A little wedge history..??

[drmmrboy]

Anyone know when stage monitors were introduced? Who was responsible, etc..

The question came up last night, and we couldn't narrow it down.

I remember seeing side fills, but no floor wedges.
When did folks start saying, "let's put these on stage, blowing across", or "I can put this in front of you, at your feet, so you can hear yourself better." or "Yeah, I can give you each your own mix."

[Jim vanBergen]

Side fills were the first stage monitors. At Woodstock, they had 12 Altec A-7 Voice of the Theatre speakers and two were turned in for monitors/sidefill. Abe Jacob, who mixed for Jimi Hendrix and The Mamas and the Papas said that in the early days. real PA cabinets were so hard to come by, no one wanted to 'waste' them on the talent.

Even the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound was about each player hearing himself well from speakers located upstage of themselves.

I'm sure it came from a touring rock company, like McCune Sound.

I need to hear back from one of the surviving soundmen of the day, then I'll get you a better answer. Sadly, one of my best historic resources, Dr. Don Pearson, founder of UltraSound, is no longer with us.

I found this and thought it was interesting: (from the McCune's)

Audio company McCune Sound Provides Audio Systems to San Francisco and L.A. Productions
"The first time that a stage monitor was used that we know of was for Judy Garland. It was late in her career. My father and grandfather were working on her show at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. The rehearsal was not going well. My father came up with the idea of pointing a speaker at her. He jumped in the truck and dashed back to the office, grabbed a speaker, brought it back, put it on the corner of the stage, took a feed off the main system, turned up the amp and, like magic, the artist was happy."

JvB

Originally Posted by drmmrboy

Anyone know when stage monitors were introduced? Who was responsible, etc..

The question came up last night, and we couldn't narrow it down.

I remember seeing side fills, but no floor wedges.
When did folks start saying, "let's put these on stage, blowing across", or "I can put this in front of you, at your feet, so you can hear yourself better." or "Yeah, I can give you each your own mix."

[dementedchord]

seems to me i remember bob heil having something to do with it... for an early stones or who tour...

[drmmrboy]

Jim, that's good stuff.
Interesting about McCune & Judy Garland.

Abe Jacob, who mixed for Jimi Hendrix and The Mamas and the Papas said that in the early days. real PA cabinets were so hard to come by, no one wanted to 'waste' them on the talent.

That's classic. But understandable. It's something taken for granted any more. I'm 40 & ever since I can remember stage monitors have been around.

Anyone else have any info or first hand experiences?

[edwinhurwitz]

I think there is a good chance it was a Grateful Dead development. There are some stories about when Dan Healy first joined up with the band and he brought in a huge upgrade for the their front of house after being told to put his money where his mouth was, so to speak. After that he started to work on stage monitors for them. This was in the early Avalon/Carousel days, if I remember the interview correctly. This was years before the wall of sound.

Edwin

[Jim vanBergen]

Dan took over the duties as soundman for The Grateful Dead in 1971, earlier that same year Owlsley 'Bear' Stanley left (Owlsley was the Deads former soundman & is/was co-designer of the "Wall of Sound" with Healy) after Stanley went to jail for LSD manufacturing, which is what Bear is REALLY famous for- the free & recreational distribution of LSD. Anyway--

Pic of a stage monitor (bottom right of photo) at the Greek Theatre in October of 1968, which would have been while Stanley was their soundman. There are also pictures of use of stage monitors in '69 and '70 especially at the Fillmore, but rarely at outdoor concerts- such as the Columbia Student concert or Woodstock both had sidefills only.

http://www.dead.net/sites/deadbeta.r...81020_0308.jpg

I could find no proof of stage monitoring on the Dead's sites prior to 1968, but searching for pictures for the Fillmore or Avalon might turn up more information.

No interviews with Healy or Owlsley refer to the first use of onstage wedges. They seem secondary to the "Wall of Sound"in any interview.

Any Dead historians out there?

[edwinhurwitz]

From what I've read is that Healy joined forces with the Dead in the fall of '67 when the band parted ways with Owsley for a time in August of 1966 (some say because of equipment troubles due to Bear's setup of having the instruments all going to a central box that preamped them and then out to the amps in a very convoluted system that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't and other say because they were getting uncomfortable with his LSD notoriety). This was before stage monitors and when the instruments were carrying the room and vocals were being handled by Shure Vocalmasters and similar setups.

Healy's first encounter was in 1967, while he was a studio engineer, at the Fillmore at the invitation of Quicksilver and the bass amp broke down. The band asked if there was a doctor in the house and he stepped up and fixed the amp and told them they could play great but their sound sucked. They responded with a sarcastic "Oh, yeah? What can you do about it?" and he went out and rented every Voice of the Theater and similar speaker that he could find, got a bunch amps (I believe they were McIntosh that were part of his home stereo) and spent an afternoon at the Fillmore wiring them all up and when the band came in to play, they were blown away. I think his dedication to getting good sound without doing weird screwy things that took forever to set up and didn't always work was what got him the gig. He recounts some of the dynamics that occurred during the making of Anthem of the Sun and he built a bunch of stuff they needed to get all the disparate elements together for that album, so he was there in early 68 as an already established part of the band. I can't find any monitor documentation off the top of my head, but I recall reading about the history of monitors and it seemed to start with Healy. The truth was that they were pretty unexcited about any of their monitors until John Meyer got it together with the UM1. That was much later, of course.

So, that picture that you linked to was when Bear was already out of the day to day scene and Healy had been running things for a while. Bear did work with the band off and on for quite some time, in various capacities and was one of the architects and chief visionaries of the Wall of Sound. It's also interesting to find out that John Meyer and Carl Countryman and others who became key players in the pro audio world were involved pretty early in the game with their scene.

Of course, since neither of us were there and those who were notoriously can't remember it, who really knows?
Edwin

[ToddP]

Originally Posted by dementedchord

seems to me i remember bob heil having something to do with it... for an early stones or who tour...

He used sides for the Who, on the Who's Next tour. He had stacks as side fills/ monitors and wired them in reverse phase to reduce feedback problems.

[mrsteaks]

The first wedge I ever saw was a (nice) system made by an outfit in Rochester, NY, Brighton Sound. They called it "The Michigan Monitor". It was designed by the owner of the company, a fella named "Duffy". His last name escapes me - I am over 55! That was in 1973. It was a true wedge, and could be layed on either side or stood on end. I thought it's shape was clever as hell first time I saw one. Hell, if we had thought about in those days, the damn things could probably have been stacked and flown, curvilinear array-style ("you can't fly speakers - are you f___in' crazy?" - an overheard roadie in 1972). It used a 12 inch JBL driver (I think a K-Series), a short compression horn and driver, also JBL, and was ported. It sounded rather good, and it was easy to EQ a monitor system using them because they weren't terribly peaky. It was also very efficient, and could reliably reach some impressive SP levels. They were a little crude, being made of plywood and painted flat black, but if I remember rightly, they did have corner protectors and had the recessed (Anvil style) metal handles. Oh, and they had screen over the drivers and the port.

I couldn't afford to buy the things from Brighton Sound, so I tried to make my own - using crappy wood and less than structurally sound construction techniques. My home-made wedges went on the road with me in 1974 (or '75 - that memory thing again) for Wolfman Jack and actually survived a couple of venues before one of them got dropped and exploded like a car bomb. I used the same drivers that Brighton Sound did in their design, and like theirs, mine sounded quite good, too. I remember Wolfman commenting to me on how well he liked it.

[Mazo Audio]

I've got to say, it's nice to see the Good ol' Grateful Dead get some love around here. That band had much to do with advancing audio technology (and consciousness!)
For those that are interested there is a fascinating book by Blair Jackson out called Grateful Dead Gear, I couldn't put that sucker down when I got it, They supported lots of innovators in the audio world.

[drmmrboy]

A friend sent this to me today..

date: august 19, 1969

sound familiar? it's the day after woodstock and look what's up on
the riser behind mr. cavett.
the dark haired woman in the lower right of the screen is grace
slick.

[Jim vanBergen]

John Meyer told me he designed the Ultra Monitor at the request of Jefferson Airplane who wanted a low profile wedge that faced the musician and had a very specific coverage. He also said that tight-patterned slant wedges did not really exist- most people just started using any other PA speaker they could find to use as floor monitors.

I'm sure other sound companies manufactured dedicated wedges, and probably at earlier dates- such as McCune Sound. More research to do!

[edwinhurwitz]

Originally Posted by Jim vanBergen

John Meyer told me he designed the Ultra Monitor at the request of Jefferson Airplane who wanted a low profile wedge that faced the musician and had a very specific coverage. He also said that tight-patterned slant wedges did not really exist- most people just started using any other PA speaker they could find to use as floor monitors.

I'm sure other sound companies manufactured dedicated wedges, and probably at earlier dates- such as McCune Sound. More research to do!

That's interesting. I had thought that the Ultra Monitor came into creation after the demise of the Airplane. I played through UM serial numbers 1-5 that were at a club in Tahoe, CA. The house soundguy, Blake, works for Jim Gamble and he got them from the Grateful Dead after they went to in ears. I had heard from interviews with Healy that John had been convinced to make them by the GD crew. They lured him away from some high tech work in Switzerland. But that's all third hand on my part, however, the Meyer website does say that John and his wife Helen returned to the Bay Area and started Meyer Sound in 1979, so wedges were very common by the time the UM came into being.


Edwin

[Jim vanBergen]

Originally Posted by edwinhurwitz

That's interesting. I had thought that the Ultra Monitor came into creation after the demise of the Airplane. I played through UM serial numbers 1-5 that were at a club in Tahoe, CA. The house soundguy, Blake, works for Jim Gamble and he got them from the Grateful Dead after they went to in ears. I had heard from interviews with Healy that John had been convinced to make them by the GD crew. They lured him away from some high tech work in Switzerland. But that's all third hand on my part, however, the Meyer website does say that John and his wife Helen returned to the Bay Area and started Meyer Sound in 1979, so wedges were very common by the time the UM came into being.


Edwin

Good to know, Edwin. I don't know (or pretend to be an authority) on this all, I asked John Meyer specifically when this thread came up. I know he designed many different speakers before Meyer existed, -some for hire, some for the hell of it- and the JM3 is a pretty infamous speaker from his days at McCune. I expect John made several versions, certainly he made many designs of them before the UM became a "processed" box, let alone a production model.

I wonder who would know the actual first use of a fill speaker from the lip of the stage, and the first slant wedge monitor design. If Don Pearson were still alive (damn, I miss you, Doc!) he'd be a great person to ask. Anyone know Howard Danchik? Maybe he remembers...

JvB

[joelpatterson]

I was sure the answer would involve a normal, square speaker cabinet that somehow got an edge sawn off by a sloppy stage carpenter and someone said, "Ah, hell, let's just leave it here on the stage where it fell...."

[cantolina]

Here is the story, as I understand it...

When the Beatles came to America, as you all know, they played in Shea Stadium- 1965....the noise was deafening, and the band couldn't hear a thing...

A later date on the West Coast found them in the hands of the late, great Harry McCune, who said "Why not point some speakers AT the band?"...and stage monitors were born...(Harry McCune, as many of you may know, invented almost EVERYTHING we use in modern show tech...show com (clear-com, et al..) (originally invented for crane operators to communicate with ground support), 2 way audio boxes aka AE-5's...also known as SM-5's at McCune (...hell, Harry had the very first telephone answering machine....you couldn't leave a message, but you got a message when you called....story has it that the phone company made him disconnect the machine because it caused such a stir...) Harry is responsible for SO MUCH of our technology...

I am a long way down the McCune legacy...If you want the REAL story, AS IT WAS...contact Cap'n Mike Neal at McCune....Mike was one of Jimi Hendix's engineer's, and his stories are things of beauty...

He would be the closest living technician to this issue that I know of....