Wall of Sound

The following 1974 article is about the Dead's "new" sound system they
were unveiling at the March 23, 1974 concert at the Cow Palace in San
Francisco (technically Daly City).  Another article in a soon-to-appear
post will reference this article. Enjoy,

Bill

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newspaper:        San Francisco Chronicle

date:                  March 22, 1974 (Friday)

  author:               John L. Wasserman



                         The Dead: Committed to Sound Perfection

         To ordinary mortals, a live-music sound system is a relatively
simple thing.  A member of the audience wants to hear the music.  A
member of the band wants the music to be heard.
         The Grateful Dead, however, as need hardly be pointed out, is
anything but a group of ordinary mortals.  And the sound system which
they have devised and will utilize tomorrow night for "The Sound Check"
at the Cow Palace is anything but an ordinary sound system.  I would say
that it will revolutionize rock music reproduction except for one thing:
it will cost something on the order of $200,000.
         And, never mind the money, there is considerable doubt that any
group in the world, no matter how wealthy, is as fully and totally
committed to musical perfection as the group of merry pranksters from
Marin.
             Those involved in the project - the Dead musicians and
soundmen, and representatives of the Alembic sound company - are
reluctant to apply superlatives to their mammoth toy but a few things
are clear: It is probably the finest portable sound system ever devised,
perhaps the most powerful, perhaps the most expensive, probably the
finest owned by any single music group and almost certainly the current
state of the art for rock and roll.
         "The Dead have kept themselves poor from the very beginning by
putting money into sound," explained Ron Wickersham, Alembic's chief
engineer.
         "This project has been underway for about seven years. I've only
been into it for about five and it's not finished yet.  It's an ongoing
study.  Each performance is not only a music performance but a sound
performance."
         Tomorrow night's show, which begins at 8, is open to the public
and features only the Dead, will employ the system's "sports arena
configuration" (as distinct from that which would be used at the
Berkeley Community Theater or Kezar Stadium).
     This involves some rather impressive figures: a total of 26,400
MacIntosh watts (RMS) powering 480 speakers (all JBL except for
Electro-Voice tweeters) housed in a monolith 30 feet high and attended
by, in Wickersham's words, "eigtht uniquely qualified soundmen."
         The huge number of speakers and extraordinary wattage have only
a tangential relationship to sheer volume.  "Speakers made to operate at
very high levels are not 'hi-fi' speakers," Wickersham explained, "and
cone-type hi-fi speakers, with low distortion levels, are also very
inefficient.  So, the only practical way to utilize hi-fi speakers and
get public-address system volume is to use many, many of them with a lot
of power.  One of my goals for the vocal system was to make it possible
for people at the back of the hall to hear clearly even if the people on
stage are speaking at a normal level."
         But any fool with approximately $93,200 can go out and buy the
same speakers and power amps.  The Dead's system is equally concerned
with balance, cleanness and mix.
         By placing the speakers at the back of the stage - behind the
band, eliminating monitors - the system allows the musicians to hear
exactlly what the audience is hearing.  To fully exploit this situation,
the instruments are rigged so that each member of the band has total
control over his or her volume.
         Thus, alone of any rock band, the Dad members are able to mix
their own sound balance as they are playing.
         This, in turn, is made possible by the fact that each instrument
has its own complete and independent sound system; there is no common
outlet.  Bassist Lesh, for example, is running through 36 15-inch bass
speakers and three 600-watt amps.  He alone controls volume and timbre.
Only the voices share on an individual system, which comprises 236
speakers by itself.
         The vocal mikes, incidentally, are Danish Bruel and Kjaer
laboratory instruments, each with its own volume control, costing $1500
for each of eight vocal mike runs around $100.
         The result of all this in Lesh's words, is that "It allows us to
play super-loud without killing ourselves or frying those in the front,
to get loud, clean sound at the back of a huge hall and supreme musical
control because we run everything from the stage."  He paused, "For me,
it's like piloting a flying saucer.  Or riding your own sound wave."