and drivers, and The Dark Side of the Moon flowing from it, was unlike any I had ever heard or have heard since. I was standing right in Alan Parsons sweet spot and the balance of the quad system was unbelievable. There were voices in my head. There were bells sweeping through my body and out the other side. At one point, a combination of exhaustion and elation almost cause me to lose my balance and I had to lean on the table, still being careful not to get anywhere near that tiny little player. When the show was over, I gathered myself and we Heil crew loaded our truck with our tools. I shook Alan's hand, may have got a hug from a Floyd roadie and almost without a word, we drove off into the night, only suspecting the profound musical event we had just witnessed and helped save. With every passing day, the events of March 6th, 1973 have become more profound to me. Kiel Auditorium is long gone, Many of us on the two crews are long gone. But the memories are as vivid as last nights sunset.
This is simply one of the most incredible things I have ever read, and an important footnote in popular music history. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
@@thedavesofourlives1 And with Jaguar, of course! 🤣How many years have passed and I still have the lyrics in my mind! I was also a "roadie" only in Hungary with our biggest rock bands. Nice memories! But even now, at the age of 70, I am improving, even "upgrading" my stage and studio technique. It's a passion like a drug! Fortunately, this gives you a zest for life, it doesn't destroy it!🙏
I was technical manager at Mayfair Studios during the recording & mixing of The Final Cut. When Pink Floyd were in, all our studio monitor power amps had to be replaced with Pink Floyd’s Phase Linear Amps.
The algorithm sees all and recommends another winning video - last two days I've listened continuously to just Pink Floyd (with a dose of Waters' solo work as well). The Final Cut (obviously standing between both worlds) remains a favourite, thanks for your contribution.
I appreciate it too! With my knowledge today, I understand how important phase linearity is for good sound. Back then, I checked the uniformity of the phase. This was also important knowledge for my later work. For me, that was the "Rolls Royce" category of amplifiers!
I saw Floyd at the East Town Theater in Detroit during the Ummaguma Tour and they had Quad Sound with speakers all over the theater; front, rear and above and a joy stick controller to swirl the sound. There was a large 'control pit' in the center on the floor. It blew everybody's mind when a sound bit of a guy chasing a fly around with a newspaper ended with a smack down and a satisfied got you, went all around the theater. Interstellar Overdrive was amazing.
Wow! Easttown Theatre! I used to live just a few blocks from there. Back then, I was too young (and too poor!) to get in to concerts, but I was allowed to hang out in the alley and listen from the loading door. What an awesome era for music
Pink Floyd were also fans of the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound. When the Grateful Dead went on hiatus in 1975, Pink Floyd leased it from them for the North American leg of the Wish You Were here tour. After the tour was over it was dismantled and sold\auctioned off. Every now and then you still find bits of it floating around on eBay.
So glad you guys are doing this. It's not so much the "vintage" that matters it is the engineering which produced full dynamics that are a critical and integral part of the music. The current generation would benefit highly from this experience. I put together a home system with about $100k worth of gear and I get such a thrill when I find a recording that does not need any tweaking. At that moment I feel all is one. Funny thing is the best sounding music was recorded between 1940's through the early 1980's. After that things got rough! My gosh thanks again.
I still remember the fantastic quad sound featuring Rick’s synth solo intro on Shine On You Crazy Diamond at Knebworth back in 1975, still makes the hairs rise on my arms just think about it. Great video, it’s good knowing the history of Pink Floyd 🤘
I remember standing in approximately the middle of Wembley Stadium sometime in the 1980's waiting for Floyd to come on. There was the usual music playing quite quietly through the PA and the sounds of thousands of people chattering. After a while I realised that the music was fading slowly until there was nothing. The anticipation increased and then we realised that it was raining, bummer! No, wait, why aren't we getting wet? It was the sound of rainfall slowly increasing in volume and filling the air from all directions! This was the beginning of the show!! Never forgotten the feeling at that moment of realisation.
Amazing. incredible how a composition well executed can take control of your senses. Never seen them myself, but can imagine the quad experience. Thanks for your personal experience.
I was at that gig too, right smack in the middle - what a gig! Also saw Roger 2002 at Glastonbury pyramid stage again in the middle quad sound (a first a glastonbury) plane fly over - top night!
I mixed Blue Oyster Cult on a later custom Floyd desk, a Midas with all the markings in colored phosphorescent paint. It was a two piece affair with dueling black lights and, yes, all the lettering glowed in the dark!
Oh the nostalgia... I entered the live sound game mid/late 70's and remember very well those Martin "W" bins and by that time we had the phillyshave mids and Mida mixers. The other Quad mixer of that time was the MAVIS, built like a tank and superb.. designed by one Bill Hough, who also did lots of mods for Deep Purple and also made some really cool parametric EQs for my FH Midas ( I regret not pulling at least a couple of them before I sold the desks).. Great to see all that old vintage gear lovingly cared for. Oh yes.. nostalgia ;-)))
Excellent video! One sidenote. Modern PA systems have more then sufficient dynamic range, the problem is the new generation of digital mixers have a compressor on each channel and thanks to the hype over compressors on, for instance, youtube. The new generation of soundengineers compress everything to an extend that they kill the musicality. I hear it over and over again at festivals. Being a soundengineer from the late 80's I've seen this compression hype slowly becoming a common practise. Back in the days you had 3 or 4 dbx160's (if you were lucky) and could make a very good sound for a 30 input channel band.
I don’t use any compression or noise gates live , mainly because we run on batteries and the less gear the better , 17 years doing festivals and all on batteries ( big one’s mind you :-) ) and Studer inverters, lovely sound live very dynamic and not compressed :-)
The heavy use of compression, particularly at festivals is largely due to the increasingly strict noise level restrictions imposed on these events. The more big transients they catch, the easier it is to stay within the on-site and off-site dB limits set out in the event's license. Sadly.
@@mbell5950 Thats not correct, those systems have their own limiters running in the accompanying dsp/crossover. They will limit at a spl you don't even wanna be near at during a live show. Modern Line-array systems are capable of producing 127 dBA easily. Now you don't wanna be near that volume.
@@martindale1680 Thats partly true, festivals are resrtricted to 98dBA or 103 dBA but measured over 5 or 10 minutes. At least where I live. Gives you plenty of headroom to do a proper show. Still the youngsters compress the heck out of everything.
There was a time in the late 80s where Dan Healy (Grateful Dead FOH) would set up rear speakers in the upper deck of the arena, and they would run the normal PA for most of the show and then kick on the rear speakers during the "Drums and Space" segments. Suddenly these crazy beats and weird noises would start spinning around the room. It was particularly enjoyable under psychedelicized conditions 🤪
This was a revelation for me!! Being of the generation that were teens when dsotm was released, so bought one of the first release, this was special to me. DSOTM is one of the best and most important musical works of our time, confirmed by it's significance only increasing over the decades. Having always been a hi-fi enthusiast, it was one of the albums that put me on a journey of continuous sound quality improvement, as in, spending more money! I was always fascinated by the American super amps, like the Crown/Amcron DC300A and of course the Phase Linear 400 and 700. In there time I could never afford any of them but have now got a DC300A, used every day and last year found a mint PL 400, uk version, first type with the VUs, at a reasonably price! Thing is, I had no idea that Pink Floyd used these in their PA system, so I'm utterly thrilled to now know this, and I have one!! So it's now going into my system, after I check it over, and this will give me a special connection to the music and the whole era. Bloody brilliant!
Thank youuu! For a musician and live sound engineer who had a 2 year phase of deep, deep Pink Floyd listening experience and cherished them ever since and is a serious analog gear enthusiast, this was beyond epic. My mouth still wide open.
This is so cool! no one has ever talked about this before. I've never knew using surround on a concert is a thing before I thought its just a modern cinema/threater thing.
i still have a original 4 track quadraphonic! reel to reel of dark side that was put out in the seventies. can only be played on a 4 track machine. amazing mix for 73. and i saw this pf show, also elp, yes, and a few others used this quad live system. it was great.
SUPER COOL . there was a james guthrie 4.1 mix and then a allan parsons 4.1 that was never officially released but the Immersion Blu ray versions of the quad mix are supposed to be the best of all. you can play these mixs with any pc as long as the sound card has enough (4) outputs , so technically there is a way to listen in quad , but you wont have the analog end of the deal . for me that didnt matter as i am not a gatekeeper , despite the fact i have owned all sorts of multi channel tape machines in my day. i first listened to quad by down loading quad mixs off the pirate bay , using a turtle beach sound card. they had some harry nillson quad mixs that were really great fun .
Thanks for sharing this. I love quadraphonic audio. I worked with JD Brill from Clair Global on Desert Trip in 2016 where we built two separate quadraphonic systems flown on 50+ foot delay towers, one for a temporary stadium seating 40,000 people and another for the remaining GA crowd for another ~20k. Shame but understandable that quadraphonic audio was a commercial failure, especially as portable audio players became popular in the early 80's with the walkman, subsequent CD revolution and now streaming revolutions where almost everyone is listening on earbuds. I guess I am in a small minority that thinks the notion that "you only have two ears, you only need two speakers" is complete rubbish. Dave Rat is another audio engineer I have worked with and he has a quote which I really agree with "no sound in nature comes from two places at the same time". As far as I understand the way a standard quadraphonic system typically works is by passively splitting the out of phase or "side" information from the main stereo signal and routes it to the back speakers with some of the mid (something like L-R/2 and R-L/2), while leaving the standard stereo image intact and playing that from the front speakers. Having an effects send/return bus that is routed to the quad makes perfect sense in that typically this will be out of phase with the original dry signal. The azimuth co-ordinator and the Allan & Heath console seem to take this a step further whereby the moving the joysticks varies the amount of resistance of the output channels of the fx return buss to control the level sent to the speakers. A lot easier to do these days with digital processors. ;) Cool stuff!
Life long audio guy here. Mixed on Rat Sound rigs a few times. I was at Desert Trip- second week. Made an effort to seat ourselves in prime center (GA) for Rogers set. It was amazing. I was also very fortunate to attend Laserium at the Seattle Science Center in the mid 70's for the PF shows. Yes, Liberty Caps...
@@Alex-cw7xf Spatial Audio in Logic Pro X has me excited about immersive musical experiences again. I’m not a pro sound engineer but I am still having fun tinkering with it in my own amateur recording projects.
its incredible how much gear they amassed in a couple of years. in '68 they had a basic P.A., 2 X 50 watt Selmer amps for Dave & Roger.... thats it. by '70 Dave's playing through several HiWatt's, Rogers got those WEM bins and this giant quad P.A. with the Azimuth Coordinator that Rick was controlling on stage. can only imagine how glorious it would be to hear Gilmour cranking a Fuzz Face through a 100w HiWatt at full throttle
Lifetime Pink Floyd worshiper having studied them in depth as much as possible in their own words from American interviews. Became a massive audio fanatic because of their commitment to sonic perfection. Did my own experiments in reaction to their astounding performances that left me breathless & dizzy. Most folks have no idea just how powerful this audio manipulation of the senses can get. Because of their wonderfully positive influence upon me I have been creatively consumed for most of my life. Seeing this equipment instantly rocketed me back to the very beginnings of my journey like seeing pictures from my childhood. Thank You so very much for this wonderful trip down Memory Lane -
I'm pleased to hear you liked it. We too were astonished when we discovered the gear was still around and being lovingly restored by it's owner Chris Hewitt. We felt we just had to make a film about it 🙂
@@soundonsound In age I cannot recall the name of the American Company that tried to market their astounding creation of Azimuth Alignment on multitrack tape for the unbelievable live effects they created. Something in name along the lines of, "3D Spatial Controller" I drooled over one of these when I was still in my teens. Cost prohibited me from purchase along with the MiniMoog. Living at a time when there was NO information available even hinting at how these things were accomplished never-the-less anything ever like a schematic it took me until the early 80's to figure out a few of the components. Long before anything beyond Stereo was available I seriously shocked my wife by introducing a hacked together version of delay & separation in the channels whose realism was so profound as to be frightening. The poor unfortunate souls who never experienced a Pink Floyd Concert will never understand its Affects. Cheers!
..die technologischen Möglichkeiten macheten bzw machen einen großen teil der Soundarchitektur der PF aus. Sie haben es auch zu 100% realisiert, den Sound von der LP 1:1 live zu realisieren, was auch nicht viele Musiker hinbekommen. Respekt vor dieser Leistung & Schaffen!
Never saw PF with this, but saw the Bunnymen on their Ocean Rain tour and they had a 3D sound system - Will Sergeant would hit a chord that then got rotated around the room. Rumour was they were using this old Floyd PA.
Still enjoyed experiencing shows in surround in the Seattle Center Arena, but in the Kingdome, they managed to take advantage of the normally difficult accoustics and create an awsome experience. Never to be repeated, but so happy to have been there.
I played in a Pink Floyd tribute for 14 years and we did many live shows in quad . it took a huge amount of equipment and effort but an amazing achievement ! We of course had philishaves M300's and 212's . Ah the good old days !
That quad Azimuth Coordinator panning device was built at Abbey Road Studios by technician/boffin Bernie Speight. Bernie's gone missing, but he was one of the stranger (yet more creative) Abbey Road technical engineers.
When I was working at Pink Floyds touring PA company and Studio. Britannia Row in the 1980s the Phase Linear amps had their massive mains transformers removed and put in the bottom of the racks to make them less top heavy. The amps were tested by running into a dead short. If they survived they were good to gig.
Was at the Milwaukee county stadium show in 1975. I saw a Teac 450 by the sound guy. I was really struck by the sight of that and that it was part of the sound. I thought the sound was great.
Well, I was too young to know what I was looking at, but I was there at the DSOTM tour in America and several shows over the years afterwards. The Floyd always had amazing PA systems and the surround was mind-blowing. I think the only group that ever did it near as well was Yes.
i have said this a few times going to a few more recent concerts --the sound seems more compact--more mid range and tight...than full range,loud to a point of sounding wide open...and with a vibrating deeper bottom end...
I worked for Jerry Cameron Sound out of Miami. I got to hear that Dark Side show in Chicago at the Cow Palace as it was called. I think it was the International Amphitheater. Amazing time in audio history.
I can't wait to watch this. There are some remastered matrix audience recordings from 1970-1974 that come close to reproducing what's described here, including the buzzing fly and newpaper swatting someone else mentioned. Roger Waters had impeccable surround sound when I saw his Desert Trip show in 2016. What a show that was.
Very interesting I never knew they were originally called kelsey martin before the name changed to martin audio super cool I've just recently upgraded my pa system to martin audio im using the f10s with pair of martin audio em150 subs sounds absolutely amazing very crystal clear speakers and subs are from 2003
It will be on display at the PLASA London 2024 Live Sound Exhibition. 1st to 3rd September where it will be heard working at certain times of the day. Register for free tickets. www.plasashow.com/
You can thank Amar Bose for the Phase Linear amps. Most speakers were efficient, and didn't need that much power to fill a room with sound. But the Bose 901 relied heavily on equalization to get anything close to even frequency response, and needed massive amounts of power to do this. I remember walking through a demo room at the local hi-fi box store, where someone was demoing the 901 speakers. Sounded nice enough, but there was a Phase 700 with the meters fully deflected...
And you can thank Bob Carver for figuring out how to keep ( most of ) the Fairchild output transistors from going into thermal runaway. Of course, unless you stacked trays filled with dry ice on each amp during outdoor events, the term Flame Linear became an actual event. Kinda tough on drivers when they recieved pure DC across the voicecoils. Ask me how I know....
@@andyevans2336 I give credit where it's due, but in this case it's not due to Bob Carver. There was a lot wrong with the Phase Linear amps, and that led sound companies like Brittania Row (Pink Floyd's company, they had an American electrical engineer who did their work), the Clair Brothers and others who rebuilt the amps at great expense. People like me just bought Crown amps, which came from the factory industrial-grade.
"Systems at modern gigs are a very compressed sound." Damn, maybe it has something to do with not having the same ears you had 50 years ago. There's a long list of reasons why we don't use equipment like this anymore, but the main one is just scale, and the greater variation in what's being played. Try and see how well a system like this handles something like Uptempo hardcore, and you'll notice very quickly that analogue simply can't keep up.
I'd also submit that what compression is used, where, and how much, are artistic decisions likely made by the band/artist or the producer or manager of the act, and implemented by the sound human. Processing that directly affects the artist's presentation is not randomly applied, in my observation.
There’s still plenty of the old Martin Audio 115s, Phillishaves, etc. being used for raves. Especially for the more uptemp hardcore type stuff, the older PA designs often performs better than the standard “line array + 218 subs” offerings which are very much tailored for control over aural quality. As far as the analogue equipment: it would have no real effect on the signal provided you weren’t trying to do anything stupid with it.
@@ConorNoakes You're right about older speakers doing fine in clubs. But not mega raves, they use a totally different philosophy where you're really trying to maximise the physical feeling. This of course means ruining a lot of the warmth and clarity. But you don't go to large festival scale raves for audio clarity. At the same time, you'll legit feel different parts of your body resonating to certain frequencies in a bizarrely intense way. However, that's not what you want in a club. For starters it's probably way more hazardous for staff, but also because preferences of club goers can be way more diverse and unpredictable. When it comes to uptempo, the music specifically uses very harsh waveforms. The kicks can end up looking like a rippling square wave, which means they don't have that much actual depth to them. So chasing clarity in a genre specifically made for excessively powerful PA systems isn't going to benefit the average raver at all.
@@punishedfoxo utter horse shit. The biggest raves ever held were the domain of the PA systems of the late 90’s / early 00’s. Those systems were capable of delivering the audio quality and the scale of the output. Modern systems are nothing more than a function of noise restrictions, truck-pack density and the ability to produce an EASE print out of predicted uniform coverage. The quality has long been a tertiary consideration. As I write this, I’m sat next to one of the people responsible for the likes of Raindance, etc. which had all of the ability to cause seismic disturbances to your nether regions without any of the modern concerns for noise complaints. Nothing is new under the sun.
@@ConorNoakes Okay, one sentence in and I can tell you're utterly clueless about hardcore/gabber raves. The largest within the hardcore scene in the 90s was Thunderdome, which had a max capacity of less than 20,000. Today, Thunderdome has a max capacity of 50,000 across multiple stages. That's not even the biggest. The main stage at DEFQON alone has a capacity of 70,000. While Dominator, another Hardcore focused festival with a heavy emphasis on uptempo and Terrorcore has a yearly attendance over 50,000. This is also nothing compared to some EDM/Hard dance festivals in south America that have a total arena capacity in the hundreds of thousands. Seriously, I can tell you never went to the raves like Thunderdome in the 90s, or today. If you did, you would've seen a very early version of line arrays ... seriously, go watch the old Thunderdome VHS tapes and see for yourself. The gabber scene were some of the first to adopt them, which has been recorded forever in their aftermovies. I was at DEFQON less than two months ago. Fairly sure I'm a big more travelled on these matters lmao
👿🔱😈.. awesome to find out Pink Floyd used in liked Phase Linear amps I bought one a few years back for my home stereo setup and it's a monster 👹.. and who doesn't love those huge Vu meters
On the 75 tour I remember trying to inspect one of the quad speaker modules but a cantankerous secutiy person initially wouldn't let me near it. He relented and allowed me a brief few minutes to get a look and then shooed me away. At 3:12 I find it interesting that promoters were resistant to the placement of the mixing setup in the audience center. There would be no other reasonable way to decently mix a Floyd show. I hung out near the mixing setup for most of the show and loved it. Since quad was a new thing then (for records) and especially for live sound I guess the promoters didn't see the benefit or value. For general admission shows it wouldn't matter.
I certainly agree that the Phase Linear amplifiers were flimsy. In the 700 I had, the main power supply capacitors were mounted to the chassis using double-sided tape!
Another problem with the Phase linear power amps was that the transformers were all on one back corner, now the transformers were pretty much the heaviest part of the amp, so if you had a rack of 3 (or more) Phase linear, there was one corner that required superhuman strength to lift, and 3 corners that could be lifted easily with one hand …
YES I FINALLY MADE IT HERE!! UMMAGUMA IVE BEEN Obsessed WITH Since A CHILD! U WOULDNT BELIEVE THE SPEAKER RIGGN I WOULD DO WITH STEREO AND ALL KINDS OF SPEAKERS RIGGED TO SIMULATE
I've been thinking about building a quad mixer, in nowaday you could use a joystick per channel (quad panpots as he calls them), and, imo the springs should be remooved from the joystick so it stays were you set it when you let it go. On "richard Wright's azimuth Co-ordinator" (lol; i claim i built a "tape head transceiver" so why not, and just to say as custom as it was, the tonto crew had the same thing) you can see the joysticks stays in place... but maybe i'm wrong? i dont know much about that pink floyd topic anyway, but some things seem obvious, the springs should be removed from those brand new nowadays joysticks, they are designed so you can do it if needed... one thing i'de like to know is if those original joystick were used to control 4x vca's thru voltage, or if they were just used as volume potsx2 (i guess go for the second option).
After 42 years and 6 months, I finally got the chance to speak with Roger Waters for a minute about one of the most incredible, potentially disastrous, nearly fatal, and little known events to happen in rock history; the nearly complete destruction and rebuild of the Pink Floyd sound system on the Dark Side of the Moon tour.
On March 5th 1973, Pink Floyd played Cobo Hall in Detroit. About half way into the show, with the sound system at full volume and Alan Parsons at the FOH console, according to Roger when we spoke yesterday, a ballast weight fell from the rafters into a flash pot and caused a massive explosion on stage.
The weight itself was blasted into small chunks of flying shrapnel. According to what I was told by the Floyd crew at the time, the explosion ripped a hole in the stage and threw chunks of wood 30 rows into the audience. Roger and Alan Parsons told me separately, that one man was hit in the chest by a chunk of plywood and critically injured. It was a miracle that none of the band or crew were killed.
The force of the explosion blew every single driver in every single cabinet in the PA system! Let that sink in for a moment. This was one of the largest PA systems ever constructed to that time, and according to the crew, chunks of drivers showered down on the first ten rows of the audience. I can't imagine their shock.
Something that I didn't find out until yesterday from Roger, was that immediately after the explosion, the Floyd crew scrounged together some spare cabinets and built a tiny system, one cabinet per band member, and they finished the freakin' show! That was the beginning of a heroic effort on the part of two sound crews.
I was a roadie for Heil Sound at the time. Heil Sound was one of the largest PA companies in the US with two large systems, one for Humble Pie and one for The Who along with lots of other gear to put together smaller one-off systems. We were also one of the only JBL speaker reconeing companies in the mid west. It turned out that Bob Heil had met Pink Floyd some months earlier when he flew to London to purchase a Mavis console for the two big systems. So Bob knew who Pink Floyd was, but most of us on the crew had no idea.
The night of March 5th, someone from Pink Floyd, somehow got Bob's home phone number (communication was NOTHING like it is today!) and told him of their plight. Bob rallied a crew, me included, and the next morning at dawn we loaded up a straight bed truck with loads of 15" JBL speakers along with boxes of tweeter drivers, dozens of drivers in all and four Heil 2X12 speakers and a pair of Phase Linear 700 amps, and headed for Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, Pink Floyds next stop on the tour.
We met the Floyd crew at the stage door and formed a plan. They would bring in the cabinets and begin constructing the system as planned and as they built the massive stacked system, we would remove the backs from the cabinets and replace the blown drivers with brand new JBLs. If I recall there were only four of us Heil roadies on the gig, so the idea of replacing an entire sound systems driver contingent was really really a tall hill to climb.
My job was a little different from the other three. I had to run a thousand feet of speaker wire and set up the Heil quad speakers that Pink Floyd used for the rest of the tour and assist some guy named Alan Parsons to set up and run a little TEAC 2340 quad tape machine. (The Heil speakers are coincidentally in the Rock Hall of Fame, but not because they were used on the Dark Side of the Moon tour, but just because Bob is Bob.)
We went to work as quick as we could and worked right on through the day without a break. No lunch, no nothing. Just get the job done. Five O'clock came and the band came out to do a sound check, except there was no functioning PA yet, so they just played with their amps on stage and maybe a little bit of monitor. Nothing out front.
I had no idea who Pink Floyd was and from my perspective out front, I thought they sounded kind of sleepy. Ha! 8 O'clock came and went and we weren't ready. 8:30 and we still didn't have the system put together yet. Around 9:00PM, someone made the call to open the doors and people streamed in, excited to hear some band I had never heard of. Odd.
Around 9:30PM the house lights went down and a few seconds later, the curtain started to climb up out of the darkness and the PA EXPLODED again, but this time with the first strains of a kind of music that I had never heard before, I was shocked. After about a half hour set, the band took a few minutes intermission. When they came back, they played The Dark Side of the Moon! OMG. All of the tweeters were not yet replaced and we still had a crew member standing on each stack, screwing the backs on cabinets, but the sound was literally breathtaking. The scene was epic.
I found myself standing next to Alan, while he smoothly swung back and forth between the FOH console and the little TEAC tape machine. He had gobs of white leader between each sound effect and in near total darkness, would fast forward the tape to the next SFX and cue it up. Then back to the console for a vocal ride or guitar ride and then back to the play button on the little tape machine.
I say I found myself because at the first notes of the first song, I began to have an out of body experience like I had never experienced before. I had no idea who Pink Floyd was and was in no way expecting the sonic feast I was experiencing. I was an audio snob up to that point, and believed I knew how sound systems should sound. Oh no, I had no freakin' idea how sound systems should sound. That much was clear.
The Pink Floyd PA, with brand new JBL speakers and drivers, and The Dark Side of the Moon flowing from it, was unlike any I had ever heard or have heard since. I was standing right in Alan Parsons sweet spot and the balance of the quad system was unbelievable. There were voices in my head. There were bells sweeping through my body and out the other side. At one point, a combination of exhaustion and elation almost cause me to lose my balance and I had to lean on the table, still being careful not to get anywhere near that tiny little player.
When the show was over, I gathered myself and we Heil crew loaded our truck with our tools. I shook Alan's hand, may have got a hug from a Floyd roadie and almost without a word, we drove off into the night, only suspecting the profound musical event we had just witnessed and helped save. With every passing day, the events of March 6th, 1973 have become more profound to me. Kiel Auditorium is long gone, Many of us on the two crews are long gone. But the memories are as vivid as last nights sunset.
This is simply one of the most incredible things I have ever read, and an important footnote in popular music history. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Wow! I guess that is what they mean when they say the show must go on. : ) Peace!
Wow what a story! Love it - ‘sonic feast’.
Dude, amazing story! Thanks for sharing.
@@fredfox3851do i have to stand up, out in the spotlight, what a nightmare, why don't I turn and run....
Somebody give this man a cigar, doing good work here Mr. Hewitt, I hope someday I will be able to hear this rig in action!
He’s gonna go far! He’s gonna fly high!
@@kierenmoore3236 Yes!
he'll go far
@@thedavesofourlives1 And with Jaguar, of course! 🤣How many years have passed and I still have the lyrics in my mind! I was also a "roadie" only in Hungary with our biggest rock bands. Nice memories! But even now, at the age of 70, I am improving, even "upgrading" my stage and studio technique. It's a passion like a drug! Fortunately, this gives you a zest for life, it doesn't destroy it!🙏
I was technical manager at Mayfair Studios during the recording & mixing of The Final Cut.
When Pink Floyd were in, all our studio monitor power amps had to be replaced with Pink Floyd’s Phase Linear Amps.
great album still sounds lush
love it
I just listened to the final cut last night for the first time in 30 years.
Great choice of Bob Carver design!
The algorithm sees all and recommends another winning video - last two days I've listened continuously to just Pink Floyd (with a dose of Waters' solo work as well). The Final Cut (obviously standing between both worlds) remains a favourite, thanks for your contribution.
I experienced hearing this PA at the Pink Floyd Milwaukee stadium concert and it blew my mind when the audio started to rotate around the stadium.
I have the honor of owning a Phase Linear 400 amp that I use for my rehearsal room p.a. and also live (small venue) use. It is so amazingly clear!!
I appreciate it too! With my knowledge today, I understand how important phase linearity is for good sound. Back then, I checked the uniformity of the phase. This was also important knowledge for my later work. For me, that was the "Rolls Royce" category of amplifiers!
@@mariusbogdan9036 and to think I traded even a Peavey CS800 to get the Phase Linear 400!!! Later he told me he was sorry he traded...
i just remember that name phase linear with awesome power...
I saw Floyd at the East Town Theater in Detroit during the Ummaguma Tour and they had Quad Sound with speakers all over the theater; front, rear and above and a joy stick controller to swirl the sound. There was a large 'control pit' in the center on the floor. It blew everybody's mind when a sound bit of a guy chasing a fly around with a newspaper ended with a smack down and a satisfied got you, went all around the theater. Interstellar Overdrive was amazing.
I remember seeing the same thing at different show. Rick controlled it as I remember.
Wow! Easttown Theatre! I used to live just a few blocks from there. Back then, I was too young (and too poor!) to get in to concerts, but I was allowed to hang out in the alley and listen from the loading door. What an awesome era for music
I experienced Umaguma in Real Spatial Audio but back in the early 90’s…on a couch…when CD’s came out on a killer Sony Home Theater Center 😂
yeah you are def. from Detriot...michigan palace-grand ballroom....so many great concerts bavck then...in the D
I got to hear this system several times. This and the Dead's Wall of Sound were the best I ever heard in that era, thanks!
👍👍👍
Pink Floyd were also fans of the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound. When the Grateful Dead went on hiatus in 1975, Pink Floyd leased it from them for the North American leg of the Wish You Were here tour. After the tour was over it was dismantled and sold\auctioned off. Every now and then you still find bits of it floating around on eBay.
Those three words: "Pink Floyd, London" as iconic and as conquering as SPQR.
So glad you guys are doing this. It's not so much the "vintage" that matters it is the engineering which produced full dynamics that are a critical and integral part of the music. The current generation would benefit highly from this experience. I put together a home system with about $100k worth of gear and I get such a thrill when I find a recording that does not need any tweaking. At that moment I feel all is one. Funny thing is the best sounding music was recorded between 1940's through the early 1980's. After that things got rough! My gosh thanks again.
Wow! This is a legendary and groundbreaking PA! Wonderful too see it being restored.
Legend has it, Mick ‘The Pole’ also made some ‘colorful movies’, back in the 70s …
I still remember the fantastic quad sound featuring Rick’s synth solo intro on Shine On You Crazy Diamond at Knebworth back in 1975, still makes the hairs rise on my arms just think about it. Great video, it’s good knowing the history of Pink Floyd 🤘
Always happy when gear like that ends up in the right hands. Very cool.
I remember standing in approximately the middle of Wembley Stadium sometime in the 1980's waiting for Floyd to come on. There was the usual music playing quite quietly through the PA and the sounds of thousands of people chattering. After a while I realised that the music was fading slowly until there was nothing. The anticipation increased and then we realised that it was raining, bummer! No, wait, why aren't we getting wet? It was the sound of rainfall slowly increasing in volume and filling the air from all directions! This was the beginning of the show!! Never forgotten the feeling at that moment of realisation.
Amazing. incredible how a composition well executed can take control of your senses. Never seen them myself, but can imagine the quad experience. Thanks for your personal experience.
I was at that gig too, right smack in the middle - what a gig!
Also saw Roger 2002 at Glastonbury pyramid stage again in the middle quad sound (a first a glastonbury) plane fly over - top night!
I mixed Blue Oyster Cult on a later custom Floyd desk, a Midas with all the markings in colored phosphorescent paint. It was a two piece affair with dueling
black lights and, yes, all the lettering glowed in the dark!
Way cool 🤩
The famous Mirrored Midas !!
This was fascinating. Loved it. My 1984 Sennheiser 409, that I use as my drummer's vocal mic, is the last microphone I would ever sell.
I have one or two, plus some Blackfires (which I think are exactly the same, internally … ?!)
Oh the nostalgia... I entered the live sound game mid/late 70's and remember very well those Martin "W" bins and by that time we had the phillyshave mids and Mida mixers. The other Quad mixer of that time was the MAVIS, built like a tank and superb.. designed by one Bill Hough, who also did lots of mods for Deep Purple and also made some really cool parametric EQs for my FH Midas ( I regret not pulling at least a couple of them before I sold the desks).. Great to see all that old vintage gear lovingly cared for. Oh yes.. nostalgia ;-)))
Im just starting to get into live sound and recently just learned that those martins are legendary!
yeah deep purples sounds was great
Excellent video! One sidenote. Modern PA systems have more then sufficient dynamic range, the problem is the new generation of digital mixers have a compressor on each channel and thanks to the hype over compressors on, for instance, youtube. The new generation of soundengineers compress everything to an extend that they kill the musicality. I hear it over and over again at festivals. Being a soundengineer from the late 80's I've seen this compression hype slowly becoming a common practise. Back in the days you had 3 or 4 dbx160's (if you were lucky) and could make a very good sound for a 30 input channel band.
I don’t use any compression or noise gates live , mainly because we run on batteries and the less gear the better , 17 years doing festivals and all on batteries ( big one’s mind you :-) ) and Studer inverters, lovely sound live very dynamic and not compressed :-)
It’s because those rigs cost $1,000,000 sometimes, and compression keeps the speakers from blowing
The heavy use of compression, particularly at festivals is largely due to the increasingly strict noise level restrictions imposed on these events. The more big transients they catch, the easier it is to stay within the on-site and off-site dB limits set out in the event's license. Sadly.
@@mbell5950 Thats not correct, those systems have their own limiters running in the accompanying dsp/crossover.
They will limit at a spl you don't even wanna be near at during a live show. Modern Line-array systems are capable of producing 127 dBA easily. Now you don't wanna be near that volume.
@@martindale1680 Thats partly true, festivals are resrtricted to 98dBA or 103 dBA but measured over 5 or 10 minutes. At least where I live. Gives you plenty of headroom to do a proper show. Still the youngsters compress the heck out of everything.
There was a time in the late 80s where Dan Healy (Grateful Dead FOH) would set up rear speakers in the upper deck of the arena, and they would run the normal PA for most of the show and then kick on the rear speakers during the "Drums and Space" segments. Suddenly these crazy beats and weird noises would start spinning around the room. It was particularly enjoyable under psychedelicized conditions 🤪
I'm drooling... need a bib. Eye AND ear candy!
A quad reel to reel... sweet memories.
American Express had it wrong. THIS is priceless.
This was a revelation for me!! Being of the generation that were teens when dsotm was released, so bought one of the first release, this was special to me. DSOTM is one of the best and most important musical works of our time, confirmed by it's significance only increasing over the decades. Having always been a hi-fi enthusiast, it was one of the albums that put me on a journey of continuous sound quality improvement, as in, spending more money! I was always fascinated by the American super amps, like the Crown/Amcron DC300A and of course the Phase Linear 400 and 700. In there time I could never afford any of them but have now got a DC300A, used every day and last year found a mint PL 400, uk version, first type with the VUs, at a reasonably price! Thing is, I had no idea that Pink Floyd used these in their PA system, so I'm utterly thrilled to now know this, and I have one!! So it's now going into my system, after I check it over, and this will give me a special connection to the music and the whole era. Bloody brilliant!
You have got to be kidding me..! This is what I call passion
It`s avery nice history about PINK FLOYD gear sound...STanding ovation...¡¡¡ YEAH...😎😎😎
What a marvellous video
Those Phase Liners give a great heart beat to that system.
I have a TEAC A3340S and have put on tape all the Quad mixes PF have released in recent box sets.
Looks and sounds marvellous!
Thank youuu!
For a musician and live sound engineer who had a 2 year phase of deep, deep Pink Floyd listening experience and cherished them ever since and is a serious analog gear enthusiast, this was beyond epic. My mouth still wide open.
This is so cool! no one has ever talked about this before. I've never knew using surround on a concert is a thing before I thought its just a modern cinema/threater thing.
Fascinating stuff! We can't wait to see Chris' collection on display at PLASA Show!
Great content. Love this man, what a fount of knowledge, and a great vibe he has. Great to see the pics of Floyd in their classic live element, too.
Would be great if Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets did a gig with this setup.
i still have a original 4 track quadraphonic! reel to reel of dark side that was put out in the seventies. can only be played on a 4 track machine. amazing mix for 73. and i saw this pf show, also elp, yes, and a few others used this quad live system. it was great.
SUPER COOL . there was a james guthrie 4.1 mix and then a allan parsons 4.1 that was never officially released but the Immersion Blu ray versions of the quad mix are supposed to be the best of all. you can play these mixs with any pc as long as the sound card has enough (4) outputs , so technically there is a way to listen in quad , but you wont have the analog end of the deal . for me that didnt matter as i am not a gatekeeper , despite the fact i have owned all sorts of multi channel tape machines in my day. i first listened to quad by down loading quad mixs off the pirate bay , using a turtle beach sound card. they had some harry nillson quad mixs that were really great fun .
Beautiful rig and always happy to learn about new and old quad setups! Thanks, Sound On Sound!
I went to the quadrophonic concert in Tampa, Florida. It was amazing!
Thanks for sharing this. I love quadraphonic audio. I worked with JD Brill from Clair Global on Desert Trip in 2016 where we built two separate quadraphonic systems flown on 50+ foot delay towers, one for a temporary stadium seating 40,000 people and another for the remaining GA crowd for another ~20k. Shame but understandable that quadraphonic audio was a commercial failure, especially as portable audio players became popular in the early 80's with the walkman, subsequent CD revolution and now streaming revolutions where almost everyone is listening on earbuds. I guess I am in a small minority that thinks the notion that "you only have two ears, you only need two speakers" is complete rubbish. Dave Rat is another audio engineer I have worked with and he has a quote which I really agree with "no sound in nature comes from two places at the same time".
As far as I understand the way a standard quadraphonic system typically works is by passively splitting the out of phase or "side" information from the main stereo signal and routes it to the back speakers with some of the mid (something like L-R/2 and R-L/2), while leaving the standard stereo image intact and playing that from the front speakers. Having an effects send/return bus that is routed to the quad makes perfect sense in that typically this will be out of phase with the original dry signal. The azimuth co-ordinator and the Allan & Heath console seem to take this a step further whereby the moving the joysticks varies the amount of resistance of the output channels of the fx return buss to control the level sent to the speakers. A lot easier to do these days with digital processors. ;) Cool stuff!
Life long audio guy here. Mixed on Rat Sound rigs a few times. I was at Desert Trip- second week. Made an effort to seat ourselves in prime center (GA) for Rogers set. It was amazing. I was also very fortunate to attend Laserium at the Seattle Science Center in the mid 70's for the PF shows. Yes, Liberty Caps...
@@Alex-cw7xf Spatial Audio in Logic Pro X has me excited about immersive musical experiences again. I’m not a pro sound engineer but I am still having fun tinkering with it in my own amateur recording projects.
Just WOW, a musical gem and a great video! Thank you.
its incredible how much gear they amassed in a couple of years. in '68 they had a basic P.A., 2 X 50 watt Selmer amps for Dave & Roger.... thats it. by '70 Dave's playing through several HiWatt's, Rogers got those WEM bins and this giant quad P.A. with the Azimuth Coordinator that Rick was controlling on stage. can only imagine how glorious it would be to hear Gilmour cranking a Fuzz Face through a 100w HiWatt at full throttle
Thanks, really interesting to look back into the world of 70's PA.
Have the quadrophonic vinyl version of Dark Side of the Moon in my music collection.
Thanks for this very educational video. 👏
Not even 30 seconds in and I'm reminded why I see Allen And Heath as top tier mixing equipment...
Thank you. What a great video and project.
Sound technology has come a long way thanks to the imagination of those early pioneers.
Thank You So Much ❤
Pretty amazing, and thanks for sharing.
Fascinating segment ! I saw Pink Floyd 5 times, always superb sound !!
Lifetime Pink Floyd worshiper having studied them in depth as much as possible in their own words from American interviews. Became a massive audio fanatic because of their commitment to sonic perfection. Did my own experiments in reaction to their astounding performances that left me breathless & dizzy. Most folks have no idea just how powerful this audio manipulation of the senses can get. Because of their wonderfully positive influence upon me I have been creatively consumed for most of my life. Seeing this equipment instantly rocketed me back to the very beginnings of my journey like seeing pictures from my childhood. Thank You so very much for this wonderful trip down Memory Lane -
I'm pleased to hear you liked it. We too were astonished when we discovered the gear was still around and being lovingly restored by it's owner Chris Hewitt. We felt we just had to make a film about it 🙂
@@soundonsound In age I cannot recall the name of the American Company that tried to market their astounding creation of Azimuth Alignment on multitrack tape for the unbelievable live effects they created. Something in name along the lines of, "3D Spatial Controller" I drooled over one of these when I was still in my teens. Cost prohibited me from purchase along with the MiniMoog. Living at a time when there was NO information available even hinting at how these things were accomplished never-the-less anything ever like a schematic it took me until the early 80's to figure out a few of the components. Long before anything beyond Stereo was available I seriously shocked my wife by introducing a hacked together version of delay & separation in the channels whose realism was so profound as to be frightening. The poor unfortunate souls who never experienced a Pink Floyd Concert will never understand its Affects. Cheers!
Pink Floyd ❤
..die technologischen Möglichkeiten macheten bzw machen einen großen teil der Soundarchitektur der PF aus. Sie haben es auch zu 100% realisiert, den Sound von der LP 1:1 live zu realisieren, was auch nicht viele Musiker hinbekommen. Respekt vor dieser Leistung & Schaffen!
Experienced this system at The River Front Stadium in Pittsburgh in 73 during the Dark Side tour.
Never saw PF with this, but saw the Bunnymen on their Ocean Rain tour and they had a 3D sound system - Will Sergeant would hit a chord that then got rotated around the room. Rumour was they were using this old Floyd PA.
Fascinating. 👍🏻
Thanks for this video
Most welcome
Still enjoyed experiencing shows in surround in the Seattle Center Arena, but in the Kingdome, they managed to take advantage of the normally difficult accoustics and create an awsome experience. Never to be repeated, but so happy to have been there.
Big shout out to Andy bereza, the original object based audio mixer. Eat your heart out Dolby Atmos
I played in a Pink Floyd tribute for 14 years and we did many live shows in quad . it took a huge amount of equipment and effort but an amazing achievement ! We of course had philishaves M300's and 212's . Ah the good old days !
Would d love to hear this system!
Interesting to see four Electro Voice Tan-Light Brown colored mid range drivers on the silver mid range horns.
I love this dude
The inside cover of the 1969 Ummagumma album with all the audio equipment laid out totally blew my mind in 1992!
That quad Azimuth Coordinator panning device was built at Abbey Road Studios by technician/boffin Bernie Speight. Bernie's gone missing, but he was one of the stranger (yet more creative) Abbey Road technical engineers.
When I was working at Pink Floyds touring PA company and Studio. Britannia Row in the 1980s the Phase Linear amps had their massive mains transformers removed and put in the bottom of the racks to make them less top heavy.
The amps were tested by running into a dead short. If they survived they were good to gig.
Was at the Milwaukee county stadium show in 1975. I saw a Teac 450 by the sound guy. I was really struck by the sight of that and that it was part of the sound. I thought the sound was great.
Spot on Chris as always. 😀😀😀😀
Well, I was too young to know what I was looking at, but I was there at the DSOTM tour in America and several shows over the years afterwards. The Floyd always had amazing PA systems and the surround was mind-blowing. I think the only group that ever did it near as well was Yes.
Yes had quad sound too, I had one of their custom quad panners from then
This is awesome
Fascinating. Aussie Floyd on Quad? I’m in!!! 🔥🔥
incredible reports! I have a Tascam Series 10 (16X4)w Quad panner, currently modified so that I can use it on any console to broadcast sound.
i have said this a few times going to a few more recent concerts --the sound seems more compact--more mid range and tight...than full range,loud to a point of sounding wide open...and with a vibrating deeper bottom end...
I am sure Floyd Nation in the USA would be interested in the project.
I last saw the quad desk at Brit Row's warehouse in Wandsworth, I thought they still had it.
Great to see Andy Bereza, hope you’re well mate, how about Phil Taylor was he around when Floyd invented immersive audio?
I love the pure sound of my Phase Linears. They have been outfitted with a Watts Abundant Speaker relay as well as a White Oak Audio upgrade.
I worked for Jerry Cameron Sound out of Miami. I got to hear that Dark Side show in Chicago at the Cow Palace as it was called. I think it was the International Amphitheater. Amazing time in audio history.
The ultimate sound experience!
Man, Gilmour is going ham on that pickup with a pair of side cutters @ 4:05!
he's just changing strings mate, that's how we do it
I can't wait to watch this. There are some remastered matrix audience recordings from 1970-1974 that come close to reproducing what's described here, including the buzzing fly and newpaper swatting someone else mentioned. Roger Waters had impeccable surround sound when I saw his Desert Trip show in 2016. What a show that was.
Tangerine Dream also used a quad system in the 70’s. Incredible…..and electric fungus made it even wilder!😮
And ELP
Very interesting I never knew they were originally called kelsey martin before the name changed to martin audio super cool I've just recently upgraded my pa system to martin audio im using the f10s with pair of martin audio em150 subs sounds absolutely amazing very crystal clear speakers and subs are from 2003
outstanding video!
Bring it to Synthfest 2024 😎🖖
It will be on display at the PLASA London 2024 Live Sound Exhibition. 1st to 3rd September where it will be heard working at certain times of the day. Register for free tickets.
www.plasashow.com/
You can thank Amar Bose for the Phase Linear amps. Most speakers were efficient, and didn't need that much power to fill a room with sound. But the Bose 901 relied heavily on equalization to get anything close to even frequency response, and needed massive amounts of power to do this. I remember walking through a demo room at the local hi-fi box store, where someone was demoing the 901 speakers. Sounded nice enough, but there was a Phase 700 with the meters fully deflected...
And you can thank Bob Carver for figuring out how to keep ( most of ) the Fairchild output transistors from going into thermal runaway. Of course, unless you stacked trays filled with dry ice on each amp during outdoor events, the term Flame Linear became an actual event. Kinda tough on drivers when they recieved pure DC across the voicecoils. Ask me how I know....
@@andyevans2336 I give credit where it's due, but in this case it's not due to Bob Carver. There was a lot wrong with the Phase Linear amps, and that led sound companies like Brittania Row (Pink Floyd's company, they had an American electrical engineer who did their work), the Clair Brothers and others who rebuilt the amps at great expense. People like me just bought Crown amps, which came from the factory industrial-grade.
Great video, thanks.
Fascinating
"Systems at modern gigs are a very compressed sound."
Damn, maybe it has something to do with not having the same ears you had 50 years ago.
There's a long list of reasons why we don't use equipment like this anymore, but the main one is just scale, and the greater variation in what's being played.
Try and see how well a system like this handles something like Uptempo hardcore, and you'll notice very quickly that analogue simply can't keep up.
I'd also submit that what compression is used, where, and how much, are artistic decisions likely made by the band/artist or the producer or manager of the act, and implemented by the sound human. Processing that directly affects the artist's presentation is not randomly applied, in my observation.
There’s still plenty of the old Martin Audio 115s, Phillishaves, etc. being used for raves.
Especially for the more uptemp hardcore type stuff, the older PA designs often performs better than the standard “line array + 218 subs” offerings which are very much tailored for control over aural quality.
As far as the analogue equipment: it would have no real effect on the signal provided you weren’t trying to do anything stupid with it.
@@ConorNoakes You're right about older speakers doing fine in clubs. But not mega raves, they use a totally different philosophy where you're really trying to maximise the physical feeling. This of course means ruining a lot of the warmth and clarity. But you don't go to large festival scale raves for audio clarity. At the same time, you'll legit feel different parts of your body resonating to certain frequencies in a bizarrely intense way. However, that's not what you want in a club. For starters it's probably way more hazardous for staff, but also because preferences of club goers can be way more diverse and unpredictable.
When it comes to uptempo, the music specifically uses very harsh waveforms. The kicks can end up looking like a rippling square wave, which means they don't have that much actual depth to them. So chasing clarity in a genre specifically made for excessively powerful PA systems isn't going to benefit the average raver at all.
@@punishedfoxo utter horse shit.
The biggest raves ever held were the domain of the PA systems of the late 90’s / early 00’s.
Those systems were capable of delivering the audio quality and the scale of the output.
Modern systems are nothing more than a function of noise restrictions, truck-pack density and the ability to produce an EASE print out of predicted uniform coverage. The quality has long been a tertiary consideration.
As I write this, I’m sat next to one of the people responsible for the likes of Raindance, etc. which had all of the ability to cause seismic disturbances to your nether regions without any of the modern concerns for noise complaints. Nothing is new under the sun.
@@ConorNoakes Okay, one sentence in and I can tell you're utterly clueless about hardcore/gabber raves. The largest within the hardcore scene in the 90s was Thunderdome, which had a max capacity of less than 20,000. Today, Thunderdome has a max capacity of 50,000 across multiple stages. That's not even the biggest. The main stage at DEFQON alone has a capacity of 70,000. While Dominator, another Hardcore focused festival with a heavy emphasis on uptempo and Terrorcore has a yearly attendance over 50,000.
This is also nothing compared to some EDM/Hard dance festivals in south America that have a total arena capacity in the hundreds of thousands.
Seriously, I can tell you never went to the raves like Thunderdome in the 90s, or today. If you did, you would've seen a very early version of line arrays ... seriously, go watch the old Thunderdome VHS tapes and see for yourself. The gabber scene were some of the first to adopt them, which has been recorded forever in their aftermovies.
I was at DEFQON less than two months ago. Fairly sure I'm a big more travelled on these matters lmao
👿🔱😈.. awesome to find out Pink Floyd used in liked Phase Linear amps I bought one a few years back for my home stereo setup and it's a monster 👹.. and who doesn't love those huge Vu meters
fascinating,
Fascinating video 🎚️🔊
On the 75 tour I remember trying to inspect one of the quad speaker modules but a cantankerous secutiy person initially wouldn't let me near it. He relented and allowed me a brief few minutes to get a look and then shooed me away. At 3:12 I find it interesting that promoters were resistant to the placement of the mixing setup in the audience center. There would be no other reasonable way to decently mix a Floyd show. I hung out near the mixing setup for most of the show and loved it. Since quad was a new thing then (for records) and especially for live sound I guess the promoters didn't see the benefit or value. For general admission shows it wouldn't matter.
We used to call the Phase Linear amps- 'Flame Linear"!!
I certainly agree that the Phase Linear amplifiers were flimsy. In the 700 I had, the main power supply capacitors were mounted to the chassis using double-sided tape!
That's why I got a DC-300A as soon as I had the money.
"Flame Linear". How far we've come in 40 years.
Another problem with the Phase linear power amps was that the transformers were all on one back corner, now the transformers were pretty much the heaviest part of the amp, so if you had a rack of 3 (or more) Phase linear, there was one corner that required superhuman strength to lift, and 3 corners that could be lifted easily with one hand …
why design it like that?
Love it thanks for the effort!
This was Amazing.
Love this guy
10:00 - That's crazy
Great really great!
YES I FINALLY MADE IT HERE!!
UMMAGUMA IVE BEEN Obsessed WITH Since A CHILD! U WOULDNT BELIEVE THE SPEAKER RIGGN I WOULD DO WITH STEREO AND ALL KINDS OF SPEAKERS RIGGED TO SIMULATE
Quadraphonia techno!
I've been thinking about building a quad mixer, in nowaday you could use a joystick per channel (quad panpots as he calls them), and, imo the springs should be remooved from the joystick so it stays were you set it when you let it go. On "richard Wright's azimuth Co-ordinator" (lol; i claim i built a "tape head transceiver" so why not, and just to say as custom as it was, the tonto crew had the same thing) you can see the joysticks stays in place... but maybe i'm wrong? i dont know much about that pink floyd topic anyway, but some things seem obvious, the springs should be removed from those brand new nowadays joysticks, they are designed so you can do it if needed... one thing i'de like to know is if those original joystick were used to control 4x vca's thru voltage, or if they were just used as volume potsx2 (i guess go for the second option).
What became of the 1994 Division Bell Midas Quad Mixer? That’s as much a piece of history as anything else.