Heres an interesting comment from Bill Hanley who set up the 69 Woodstock PA system. They used McIntosh MI350 monoblock amps, LA-2A limiters, and Shure mixers. 12,000 Watts. We built our Front of House (FOH) mixing station on a platform about 75 feet from the stage so we could see the stage and hear the mix (through the stage-left lower speaker cluster.) On the stage, we used custom microphones I had built from Shure factory parts. They closely resembled what Shure Brothers would soon sell as the popular Shure SM58, the most noticeable difference being that mine had a brushed chrome finish, like the older Shure bird cage mics. Under the stage we had our McIntosh amplifiers, both transistorized and tube models. Transistors were new, and a bit risky, but we needed all the power we could get. In a nearby trailer, we had two eight track Scully recorders catching the show. Those are the tapes everyone knows through the album and for Martin Scorceses Woodstock movie, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Because most of the audience would be perched high on the hill, Bill decided to build two speaker towers, each with two levels of speaker clusters, one high, (about 70 feet, to reach the middle and top of the hill,) and one much lower for the near audience. This geometry sent the music directly to everyones ears, without causing any backslap (echo,) because all the grass, and soil ...and the bodies of half a million fans, would absorb the sound, eliminating the unwanted resonances and reflections that we have to deal with indoors. Bill designed and built his own speaker cabinets of marine plywood. Two bass bins were placed under a pair of high frequency horns, totalling about a thousand pounds and standing roughly 6 feet tall, 4 feet deep, and 7 feet wide.Each of the four upper level bins was loaded with four 15-inch JBL D130 drivers with a loudness maximizer compressing the sound to improve reach. Each of the four lower bins was loaded with four 15-inch JBL D140 drivers for extended bass. The high frequencies were handled by model 1003B, 5x2 Altec multicell horns (300Hz. min freq) and Bills own custom built 2x2 horns, all with Altec 290 compression drivers.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 14:14:01 +0000
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