Wall of Sound vs. the Line Array (with the best photos ever seen)

Awesome times and I never knew that there was a separate amplifier for a string of the base

 Thanks for posting ( OK you whippersnappers when I was a boy ....)

Thanks for sharing looks like an interesting read!

Bass is the base

Hollywood Bowel

>>>>I never knew that there was a separate amplifier for a string of the base

A separate amp means a separate speaker stack (the tallest ones in the photos) for each string as well. Not only that, but Phil could change the spread and string from each amp/stack via the numerous controls on his modified Guld/Alembic 'Godfather' bass.

(In musical terms, it means he could play one tune - or part of a tune - with the individual string/amp setting to E, A, D, & G, stage right to left across the pa, then switch it, to say, D, E, G & A, bringing the low E and higher G string more into the middle).

The Altec Lansing reference reminds me of an interview with Healy in the first Deadhead Tape Traders compendium.

Dan said that in the early going (1967?) as they were trying to build up the Dead's PA- he wrote letters to Altec about how they needed a better/larger  PA  Speaker, as they kept blowing up

their present speakers, and sending them back to Altec. Altec wrote back that "we are selling everything we manufacture, and we're not going to design a new loudspeaker system just for your band."

The Dead kept shipping back blown speakers.  Altec finally got the message some months later , and gave them what they wanted.

Anyone interesting in concert touring sound by now must have watched the Grateful Dead documentary “Long Strange Trip”. <<

And Robin weeped​

There are some good 1974 auds (Jerry Moore) where you can hear that bass separation.

Funny how people don't talk about the negative sides of the wall of sound, like how vocals sound like shit, no monitors made Donna scream all the time, it about bankrupted them and pushed them towards "retirement". But DAMN it looks cool! 

I think also the road crew mutinied and put an end to it. Funny, because they helped build the damn thing. Holy Frankenstein.

I was there, but i was 14 and it was my first show......amazing !!!

 

Grateful Dead Live at Philadelphia Civic Arena on 1974-08-04

by Grateful Dead

https://archive.org/details/gd74-08-04.aud-moore.weiner.20369.sbeok.shnf



...and my now hubby was at this his first show also :)  All these year later the universe began our journey to  bring us together thru our love of music....that is truly  fate and magick ~

vocals didn't sound  like shit - just weird

From Donna Jean's Reddit Ask Me Anything session March 30:

Q: Hi Donna. Welcome! Was it imposing performing in front of the Wall of Sound?

Like, with the stacks way over your head, with the sheer power of the music literally washing through you, it had to be quite a rush

A: It was quite a rush. It was amazing, but it was really, really loud when it came to my little, tiny monitor that I had to sing through. That made it really hard. But, the shear power of that sound system is something that me nor anyone else I know of could have shuned as being a detrement. It was incredible.

But the time finally came that it had to take a bow. And it did, but not take away from the incredible sound that the Grateful Dead always produced.

I think the vocals sounding like shit was more due to the microphones they were using.

There was no separate monitor system. The Wall was the monitor system.

haha awesome...

Garcia, Weir, and Kreutzmann during a Wall sound check at P.N.E. Coliseum in Vancouver, BC,May1974. Pic.Richard Pechner

The "Alembic PA" at the Boston Music Hall, November 30, 1973. Photo courtesy Richard Pechner