The Development Of Large Rock Sound Systems – Volume 4
Chris Hewitt
The latest instalment of Chris Hewitt’s Large Rock Sound Systems series hits the bookshelves, and according to Chris, there is enough additional material to fill volume 5! So what can you expect from Volume 4?
Hewitt is a busy man. Aside from owning one of the largest collections of vintage sound equipment in the world, he makes sure they gets seen. He has recently attended events in Barcelona and London’s Olympia as well as Nick Mason’s Middlewick House Garden Party, where he showed the Pink Floyd drummer part of his collection, which includes a re-creation of the original mixing desk which was used at Pompeii and to record The Dark Side of The Moon.
“Once again Chris Hewitt has combined his expertise, obsession and tireless research to produce another fascinating account of some of rock music’s great sonic pioneers”
Mark Radcliffe
Chris started off in 2020 with the idea of writing a book about the sound systems bands used for festivals and gigs in the 60’s and ’70s. That became Volume 1. In 2021 he wrote Volume 2 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd at Pompeii. The book also covered Led Zeppelin’s 1970 PA, and group transport of the ‘60’s and ’70’s, from Transits to artics. In 2023 Volume 3 was released, covering more Pink Floyd sound systems, including The Dark Side of the Moon and beyond, plus David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust system, 10ccs PA system and a section on large PA rental companies.
Volume 4 has just been released. Having built the re-creation of the Pink Floyd mixer in December 2023, he felt that its original 1971 story needed telling, along with story of Allen and Heath, the company that built the original back in the 1970s. The book includes more on David Bowie’s 1973 Ziggy PA, and the story of International Entertainers Services IES, the first company set up in London in the late 60s to develop large sound systems for major artists to tour the world.
The book explains how the original Mod 1 quadrophonic mixer was first used at Pompeii in October 1971 during the recording of their critically acclaimed film Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii, which covered a live recording at the town’s Roman Arena, along with snippets of the band recording The Dark Side of The Moon. The film came out a full six months after their magnum opus was released.
Alan Parson’s who engineered the album said “I enjoyed using the Allen & Heath desk and the PA was really good. I honestly believe that PA systems went downhill for a while subsequently, since the days of that Pink Floyd tour”.
The idea for the mixer came from one of the band’s roadies, Peter Watts who approached Andy Bereza, engineer and ‘ideas man’. “He came to me with a huge A1 sheet of paper covered in fluorescent markers with different coloured knobs for every manageable area of the mixer, and the idea of coloured, illuminated push buttons”.
There are many anecdotes throughout the book describing how the mixer was used in both the recording and live environment, along with many photographs of it is use, including of course by Alan Parsons, the band’s studio and live engineer: “When mixing the Floyd, my obvious main concern was avoiding feedback – a task made difficult by the speaker positioning and the close proximity of the front stack to the band. You’d be standing on stage and almost have the horns pointing straight at you, But the performance of that rig was so pure; there was no pink noise, no graphic EQ to tailor the sound, it was literally down to how you drove the bottom, mid, and to”.
The mixer is a wonder of engineering and Chris is planning to load it up so that it can be used by bands to record through.
Allen and Heath’s story continues through the book, which covers the development of the mixers that followed on from the Mod 1, which includes the second Pink Floyd mixer used at Knebworth 1975 and a quadrophonic mixer for The Who.
The book then flows through a section on IES (International Entertainment Services), based in London, W1. The company supplied equipment to many touring acts of the early ’70’s including T-Rex, Elton John, Deep Purple, Hudson Ford, The Beach Boys, and many more. IES amps, mixers and speaker stacks were toured around the world and we are treated to a plethora of detailed photos of the equipment, the bands and many support staff – the roadies and engineers who used and operated them. There are even equipment specification sheets and ads from the company, such is the depth of information in this book.
We pass through a further section (started in Volume 3) on David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust and The Turner PA System, famously used at Bowie’s 1973 Hammersmith ‘farewell’ gig. According to Woody Woodmansey in a later interview, The Spiders, apart from Mick Ronson, were completely unaware of Bowie’s intention to retire Ziggy Stardust that night. Bowie resurrected himself as Aladdin Sane the following year, Mick started working with Ian Hunter and Mott The Hoople, while Boulder and Woodmansey were cut adrift, never to regain the fame they had with Bowie ever again. Chris Hewitt owns part of the original Turner sound system, and Bowie and the band are featured performing in front of it.
Finally, there is a section on Images of The Grateful Dead’s infamous “Wall Of Sound”. This is a photo montage of the colossal PA system that the band toured with through the 1970’s. One of the power amps is now part of Chris Hewitt’s extensive equipment collection.
For equipment aficionados, this book is a must, but it’s equally of interest to fans of Pink Floyd, Bowie and The Grateful Dead, and sits as a essential record of sound systems of the 1970’s. It’s absolutely jam packed with original never-seen-before photos of the bands, engineers and support staff at work and at play, and gives a rare glimpse of life on the road during the period. Chris is hugely passionate about his subject and that shines through the pages of this book. Chris runs an equipment hire service to TV, Video and film companies, as well as touring shows and his equipment can be seen in Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman, Pistol and the upcoming Joy Division play New Dawn Fades.
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The four volumes of The Development Of Large Rock Sound Systems:
Chris Hewitt’s own website CH Vintage Audio Website
Chris is on Facebook
CH Vintage Audio is on Twitter
The book is published by Dandelion Records and is available to buy here: https://www.deeplyvale.com/wem-pa-book
All words by Nigel Carr. More writing by Nigel on Louder Than War can be found in his Author’s archive. You can find Nigel on Twitter and Facebook.
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