The Wall of Sound - It’s already been tried
My good friend Mark Johnson puts up a bit of a challenge in his review of the Bose L1 PA System. Put simply, he says that we may be able do do without PA Systems in the future and rely totally on the bands stage systems. It’s not often that I disagree with Mark but in this case I’m not quite convinced.
First things first, I’ve heard the Bose L1 system in use and it is as good as Mark suggests. The sound is crystal clear and removes the need for foldback. For a solo act or duo this is simply brilliant as the whole system can fit on the back seat or boot of a small car. Anything that cuts down on gear to be transported and lugged is a good thing in my book. I’ll be loading in about 3 or 4 tonne of equipment into a venue this afternoon! If I could get the band members to each bring their own little system then I would indeed be redundant as a sound engineer. The trouble is that it’s just not that simple.
On a small scale it works fine. As soon as the band gets beyond a few members and the audience gets beyond a telephone box full then problems kick in and we end up with “solutions” like this as used by The Grateful Dead.
The problems are many with this approach, usually due to a nasty little rascal called “physics”. I won’t get technical here folks but let’s just say that trying to do without a monitor system in anything other than a very small scale gets quite complicated. The closest we’ve come is, in my opinion, in-ear monitoring but it has problems of its’ own, not least of which is that the performer suddenly feels very isolated from the audience. Not a very good side effect really!
Put simply, the physics of dealing with audio in a local environment like a muso on a stage is vastly different to trying to amplify that audio for an audience. Some speakers are designed to be heard by standing directly in front of and next to them like your average guitar amp. Some speakers are designed to push the sound to the back of the room. Generally it is very, very difficult to design a system that does both, unless it is on a very small scale such as the Bose L1.
I may be very wrong but I don’t think we will see the need for a PA system and sound engineer totally disappear any time soon. What Mark proposes is by no means impossible, just more difficult than it seems. Maybe technology such as the Bose L1 is just the first step back to “The Wall Of Sound!”
For more info on the original Wall of Sound system used by The Grateful Dead check here and here.
Technorati Tags: audio, sound, music
February 9th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I think w’re splitting hairs. My article was to do with the local club scene. Your average venue would be serviced quite nicely if the band was all equippd with the L/1 system. I did state in the article that once you go beyond that nightclub environment that things might need some help out front. But I remain convinced that until you hit venues like Telstra Dome, The Entertainment Centre, Rod Laver Arena, etc, that the L/1 would hold it’s own as the on stage monitor source quite comfortably. I have no wish to see Gibbo out of work. Other Sound engineers are another story.
So again, in nightclubs, pubs etc, no extra production is required with this system. Get into theatres over 500 capacity and you’ll need a FOH boost for sure, but you still won’t need monitors. Get into around 5000+ capacity venues and the system is out of it’s depth, but I dare say Bose will be working on it.
We have to remember that the Grateful Dead’s Wall of sound was engineered in the 70’s. We are now more than 30 years on. All I was alluding to was that Bose is on the right track here, and that 5 piece bands are using this system in the U.S.A with great success. If you go to their web site you can see all the data on their research and get it straight from the horses mouth.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Hey, I actually agree with here Johno, it all comes back to a matter of scale. The Grateful Dead is obviously an extreme example and was given tongue in cheek, but for me it shows perfectly how complicated things can get when we try to over-simplify. I could certainly point you to more recent attempts on smaller scales.
At the end of the day I’m all for simple, compact systems. All to often I’ve heard the comment from some punter, “hey mate do you really need ALL that stuff?” My answer is usually “No, I just like carrying it around!”
Sometimes things are done the old fashioned way because “that’s how we’ve always done it”. Sometimes things are done the old fashioned way because it just works.
If we take a step back and look at what the L1 system was designed to do, it works perfectly. I was absolutely blown away when I heard it in action. Whether that theory and technology can be upscaled is something we will all just have to wait and see. Either way, it’s a small step in the right direction.