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[brian maddox]

I've done a bunch of gigs for MHA Audio with a lot of UK gear interconnected with US gear. So we had all colors of camlocks feeding big (50KW?) transformers that stepped 120 volts on the US side up to 240 volts on the UK side with Cee-Form outlets. So half of our gear was 120 volts, and the other half was 240 volts. You had to remember which voltage was where or there would be a lot of trouble (smoke). We kept it pretty logical. So if there was a Cee-Form or UK plugboard it was 240 volts. If it was a camlock or Edison outlet it was 120 volts. There were a few times when we broke these rules, but everything was always clearly marked by the shop guys who did a great job prepping and documenting how everything hooked up. And yes, I always metered everything before plugging in a powering up.

I remember well many years providing a second set of consoles for a festival MHA did at Merriweather Post.  The 3 giant transformers and all the C-Form and and and.  Basically the only thing that was 120V was the PM4000 out front and the backline power.  It was quite an education.

IIRC, there were something on the order of 96 of those wonderful MHA big square boxes.  Not a driver in the rig over 8 inches and low end for days.  Good times....

[Dave Stevens]

The first PA company I worked for in the early 80s bought a used 48 box M4 Hill rig from Mike Scarfe, consoles, wedges, rigging, the whole bit.  It had three of those big transformer, one hot leg to each and a three way Y for neutral and ground.  The xformers had 220 outs for the amps and also 120 US outs for processing, backline, etc.  If you were at mon beach and touched between one of the amp racks and one of the 120 racks it was possible to get zapped.  Good times...

[Mike Sokol]

I remember well many years providing a second set of consoles for a festival MHA did at Merriweather Post.  The 3 giant transformers and all the C-Form and and and.  Basically the only thing that was 120V was the PM4000 out front and the backline power.  It was quite an education.

IIRC, there were something on the order of 96 of those wonderful MHA big square boxes.  Not a driver in the rig over 8 inches and low end for days.  Good times....

That's the same MHA speaker system I've used many times so I can describe it. Those were the original M6 cabinets designed and built by Malcolm Hill, which were used by the band AC-DC for a bunch of tours. Each cabinet had 6 Tannoy 10" woofers, 2 Tannoy 10" dual mid/concentrics, plus a 2" RH horn and driver. Each of these "wardrobe" cabs weighed over 300 lbs, and were tri-amped with Chameleon 3KW amps powered by 240 volts from those big 120-to-240 volt step-up transformers and C-Form wiring. IIRC we usually took around 60 of those M6 cabinets to Merriweather Post Pavilion. I was the house engineer for that rig at MPP for a good many summers in the late 80's through the early 90's, so it's very possible you met me there. Small world...

[David Buckley]

Everything about Malcolm Hill rigs was different.  Mic preamps in a rack on stage, with line level audio going back to the desk.  No preamp level remote control.   The excellent Hill power amps.  The Hill mixers.  The combo speaker boxes.  I mixed several times on the full MH rig with the 3 series speakers, and always enjoyed it.  For a while there was a resident Hill rig in the Marquee (Mk 2 I think) and it was nice being able to walk up to a system that just worked. 

The Hill monitor mixer had 8 faders per channel, rather than the knobs so prevalent in other monitor boards.

Malcolm Hill.  A man with a vision, albeit a vision a bit different to others, and an attitude. 

AC/DC played some festival back in the day in the UK, full MH rig, and it rained, and all the cones got wet.  Despite requests to a support band BE to keep it down, he gave it welly, and there were ripped cones to hell and back.  Apparently there was not a lot of PA left working by the time AC/DC took the stage.

[John Sulek]

Written inside the 1200 amp switch at our now-decomissioned arena - "Black Red Blue - get a fucking clue."  I wasn't working there when that was originally written so I don't know what circumstance led an electrician to put it there.

That said, I was told that in Canada the follow spotlight color boomerang is loaded with frame 1 the furthest from the operator, frame 6 the closest... which is opposite of how I was taught (in the USA) 30 years ago.  Any truth to that? /swerve

I will have to ask one of my lampy pals.

[brian maddox]

That's the same MHA speaker system I've used many times so I can describe it. Those were the original M6 cabinets designed and built by Malcolm Hill, which were used by the band AC-DC for a bunch of tours. Each cabinet had 6 Tannoy 10" woofers, 2 Tannoy 10" dual mid/concentrics, plus a 2" RH horn and driver. Each of these "wardrobe" cabs weighed over 300 lbs, and were tri-amped with Chameleon 3KW amps powered by 240 volts from those big 120-to-240 volt step-up transformers and C-Form wiring. IIRC we usually took around 60 of those M6 cabinets to Merriweather Post Pavilion. I was the house engineer for that rig at MPP for a good many summers in the late 80's through the early 90's, so it's very possible you met me there. Small world...

I always say 8" drivers when I KNOW they're 10" drivers.

Thanks for the detailed rundown.

Oh, and this gig was for Earth Day.  Don't ask me what year but I know Toad the Wet Sprocket and Collective soul were on the bill.  😀

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