Would the Dead have been a better band with Marshall amps?

039-the-grateful-dead-s-wall-of-sound-helped-change-live-music-forever-02-GD_Wall_of_Sound.jpg_79cf91




From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



The Wall of Sound was an enormous sound reinforcement system designed in 1973 specifically for the Grateful Dead's live performances. The largest concert sound system built at that time,[1][2] The Wall of Sound fulfilled lead designer Owsley "Bear" Stanley's desire for a distortion-free sound system that could also serve as its own monitoring system. Due to its size, weight and resulting expense, the full WoS was only used from March to October of 1974.

History

Schematic drawing of the Grateful Dead's wall of sound
Stanley and Dan Healy and Mark Raizene of the Grateful Dead's sound crew, in collaboration with Ron Wickersham, Rick Turner, and John Curl of Alembic designed the sound reinforcement system in an effort to deliver high-quality sound to attendees of Grateful Dead concerts, which were drawing crowds of 100,000 or more at the time. The Wall of Sound combined six independent sound systems using eleven separate channels. Vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and piano each had their own channel and set of speakers. Phil Lesh's bass was piped through a quadraphonic encoder that sent signals from each of the four strings to a separate channel and set of speakers for each string. Another channel amplified the bass drum, and two more channels carried the snares, tom-toms, and cymbals. Because each speaker carried just one instrument or vocalist, the sound was exceptionally clear and free of intermodulation distortion.[2]

Several setups have been reported for The Wall of Sound:

  1. 604 total speakers, powered by 89 300-watt solid-state and three 350-watt vacuum tube amplifiers generating a total of 26,400 watts of power.[3]
  2. 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).[4][5][2]
This system projected high-quality playback at six hundred feet (180 m) with an acceptable sound projected for one-quarter mile (400 m), at which point wind interference degraded it. Although it was not called a line array at the time, the Wall of Sound was the first large-scale line array used in modern sound reinforcement systems.[6] The Wall of Sound was perhaps the second-largest non-permanent sound system ever built.

There were multiple sets of staging and scaffolding that toured with the Grateful Dead. In order to accommodate the time needed to set up and tear down the system, the band would perform with one set while another would "leapfrog" to the next show. According to band historian Dennis McNally, there were two sets of scaffolding.[7] According to Stanley, there were three sets.[8] Four semi-trailers and 21 crew members were required to haul and set up the 75-ton Wall.

Though the initial framework and a rudimentary form of the system was unveiled at Stanford University's Maples Pavilion on February 9, 1973 (every tweeter blew as the band began their first number), the Grateful Dead did not begin to tour with the full system until a year later. The completed Wall of Sound made its touring debut on March 23, 1974, at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California.[2] A recording of the performance was released in 2002 as Dick's Picks Volume 24.

As Stanley described it,

The Wall of Sound is the name some people gave to a super powerful, extremely accurate PA system that I designed and supervised the building of in 1973 for the Grateful Dead. It was a massive wall of speaker arrays set behind the musicians, which they themselves controlled without a front of house mixer. It did not need any delay towers to reach a distance of half a mile [800 m] from the stage without degradation.[9]
 
DdBob said:
039-the-grateful-dead-s-wall-of-sound-helped-change-live-music-forever-02-GD_Wall_of_Sound.jpg_79cf91




From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



The Wall of Sound was an enormous sound reinforcement system designed in 1973 specifically for the Grateful Dead's live performances. The largest concert sound system built at that time,[1][2] The Wall of Sound fulfilled lead designer Owsley "Bear" Stanley's desire for a distortion-free sound system that could also serve as its own monitoring system. Due to its size, weight and resulting expense, the full WoS was only used from March to October of 1974.

History

Schematic drawing of the Grateful Dead's wall of sound
Stanley and Dan Healy and Mark Raizene of the Grateful Dead's sound crew, in collaboration with Ron Wickersham, Rick Turner, and John Curl of Alembic designed the sound reinforcement system in an effort to deliver high-quality sound to attendees of Grateful Dead concerts, which were drawing crowds of 100,000 or more at the time. The Wall of Sound combined six independent sound systems using eleven separate channels. Vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, and piano each had their own channel and set of speakers. Phil Lesh's bass was piped through a quadraphonic encoder that sent signals from each of the four strings to a separate channel and set of speakers for each string. Another channel amplified the bass drum, and two more channels carried the snares, tom-toms, and cymbals. Because each speaker carried just one instrument or vocalist, the sound was exceptionally clear and free of intermodulation distortion.[2]

Several setups have been reported for The Wall of Sound:

  1. 604 total speakers, powered by 89 300-watt solid-state and three 350-watt vacuum tube amplifiers generating a total of 26,400 watts of power.[3]
  2. 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).[4][5][2]
This system projected high-quality playback at six hundred feet (180 m) with an acceptable sound projected for one-quarter mile (400 m), at which point wind interference degraded it. Although it was not called a line array at the time, the Wall of Sound was the first large-scale line array used in modern sound reinforcement systems.[6] The Wall of Sound was perhaps the second-largest non-permanent sound system ever built.

There were multiple sets of staging and scaffolding that toured with the Grateful Dead. In order to accommodate the time needed to set up and tear down the system, the band would perform with one set while another would "leapfrog" to the next show. According to band historian Dennis McNally, there were two sets of scaffolding.[7] According to Stanley, there were three sets.[8] Four semi-trailers and 21 crew members were required to haul and set up the 75-ton Wall.

Though the initial framework and a rudimentary form of the system was unveiled at Stanford University's Maples Pavilion on February 9, 1973 (every tweeter blew as the band began their first number), the Grateful Dead did not begin to tour with the full system until a year later. The completed Wall of Sound made its touring debut on March 23, 1974, at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California.[2] A recording of the performance was released in 2002 as Dick's Picks Volume 24.

As Stanley described it,

The Wall of Sound is the name some people gave to a super powerful, extremely accurate PA system that I designed and supervised the building of in 1973 for the Grateful Dead. It was a massive wall of speaker arrays set behind the musicians, which they themselves controlled without a front of house mixer. It did not need any delay towers to reach a distance of half a mile [800 m] from the stage without degradation.[9]
Click to expand...
Sound 1/2 mile away without degradation. That must have been intense .
 
How did they power that rig? It seems like arenas wouldn’t have had electricity run for that much power before they needed it for their own PAs.
 
jp_nyc said:
How did they power that rig? It seems like arenas wouldn’t have had electricity run for that much power before they needed it for their own PAs.
Click to expand...
i'm not sure about then....but today you could bring in a couple of these. (2750 KW)
2_4.jpg


we're using them for water pump station backup power generators.
they can easily run 3~600 hp electric vertical turbine pumps.
 
jp_nyc said:
How did they power that rig? It seems like arenas wouldn’t have had electricity run for that much power before they needed it for their own PAs.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure, mighta had a semi with a trailer full of power or something. I know the had a team of semi’s that hauled it around. If I get a chance I’ll look later because in my Dead days I had a book about their gear… this one


https://www.southamptonsagharborboo...tems-and-recording-sessions-from-1965-to-1995
 
bobby used a mesa 50/50 power amp at one point which is kinda cool bc i owned one of those for a while.

jerry used a GT trio preamp for a while


early on i believe they used fender twins. i saw a quote where jerry said they sounded good once you got the volume above 7 which must have been a blast to play.
 
NO.
The Dead were an American band with its roots in the American folk tradition and that required loud powerful cleans. Marshalls cant really do that. Neither can any early break up amp like a Tweed. With such a large ensemble it just wouln't have worked. In fact, given the number of band members, the sizes of the venues they played, and the repertoire, it would have sucked big time, mud city.
Jerry typically used a Twin Reverb preamp into McIntosh power amps and high power JBL speakers. Loud, & clean with piercing transients like sticking your head inside a bluegrass banjo. I couldn't play a true Jerry rig myself, the piercing highs and sharp attack would kill me. When playing Dead tunes I prefer something a bit warmer like a BF Bassman or a Super myself.
But Im not Jerry and Im not playing to thousands.
My Carr(at full power in pentode mode) sits kinda between a BF Deluxe and a BF or early SF Bassman.
Bobbys rack changed a lot, but a Marshall or some other early breakup amp would have sounded like crap on all those clean major triads and extensions he played.
 
No, and those amp brands would have gone out of favor and metal would have evolved differently. This has the makings of an excellent butterfly effect type novel, called The Grateful Dead Objectively Suck. :)
 
I'm not at all very TGD savvy but I'd think Hiwatt amps would've been a better alternative for them than Marshalls.
 
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