Ziggy Stardust 1973
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Category: Other Chat
Forum Name: Golden oldies
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Topic: Ziggy Stardust 1973
Posted By: jbl_man
Subject: Ziggy Stardust 1973
Date Posted: 23 June 2012 at 11:05am
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If anyone saw the programme of the last Ziggy Stardust gig shown last night on BBC4,it was recorded in 1973 at the Hammersmith Odeon. Any guesses to the vintage PA? This is a screen shot i took friom the programme,WEM cabinets,and to the side,main PA,looks to be a pair of large JBL radials on top of what could be 4560's?  The whole concert is here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074nrj/Ziggy_Stardust_and_the_Spiders_from_Mars/" rel="nofollow - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074nrj/Ziggy_Stardust_and_the_Spiders_from_Mars/ ------------- Be seeing you. |
Replies:
Posted By: TONY.A.S.S.
Date Posted: 26 June 2012 at 7:36pm
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The only thing I can add to this, is that his PA company was called Ground Control, and in the early '80's bought a load of Concert System cabs. This was when they were working independently. ------------- http://www.facebook.com/tony.rossell.3" rel="nofollow - http://www.facebook.com/tony.rossell.3 |
Posted By: odc04r
Date Posted: 27 June 2012 at 10:03am
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I would like to see a modern H&S bods take on that stack and venue Will have to catch up with that program though, always time for Bowie. |
Posted By: madboffin
Date Posted: 28 June 2012 at 5:19pm
Yes, I think Ground Gontrol was owned by DB's management company and run by Robin Mayhew and somebody else, and Mike Turner was involved somehow. They had a lot of his amplifiers. |
TONY.A.S.S. wrote:Posted By: Disco Stu
Date Posted: 29 June 2012 at 12:03am
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Sorry to hijack thread but I will be playing with the Bowiexperience at Sevens Boatshed (restaurant) in Poole Park (Poole, Dorset) tomorrow night (Friday). If anyone fancies a meal and some bowie covers in an acoustic style, book yourselves a table Stu ------------- All you need to know is: Sensitivity + Power Handling - Power Compression = Max Output My acts: www.myspace.com/thebowiexperience www.myspace.com/scheisseelektronisches |
Posted By: jazomir
Date Posted: 30 June 2012 at 9:41am
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Useful link here: http://www.5years.com/robinmayhew.htm" rel="nofollow - http://www.5years.com/robinmayhew.htm . Bowie used a Turner PA (not the horn loaded version, the reflex version) for quite a while - as has been mentioned in previous threads, he was at one stage going to use it in a 'Wall of Sound' fashion. ------------- For sidefills, can we have two enormous things of a type that might be venerated as Gods by the inhabitants of Easter Island, capable of reaching volumes that would make Beelzebub soil his pants. |
Posted By: jbl_man
Date Posted: 30 June 2012 at 10:51am
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Thanks Trevor,that very interesting,what i thought were WEM full range cabinets next to the bigger PA were actually Turner built cabinets.... How many speakers did you use and what type? The usual configuration consisted of sixteen 1x15" full-range reflex cabinets (20hz to as high as they'd go) - eight 1x10"(200hz to as high as they'd go) and sixteen 075 tweeters (5Khz upward). All drivers were JBL. Sometimes at larger venues such as the Rainbow, Finsbury Park and Hammersmith Odeon, twenty-four 1x15"s would be used. The amplifiers were Turner A500s and A300s and the total output of the standard sixteen cabinet rig would be no more than 3,500KW. The system looked immaculate with all the speaker cabinets matching and covered in black vinyl with aluminium strips round the edges and this also suited the theatrical nature of the shows. The first mixer consisted of 12 channels only but was soon upgraded to 24. Believe it or not the echo facility was a Watkins Copy Cat tape-loop machine and that was the only sound-effect we used. At the beginning of the Ziggy touring period there were no on-stage monitors but with the wall of sound concept the band could hear the mix very well from their stage positions. ------------- Be seeing you. |
Posted By: robmaybe
Date Posted: 13 May 2015 at 3:09pm
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I can confirm that I used a Turner system for the first 12 months of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust project. To begin with I had 16 full range reflex cabinets (8 each side of stage) which were wired in series with two Crown amplifiers modified by Turner driving them. The output was quite low but the overall movement of air was considerable and made for a unique audience experience with a full but comfortable volume ideal for the theatrics on stage. When we toured the US I used Claire Brothers and a standard horn loaded JBL system which though good was a little harsh but using it made me realise that when we got back to the UK and playing larger venues I would need some extra throw. Turner developed 1 X 10" horn loaded cabinets 4 each side and we added a bunch of 075 tweeters also Turner had now got his own amplifiers into production and we switch from Crown to his A500s for the reflex cabs and the A300s for te 1X10" and tweeters. As the company I formed called Ground Control grew so I and the crew began building our own speaker cabinets and rather copied the Claire Brother 2X12" horn loaded mid range unit which was a huge success during later tours and also bought in the JBL 4550 bass bins and 2440 horns. I also designed and built our own 'W' bins. The picture of Ziggy's last gig shows the faithful Turner reflex cabinets and the JBL units to the outside of the rig. Oddly the picture is the same capture that I have done for the recording I made that night in July 1973 and it's available in my music store at www.robinmayhew.co.uk where there is also a Ground Control Gallery page. The TURNER PA system was certainly a brilliant concept and gave me such a great start to my engineering career. |
Posted By: nickyburnell
Date Posted: 13 May 2015 at 10:52pm
Wow, pedigree ------------- It's everything, not everythink! |
Posted By: Bams
Date Posted: 13 May 2015 at 11:46pm
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As i read your site you engineered for lou reed AND Ziggy stardust during their most creative periods ? Some people would give an arm and a leg for that :) great looking Rigs by the way, how can one not love multicell horns! |
Posted By: bitSmasher
Date Posted: 14 May 2015 at 1:30am
coincidentally this popped up in my feed this morning |
Posted By: Nachural
Date Posted: 15 May 2015 at 7:46pm
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Does anyone have more info on the turner rig? I remember the amplifiers very well but wasn't aware of his PA systems. ------------- it's all just cardboard and magnets really |
Posted By: Robbo
Date Posted: 15 May 2015 at 8:29pm
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We had a load of it in the shop at one time Chris--It used to belong to Pete Winkelman(now owner of Milton Keynes Dons) and was used with a band that he used to manage. The design was a total joke as they kept the same footprint for bass, mid and horn cabinets and if I remember right it was about 4ft wide by 2ft 6" deep and it was only the height of each cabinet that used to vary. Bass bins were 15" flared with bottom port and about 2 ft 6" high--mids were 10" flared same as bass bins but only about 1ft high and the HF horn cabinets were about the same size as the mids with a 1" horn driver and a couple of tweeters. Bass bins were loaded with JBL K130--very strange choice for a large bass cabinet---mids were JBL 10" guitar speakers and I think that the HF cabinets were all EV loaded. The aluminium wrap around protection trim was an absolute nightmare as it used to get snagged up with lots of rough and sharp edges and would rip any roadies hands to bits the first time it was unloaded. The only good thing that I can say about it was that it looked really great when lots of the boxes were stacked up as due to the common footprint of all cabinets it did look very impressive---lets just say that the sound that used to come out of it left a lot to be desired---Cheers--John. |
Posted By: Nachural
Date Posted: 15 May 2015 at 10:10pm
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Thanks John, interesting to hear about it. Brilliant info as usual! I agree, the K130 was an unusual choice (I believe the TFA Eletrosound also used them) but I wonder why the K140 wasn't used. Certainly readily available at the time and better suited to the application I suspect. It's been a long time since you sold me my first four K140's loaded into 4560's!  ------------- it's all just cardboard and magnets really |
Posted By: Robbo
Date Posted: 15 May 2015 at 11:10pm
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Yes Chris--K140s have always been a little favourite driver of mine as we used them in lots of different cabinets from Martin bins to wedge monitors and they have always performed. In the late seventies we put a number 2 rig together to avoid tying up our main concert touring rig on university and club gigs and it had to fit inside a LWB 407D Mercedes panel van--rig comprised of eight K140 loaded 4560s, four ATC flared 12" horn loaded mids and six JBL 1" and 2" HF horns--obviously we used to stack the 4560s two high by two wide each side with the rest of the stuff on top--all driven by Yamaha P series amps. The first tour came in and it was with Aswad with the first gig at Lanchester Poly in Coventry(big room)--We got there early as it was the first time we had used the rig and I had a play with it for a couple of hours fine tuning things and it even surprised me how nice and sweet and punchy it sounded---band turned up late afternoon along with the legendary Mikey Dread who they had employed to do their FOH sound for the whole tour and I must admit that Mikey pulled his face a bit when he walked in and saw the system and complained about the lack of bass bins. Now I had worked with Mikey a few times previously using our big concert touring system and he always had a smile on his face when stood behind our FOH desk so he gave me the benefit of the doubt when I said to him to have a play about with the rig before dismissing it as I had been pleasantly surprised when I had first heard it. After about five minutes he had got a smile on his face and agreed with me and soundchecked the band. On the night time, I did the FOH sound for the support band and the PA did sound really good even though I held it back a little volume wise--Aswad went on stage and tore the place apart with a big full sound that certainly was not lacking in the bass dept and Mikey shook my hand at the end of the night saying that he was perfectly happy to use the rig for the 20 or so gigs that were on the tour---Now that room at Coventry held about 1200 people and the four 4560s a side with the coupling effect gave everything that was needed from it without it even being pushed in the volume stakes--never write off the old 4560 design with a nice driver inside as it can still do some damage even in todays era when used in multiples--Cheers--John. |
Posted By: Nachural
Date Posted: 16 May 2015 at 12:11am
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I have to agree. We had two 4560's in the warehouse a couple of years loaded with Celestion powercells. They had literally been thrown out by a customer due to their size.Running them up just for nostalgic reasons - more than anything else - I was pleasantly surprised by their performance. - All from an old but solid 250w driver! ------------- it's all just cardboard and magnets really |
Posted By: Robbo
Date Posted: 16 May 2015 at 8:04am
| Maybe a couple of cabinets that we sold Chris---We used to offer a cheaper version of the 4560 that was loaded with 250w Powercells and we probably sold in excess of a couple of hundred of them over the years so their will still be a few knocking about the midlands area--Powercell was not a bad driver actually but nowhere near the JBLs or Gauss drivers for real bottom end in the 4560 design. |
Posted By: 4D
Date Posted: 16 May 2015 at 10:24am
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Nice thread boys.. ------------- DMZ. "The bass was intense. Girls were literally running up to stand next to the subs" |
Posted By: Robbo
Date Posted: 16 May 2015 at 10:47am
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Yeah it is nice to reminisce occasionally about the good old days in the music and live sound industries especially with old customers and contacts from some forty years ago---In those days, I was involved in everything to do with live show production and also two big retail outlets and TV work as well so consequently built a massive contact portfolio. In the seventies and eighties it was a pleasure to work in this business with large sums of money changing hands and a very laid back approach and friendly attitude from everyone that was involved and we rapidly built up a reputation as the company to go to outside of the London area. |