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[Tom Burgess]

Absolutely!

[Garreth Broesche]

Absolutely!

Cool....  Give me a few more days to transcribe the interview then I'll post it.  It's REALLY interesting stuff...

[Ivan Beaver]

Hi guys....  I've had a tremendous stroke of good fortune and am now in touch with none other than Duke Mewborn, the gentleman who set up and ran the sound system for the Beatles 1965 concert in Atlanta. 

I interviewed him last Friday and got the skinny on the system that night.  I'm still transcribing the interview, but I'd be happy to share what I learned....  Would you want to know about this?

Was that the show that Baker Audio provided sound for?

I saw a letter from Brian Epstein to Baker that said the sound in Atlanta was the best on the tour.

My guess is that Altec was the speaker of choice (since Baker was one of the "chosen few").

[Garreth Broesche]

Okay, here’s the skinny on the sound system used for the Beatles 1965 show in Atlanta (based on a conversation with Duke Mewborn).

Atlanta Stadium opened in April of 1965.  Duke Mewborn’s company, Baker Audio, was the contractor that installed the original sound system into the stadium.  Baker Audio is still in business.  They are not primarily in the business of live sound but, rather, are a contracting company that does installations in airports, theaters, stadiums, churches, etc. 

When the Beatles booked the show there, Baker was recommended to them to run the sound.  This is apparently how it worked - the Beatles would contact the stadium and they would recommend someone to run sound.  Since Baker had done the installation, they were the natural choice.

The stadium had a high-quality sound system for its time.  It had a control room outfitted with an Altec 250SU console.  This was a 10-channel mixer that could accommodate any combination of line or mike inputs.  One drawback was that the control room was behind glass.  This meant that someone would have to sit in the open air and relay information to the board operator via telephone.

The stadium was also outfitted with “field amplifiers” for occasions when loudspeakers were needed on the field, such as a concert.  Also, the installed speakers were for voice only - they were not full-range speakers - so they would have been inappropriate for music.  The field amplifiers were Altec 1570s. 

For the Beatles show, the stadium was set over second base, the geometric center of the circular stadium.  Seats were only sold for 180 degrees of the stadium, so the sound crew did not have to worry about projecting sound behind the stage.  (About 30,000 people attended.)

The installed speakers were not used at all.  The mains, rather, were two clusters of Altec A7s.  Mewborn recalls that 12 were used, set up to the left and right of the stage, and fairly tight to it. 

The monitor speakers were set up in a line array in front of the stage, set low so as not to obstruct anyone’s view.  I did not get the make and model of these.

All of these speakers were driven by the field amplifiers.  Mewborn recalls that four were in use that night, linked together to achieve a total of 700 watts of power.  (Mewborn says that nowadays large concerts use upwards of 100,000 watts.)

Mewborn used three microphones and does not recall the exact make and model.  He is certain that they were dynamic cardioid mikes (comparable today to a Shure SM58) and were likely Altec, EV, or Shure.  One mike was set over the drums and two were set out front for the three singers.  As was customary for Beatles concerts, the guitar amps were not close-miked.

Stage monitors were of course unusual at that time, but Mewborn had a lot of experience running sound in large stadiums and often found that “slap-back” was a problem.  It seems that the monitors were set up for this reason - so that the performers would not hear the music returning to the stage at a delayed interval. 

Mewborn never met the Beatles, Mal Evans, Brian Epstein, or anyone else traveling with them.  They did no sound check - they were just driven to the stage by limo at around 9:30, played their 30-minute set, and were gone.  He did, however, receive a letter from Epstein.  In this letter, Epstein praised the sound in Atlanta and asked Mewborn if he would travel with the band to help with sound.  He declined, saying that he had a business to run.  The Beatles never played in Atlanta again and did not contact him at any point before or during their 1966 US tour.

If you haven’t heard the bootleg from the Atlanta show, I highly recommend it.  Especially in context with the bootleg of Shea, it’s striking how the Beatles react to being able to hear themselves.  On “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby,” it sounds as if Harrison ALMOST improvises a guitar solo.

That’s the basics! 

[Ivan Beaver]

Thanks.

And to keep the power in perspective-the origional woodstock concert had 10,000 watts of power. Barely a good monitor system these days.

Amps were also MUCH smaller in those days-with a 300 watt amp being a HUGE amount of power. 

Oh how times have changed

[Jason Vanick]

Thanks.

And to keep the power in perspective-the origional woodstock concert had 10,000 watts of power. Barely a good monitor system these days.

Amps were also MUCH smaller in those days-with a 300 watt amp being a HUGE amount of power. 

Oh how times have changed

isn't part of this due tho to 'tube' watts being different than 'digital' watts...

for example... bass guitar rigs...

an Ampeg SVT 'fridge' is 300 tube watts, which is much louder than one of their 300 watt digital amps... in order to get the same perceived volume level, you need one of their 1600 watt digital heads...

I could be off base here, just thinking out loud...

[Tim McCulloch]

isn't part of this due tho to 'tube' watts being different than 'digital' watts...

No.  This is no such thing as a "digital watt."

And further, watts do not drive loudspeakers, VOLTAGE does.

[Jason Glass]

No.  This is no such thing as a "digital watt."

And further, watts do not drive loudspeakers, VOLTAGE does.

+1

Watt
noun /wät/ 
watts, plural

    The SI unit of power, equivalent to one joule per second, corresponding to the power in an electric circuit in which the potential difference is one volt and the current one ampere.

[Ivan Beaver]

isn't part of this due tho to 'tube' watts being different than 'digital' watts...

for example... bass guitar rigs...

an Ampeg SVT 'fridge' is 300 tube watts, which is much louder than one of their 300 watt digital amps... in order to get the same perceived volume level, you need one of their 1600 watt digital heads...

I could be off base here, just thinking out loud...

What you are talking about is the way the amps overload-(and how they sound when doing so) or when they are operated in the non linear range of operation.

Whenever anything is operated in its non linear range-it is a totally different type of discussion.   Then personal preferences come into play.  It becomes a lot harder to qualify measurable differences.  Different people like different things.

It is amazing to me when somebody says they want accurate sound-but they want it to sound a particular way-that is non linear.  DO WHAT??  I want it to sound accurate-but still change the sound to make it "better".  Maybe I just get confused easily.

[Tim Padrick]

I remember seeing ground level pics in which there was a ring of Vox columns (complete with tilt stands like that of the Super Beatle) placed in the grass out a bit from the stage.

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