ROCK CONCERTS

[LICORNE]

Here are some pictures of Woddstock 1969

FOH Towers




Delay Towers




Helicopter shot





Under stage Amps MAc, EQ Langevin,Mixer 4 Shure in series.



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<font color="#FFFFFF"><font size="1">[ January 11, 2008 09:18 PM: Message edited by: CONVERGENCE ]</font></font>

<font color="#FFFFFF" size="1">[ January 11, 2008 09:20 PM: Message edited by: CONVERGENCE ]</font>

[Old Guy]

JBL was pretty dominant in 1982. EV was a very distant second. Altec was dying...

There was a lot of Community light and Sound-JBL loaded.

EAW was beginning to penetrate the market- the Forsythe enclosures were superior to JBL. Still JBL guts, but EAW boxes. That was the high end choice..that period was when I got out of touring to manage a retail shop- so I'm going by what we were selling to tour companies.

Amplification was mostly BGW- we sold those about ten to one over Crown. A bunch of BGW renegades had just started a company called Crest.

Mixer of choice was Midas. We didn't sell those, couldn't get them.

QSC was building cheap MI grade stuff.

A young guy named Tom McCauley came thru town hawking high frequency horns and lenses, actually that was closer to 1980.

I did the Ramones in a 300 seat club- my ears hurt for days...

The early 80's were a period of economic hardship- Reaganomics.

Altec, Kustom, Acoustic, all died. Several others survived only by being bought out.

It's hard to say what the systems you mentioned would be- I would have bet on JBL drivers, but boxes not sure.

[417 - Alnico]

Thanks.. I remember the big black boxes hanging in the La Crose Center. I saw a lot of Concerts from 1981 to 1985. I am pretty sure it was completed by 1980. Nice bowl of concrete...the highs were brutal.

[417 - Alnico]

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Crosse_Center"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Crosse_Center[/ame]

[gamalot]

Great discussion and some nice photos there Convergence.
I was there at Woodstock in 1969 and am still here today.
The original site is now The Bethel Woods Performing Arts Center and I saw Leonard Skynard Sunday evening.

Granted the site is currently set up for around 20,000 and the sound system in use is of unknown brand to me.

What I do notice at each concert I attend there is vast differences in the way each group mixes their own sound.
For instance, Marshall Tucker opened the concert sunday evening and began sounding pretty bad. By the middle of their set they sounded quite good.
Skynard came on and sounded fantastic right out of the box and blew the place away.
I suspect it has more to do with the tech doing the mixing then the system itself.

We saw CSN&Y there last year and it stunk the place up with not enough volume to keep the crowd listening.

At the Woodstock concert, it was hit or miss with the sound. Depending upon where you were in the crowd and in relation to the stage and towers. At times and in certain positions it sounded great and at other positions it just sounded OK.

Here is a link to the current site.
http://www.bethelwoodslive.org/

I am not at all knowledgable with large systems and would love to know what system they are useing today. Maybe some of you could do so snooping and ID it from the site photos.

I live 8 miles from there and will attend many concerts in the future as the place is absolutely gorgeous and very nicely planned and set up.

Gary

[LICORNE]

gamalot

Quote

[quote] I am not at all knowledgable with large systems and would love to know what system they are useing today. Maybe some of you could do so snooping and ID it from the site photos .From the photo on the webs site you posted it's hard to say for sure. I got my source from a site dated June 2006.





Lawn speaker system

top tier 10 EAW KF750F
bottom tier 10 EAW KF 755 P

There are no data on the orchestra shell PA system.

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[Old Guy]

Just a thought- under contact us, there is an address for artist booking inquiries- shoot them an email asking for a sound system description- were I with a group booked to play there that's what I'd do...

[gamalot]

Thanks Convergence! Does this sound like a decent system to those in the know?

Good thought OG except that I am a local fixture here and a bit too well known by those who would get such an email. I am sure I could probably get all the skinny on it by a simple phone call to a friend but would rather wait until I see him in person.

All I can say is it can sound very nice with the right individual at the mixer.
Another thing I am unsure of is I think most of the big groups bring their own stage gear and systems that run in conjunction with the in house system. The mixing board is dead middle of the seating area but pretty well cordoned off and hard to see much of anything.

Altec fan I am but this heavy gear is way out of my league and I would not be able to ID any of it.

Gary

[LICORNE]

Altec continued to dominate the Civic centres,
Forums, Movie Theaters throughout the 70's.

The revolution came with the mixer board .
In 1971 at Ontario Place I attended a concert by the group Chigago. The FOH mixer was a Soundcraft
Live series 1or 2 42 chanells.The speakers were Altecs.

In 1972 again a concert by Michel Delpech "Sound Craft mixer, speakers JBL.

JBL was making some gains Especially in Touring Rock concerts .

Here is a picture of a permanent Altec cluster
in the 80"s brand new for civic centre,



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<font color="#FFFFFF" size="1">[ January 08, 2008 12:00 PM: Message edited by: CONVERGENCE ]</font>

[LICORNE]

Does this sound like a decent system to those in the know?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The seating portion seats 7000 people and the speakers are custom made. No way of finding what is in those boxes.

Second the lawn section seats 14,000 on the lawn
The speakers are EAW 750. 3 way trapezoid cabinet.

The whole system is RTA . Today that makes for uniformity.

Personnaly I'm not for mix mach speaker systems.

He should have chosen EAW for the entire venue.

I prefer Altec of course and Wether proof cabs have been constructed by contractors before.

There is more to it than a good sound mixer.

You need good performers and good stage monitoring
also.

For medium ype performers ;in ears monitors is excellent. Makes for a more uniform sound.

well seasoned performers will use wedge stage monitors.

Sound checks are important to.

So a lot of variables to take into account.

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