Ziggy Stardust 1973

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.

TONY.A.S.S. wrote: 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.

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.

Useful link here: 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.

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.

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!

Does anyone have more info on the turner rig? I remember the amplifiers very well but wasn't aware of his PA systems.