Phase Linear and Pink Floyd

[P.L.F.]

The Endless River - NEW PINK FLOYD STUDIO ALBUM is due in Oct this year...!

Pink Floyd has confirmed the release of its 15th studio album, ‘The Endless River,’ this coming October. The project, which finds David Gilmour and Nick Mason completing work on sessions with the late Rick Wright, will be co-produced by Phil Manzanera, Youth and Andy Jackson.

Here are 10 things you need to know about what might just be the biggest and most surprising classic rock release of the year:

1. 'Endless River' grew out of unreleased recordings from 20 years ago
Dubbed 'The Big Spliff,' these ambient, lyricless recordings were originally constructed by the core group of Gilmour, Mason and Wright during the same period that Pink Floyd was at work on their last album, 'The Division Bell,' in 1993-94. They have remained unheard ever since, until Gilmour and Mason returned to them late last year.

2. The album will include some of Rick Wright's final recordings
The initial leak on this surprise project, courtesy of Gilmour's wife Polly Samson, framed 'The Endless River' as Wright's "swansong" -- putting into perspective, once more, what the keyboardist meant to Pink Floyd. His 2008 death led many to believe that 1994's 'Division Bell' would be the group's final recording.

3. Secret sessions were, at first, mistaken for a Gilmour solo album
Durga McBroom-Hudson, a long-time backup singer with Pink Floyd, posted a photo to Instagram last year from sessions being led by Gilmour -- and at the time, the assumption was that the guitarist was at work on a follow up to his 2006 solo album 'On an Island.' Instead, McBroom-Hudson has since confirmed that they were adding vocals to the original 'Big Spliff' recordings.

4. This album's title harkens back to an earlier Pink Floyd moment
'The Endless River' echoes the penultimate lyric on 'High Hopes,' the last song on 'The Division Bell.' That song was written by Gilmour, with additional lyrical help by Samson -- who is also collaborating on the new album.

5. Though instrumental in its infancy, the project will have vocals
McBroom-Hudson and Jackson separately confirm that sessions for 'The Endless River' have continued for about a year -- with Jackson now characterizing the finished project as "extrapolation of the 'Big Spliff.' It has also grown past its initial all-instrumental focus. McBroom-Hudson says Gilmour has “done a lead [vocal] on at least one of them.†Samson says she's also written lyrics.

6. Gilmour's 'Endless River' co-producers have deep Floyd connections
Manzanera co-wrote 'One Slip' for Pink Floyd's 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' album in 1987, co-produced Gilmour's 'On an Island' project and has toured with the guitarist several times. Youth, meanwhile, is part of the Orb, an ambient-house band that Gilmour worked with on 2010's 'Metallic Spheres.' Jackson has been a recording engineer for Pink Floyd on every album since 1979's 'The Wall.'

7. It's unclear whether there will be a tour behind 'The Endless River'
McBoom-Hudson, who has toured with Gilmour and with Pink Floyd off and on since the 1980s, didn't rule out the idea of a dates in support of 'The Endless River,' telling fans simply to 'stay tuned.' Pink Floyd last hit the concert trail in 1994, when these previously unfinished recordings were still new.

8. Pink Floyd already previewed some of these ambient sounds
Back then, Pink Floyd presented a complex, 22-minute soundscape before each show, perhaps giving fans a preview of what's to come on 'The Endless River.' Attached below, it closely resembles the profile of recordings made during the 'Big Spliff' sessions.

9. Twenty years is a long time between between albums, but not the longest
Pink Floyd's two decades between 'The Division Bell' and 'The Endless River,' though certainly the lengthiest expanse in their history, has been dwarfed by other classic rockers. There were, for instance, 24 years between the Who's 'It's Hard' and 'Endless Wire.' Then, there's the Eagles. They waited 28 between 'The Long Run' and 'Long Road Out of Eden.'

10. Roger Waters is not returning to Pink Floyd
No, really. Stop asking!

Read More: Pink Floyd Confirm New Album: 10 Facts You Need to Know About ‘The Endless River’ | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/pink-floyd-endless-river-facts/?trackback=tsmclip

and the update: Reports that Graham Nash and David Crosby added vocals to a David Gilmour-penned track for Pink Floyd‘s forthcoming ‘Endless River’ project are being called into question. The Pink Floyd news site Brain Damage has reported that a source close to the band says the track Nash and Crosby sang on is instead intended for a Gilmour solo project, and not the new Floyd LP.

Regardless of where it turns up, after reading Nash’s description, we can’t wait to hear this track. “We went down to sing on this particular song that he wrote about friends that had died,†he reveals in a new talk with VH-1 Radio Network’s Dave Basner. “It’s a beautiful song, too — beautiful.â€

Gilmour and Nick Mason have been at work since late last year completing ambient, primarily instrumental music begun during the late Rick Wright‘s final early-’90s sessions with Pink Floyd. Lyricist Polly Samson, who has collaborated with her husband Gilmour on a series of projects, described ‘The Endless River’ as Wright’s “swansong.â€

Wherever the track appears, it won’t be the first time that Nash and Crosby have been involved with a Gilmour project. They also sang background on the title track for his 2006 solo album ‘On an Island.’ “I’m hoping that it’s as good as ‘On An Island,’†Nash tells Basner of the new collaboration, “because I thought that that song of Gilmour’s was not only a brilliant song, but I thought we sang pretty good on it.â€

Rumors that Graham and Nash were working with Gilmour first circulated last November It was assumed back then that the sessions would be part of a planned ‘On an Island’ follow up — and that indeed appears to be the case. ‘The Endless River’ is due in October.

 

[laatsch55]

Thanks again PLF!!!

 

[P.L.F.]

Thanks again PLF!!!

Great to be here, Lee!

 

[laatsch55]

We love havin ya Buddy!!

 

[Skynyrd77]

full of info... one of my fav threads.

 

[P.L.F.]

Phase Linears 700 another P.A. mods - cont.

By John Eppstein(Born 1950. Been in music since '63. First band '65. first pro sound gig '71. Moved to CA '72. Location: Quake City)

[...]
The reason we had a couple of different amps for our PA system was that by contrast to the Crown DC300a, the Phase Linears 700 beat the Crowns sonics-wise, while were very finicky and fragile, especially considering how much they weighed. They were sometimes called 'Flame Linear'...

Many years ago I bench teched for Bill Graham's sound company, FM Productions. One of my duties was to evaluate the suitability of amplifiers, drivers, etc, for use in our systems. This included the rather amusing job of testing amps to destruction. When I tested the Crown DC-300A I couldn't blow it. I tried everything I could think of short of actually dumping liquids into the amp, including repeatedly shorting the outputs with a pair of screwdrivers. As the grand finale I set the amp up running at the recommended FTC power level (It was either 1/3 or 2/3 of rated output, I forget - it's been a long time since '78), except with a square wave input, loaded to the amp's minimum impedance rating of 2.5 ohms on the dummy load with several large electrolytic capacitors out of a Phase Linear 700 power supply wired in parallel with the resistors to provide a massive capacitive component to the load. I then proceded to cover the amp with 2 copies of the Sunday Chronical so that it couldn't breathe and left it on for about 2 or 3 days. At the end of the test the amp was still performing properly (under the circumstances), witrh the protection circuitry cyling the amp ON for about 2 minutes, then OFF for about 3 minutes, then ON...OFF.....ON.....OFF, over and over and over....... You could have fried eggs on the heat sinks.

I don't recommend doing this yourself - these test amps were supplied by the company reps who were trying to sell us amps - they weren't ours. The look on a company rep's face when he's handed the smoking ruin of his product is priceless......

As far as flames coming from a speaker, yeah, I've seen that, but I wouldn't say that the speaker worked afterwards. Made sound, yes, in a couple of cases, but WORKED? Not really..... not unless you call rubbing and rattling working........ I have seen a number of speakers, especially JBL and Peavey Black Widow woofers that took a surprisingly long time to fail absolutely after serious overheating, but they weren't really performing well during the protracted death...... Modifying the speakers by ferrofluiding the gap does help a lot in increasing the heat dissipation of the VC, but I doubt that's really practical for the OP here.......I once saw one burst into flames just from James Brown's background vocalists walking onstage.

We had racks of Flame Linears (both B's and Series 2s), heavily modded with added protection circuitry and the power rails jacked to 117 VAC for an output of 500 w/ch into 8 ohms, 750 into 4. The mod included ripping out the power transformers and substituting some humongous Navy surplus 1:1 isolation transformers big enough to power 3 amps each, which were mounted in the bottom of the rack, not in the amp chassis. That solved the problem of the amps tending to tear off their rack ears when trucked and greatly increased overall mechanical reliability. We used them mainly because there was nothing else around in 1978 that could produce that kind of power, but they did blow quite a bit, even with the added protection. We also swapped out the output devices to Motorola MJ15024s, which were much more stable than the stock transistors, especially the XPL909 Darlingtons, which were really shit. Interestingly enough, the original Peavey CS800 was a dead copy of the Phase 700 Series 2 with vastly improved mechanical design, added current limiting, and a crowbar speaker protection circuit, but with the power rails DROPPED (I think to 90 volts) to make the amp more reliable and to provide stability at 2 ohms. Peavey also used the MJ15024 output device (with a house number) after having bad luck with their original RCA part......... As I recall our main acts back then were Heart, The Commodores, and The Rossington Collins Band....... I left the company to tour with a band in '79, but AFAIK they continued to use the modded Phases well after the sound division had been sold to Santana.......
[...]

Source: http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=12568&page=2

 

[Northwinds]

Whoa that is a killer story! I see many possible siglines in that post!

 

[Rex Everything]

Nice!

So...in theory, Lee could hook us up with sweet Peavey 800's as well as they are cheap and easy to find and will outlast most anything (I know we tortured several in the rack while going to shows around the area years ago)

 

[P.L.F.]

So...in theory, Lee could hook us up with sweet Peavey 800's as well as they are cheap and easy to find and will outlast most anything (I know we tortured several in the rack while going to shows around the area years ago)

There are indeed some similarities to Peavey cs800 but these were/are true workhorses, take loads of abuse, hold up really well and sport huge beefy power transformer. When failed, typically one side is out. Usually shorted output transistor related and because they become so caked with a mixture of dust and soot that they go into “thermal runaway” as the transistor device can’t dissipate its heat - see how the heat sinks are located... This can be one, two, or all of the output devices. After pulling them all out, you need to start looking at the driver section, sometimes they’re shot too. Transistors fail in microseconds so it is not uncommon to see what is known as a “catastrophic” failure, meaning that something of a domino effect took place.

One shorted output can take out 7 others, the entire driver section, two opamps, a handful of diodes and a couple of emitter resistors. Maybe a temp sensor and a Triac as well... Sounds familiar, maybe except the Triac network?

Some more read on Peavey cs800:

- operating manuals (old & newer models)
http://peavey.com/media/pdf/manuals/80300991.pdf
http://peavey.com/media/pdf/manuals/80300068.pdf

- schematics
http://mudpods.com/Peavey_CS-800_files/CS-800.pdf

- build
http://mudpods.com/CS-800_Mods.html

- youtube vintage model presentation
http://youtu.be/5y5Qjol0eZs

 

[premiumplus]

Very cool indeed. Now we know why those old Peaveys sound so good!

 

[P.L.F.]

Should be noted though that only the output stages of the early CS 800, i.e. pre-DDT generation, were somehow similar to the original Phase Linear 400. Both had in common TO-3 NPN output transistors, which just about obvious choice of that era had since PNP's comp. were very expensive.

However, the early PL 400 was a double-darlington, had a slowed down low frequency network on the VI limiter (http://sound.westhost.com/vi.htm), diode compensated transistor VBE multiplier, Baker clamp diode protected input differential Ge pair, etc.

The early CS-800 used a triple NPN darlington, fast VI limiter, diode string bias network, op-amp front end, compression based on loss of feedback detection, and a triac crowbar output protection. Beginning from Series II op-amps were on board of PL amps. It was more accountants' choice than sonically proven concept...

"(...) Bob Carver discovered that other amplifiers of the time when he designed the Phase Linear series, used a dual darlington output stage. This configuration had a distortion curve that would rise quickly with an increase in the current in the output transistors. Beta or gain collapse was the cause for this. Bob's triple darlington test designs significantly improved the performance, but you still could not get optimum performance by just replacing the transistors with off the shelf units. To achieve the highest performance requires matching the Beta of both sections of the darlington totem pole. And that with mass production was economically not feasible at the time. Then epitaxial power transistors came to play. (...)

 

[laatsch55]

Thank God we don't have to do that anymore..

 

[P.L.F.]

Touring with Pink Floyd

Published in SOS September 1994 -> http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/sep94/pinkfloyd.html

Touring with Pink Floyd is not, as you might imagine, like a quick gig down the Bull and Gate. There's a tour budget of around £70 million, and the efforts of hundreds of people go into making each concert truly spectacular. In this exclusive, MIKE LETHBY talks backstage to some of the men who keep the Floyd on the road.

[...]
A glance at the Floyd's exceptionally neat setup shows quite graphically how much live performance technology -- especially sound reinforcement hardware -- has advanced since this band filled its first Transit van. When Pink Floyd first took to the road, the typical touring sound system amounted to little more than the gear today's local bands might use to play a small bar or club. Standard issue were Vox AC30 and AC50 backline amplifiers and cabinets, which, augmented by WEM (Watkins Electric Music) 4x10 inch speaker columns, would also form the PA system. It was, indeed, with just such a system that the Beatles played their famous final concert at the giant Shea Stadium. You might also have enjoyed the benefits of a small mixing desk -- although these were not so common on professional tours until the relatively high-tech days of 1970/71, when Bill Kelsey marketed his first touring mixers. Bill once recounted the story of how, on a Floyd tour in the early '70s , he pioneered the active DI box; he worked out the circuit, studiously soldered the components onto a small square of circuit board, and taped the whole assembly into an Old Holborn tobacco tin. Today, as you might expect, tobacco tins are not widely in evidence on the Britannia Row Productions' equipment list… (Britannia PA system was powered by Crown and Phase Linear amps).

[...]
Pink Floyd started live quad sound right back in 1967 (at their 'Games For May' concert at Alexandra Palace) and haven't looked back since. Of course, where you might think of quad sound in terms of two extra speakers on your hi-fi, quad in a stadium requires the construction of three extra PA wings and the carting of all the speakers, amplifiers, and so on up 100-plus feet of stadium terracing. Still, with a tour production budget not unadjacent to £70 million, what's a little bit of rock climbing between friends?

Front-of-house engineer Andy Jackson explained the live quad setup in more detail. "The main (front) PA is conceptually the front point of the quad system, and the quad output is delayed so that the four points of the quad arrive at the centre of the stadium at the same time. If you've got an effect that's in both the main PA and quad simultaneously, it comes out of the main PA later than from the quad stacks." He laughs: "Got all that?"

"So the front quad point is created as a separate mono mix through the main PA. We'd originally talked about having a separate front quad stack suspended from a crane directly behind the stage dome. They've done it before but with this stage the practicalities were ridiculous... it just wasn't worth the effort."

Dave Lohr is the Floyd's man with four ears. He mixes and routes all the quadrophonic effects, some emanating from onstage (guitar and keyboard pans, that sort of thing), and special effects like the cash registers ('Money'), and helicopters ('Wish You Were Here'). These are sent around the surround system through a combination of auto-panners, routed through the PM3000's auxilliary busses, and the special Midas XL-3's twin joysticks.

The rear delay stack is time–delayed in order to appear in time with the front PA at the centre of the stadium; Lexicon PCM70 reverb units provide special reverb patches for the quad stacks. Dave Lohr adds: "I can also feed the quad effects aux bus to Andy Jackson's left and right PA sends, so that any effects intended for the quad system can be sent instead to the main PA, in the event that the quad system should fail for any reason -- it's there just for emergency backup, and for a few shows where we can't use the quad system."
[...]

And for All willing to organize the full Pink Floyd tribute concert, you need to comply with these standards... :
View attachment tech_rider.pdf

 

[P.L.F.]

Storm Thorgerson tells stories

A short relief from tech talk: http://www.holster.co.uk/blog/storm-thorgerson-tells-stories ...:

"We were treated to a visit by Storm Thorgerson last week, album cover design legend and, as it turns out, very entertaining guy. Storm’s portfolio is overwhelming, famous for working with Pink Floyd and creating arguably the most iconic album cover of all time in Dark Side of the Moon, but has since worked with bands as diverse as Anthrax, Muse, The Offspring, Audioslave and Biffy Clyro.
[…]
Storm told us that he simply loved the idea of taking a cow and photographing it for the front cover of Pink Floyd’s 1970 album. The randomness of this delighted him “I’m lucky I’ve worked for people who don’t know any different. They didn’t know if my work was any good, any more than I did.†The cow was an instinctive idea and not over-thought, eventually ending up reproduced at huge scales incongruously across billboards worldwide.
[…]
The photograph for Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here is impressive stuff. Storm is proud that he actually set a man on fire to achieve it. Interestingly, he told us that to start with the figures were the other way round, but the prevailing wind set the unlighted man’s moustache on fire, so it was rearranged.
[…]
Storm’s Back Catalogue is exactly that. Not a row of polite captioned JPEGs but the album covers painted on the back of lovely ladies. That’s the sort of thing you can get away with if you’re Storm Thorgerson."

 

[P.L.F.]

PL Amps - as part of PA history

"The biggest difference by far is in the speakers we can buy. When The Beatles first performed live shows in baseball stadiums there was no such thing as professional sound re-enforcement. They used VOX AC-30 amps rated at 30 watts and usually a Shure Vocal master PA system that had two vertical columns of 6 or 8 small speakers connected to an amp that was about 100 watts. It was no wonder that no one heard anything at their concerts other than the screaming girls. My wife was there when they played in Chicago at Comiskey Park. She and her friend said that although they could see the band they never heard one single note of the music.

It was the mid sixties and the speaker industry went two different directions at once. The best sounding speakers like the Henry Klose designed AR and Advents, the Dr. Amar Bose famous 901s and Paul Klipsch came up with his corner horn design. Rudy Bozak, Saul Marantz, the Fisher engineers, James B. Lansing and Altec were frustrated knowing that they could only make the best sounding most accurate speakers if they used multiple drivers, complicated crossover networks and boxes that would fit in the average American home. That meant the speakers they came up with were necessarily around 90 db/watt/meter and that meant a large amp would be needed to drive them.

Fortunately, that was the era when amps were getting larger. McIntosh started to build tube amps with 60, 75, even 100 watts/channel. Fisher, Dynaco, Harmon/Kardon, Marantz and others realized there was a market for those amps. At the very same time, Gibson, Fender, Marshall and Ampeg (among others) started building instrument amps that utilized the very same circuits. They did not need to pay as much attention to the distortion figures because a distorted guitar was just what Hendrix, Clapton and the Stones wanted. The biggest instrument amp ever built, using tubes, to my knowledge is the Ampeg SVT bass amp which became famous when The Rolling Stones came to America and Bill Wyman began to use them on stage. That amp was responsible for the incredible sound of the Stones live in the sixties and seventies. They are still used today. I own two Ampeg amps and I love them. I also own two Fender amps including the most famous one, used by virtually all of the guitar gods, the Fender Twin Reverb which features four 6L6 power tubes and produces over 100 watts.

So what is the secret to high volume in your system? You may choose a very good sounding pair of speakers for your set up but if they are not also very efficient you can never reach your goal. Remember the rule. You must double the power of the amp you use each time you want a net gain of just 3 db and that is the smallest increment of volume differential most people can hear. Doubling power is no problem if you are going from 1 watt to 2, or 20 watts to 40 or even 100 watts to 200, but the largest Phase Linear / Carver amps available are in the 1000 watts/channel/rms with inaudible distortion and enough headroom. If that is not enough to generate the volume level you need the ONLY other way to make it louder is to find speakers you like the sound of that are also much more efficient than what you have. I suggest a minimum of 10 db if you want to make a real noticeable difference.

The big innovation in large venue sound systems came in the late 60's with the advent of the arena/stadium PA system. Instruments were miked, amplified by stacks of power amps such as Phase Linear 700B or Crown 300A, and sent to stacks of mid/bass cabs topped with HF horns."


Pink Floyd (early 70’s): http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv181/Ibex2912/Vintage/Martin Audio/pinkfloyd1973af0.jpg

 

[P.L.F.]

The Dark Side of the Moon & Phase Linear

Recorded over the course of seven months with the working title of "Eclipse (A Piece For Assorted Lunatics)", "The Dark Side of the Moon" catapulted Pink Floyd from their enigmatic cult status to the stadium rock elite. Released in March 1973, it signified the first major switch from their earlier psychedelic formula and set a new precedent for record production which Floyd continued to build upon. As was the case for many bands who molded their material on the road for some time before committing it to tape, the Floyd performed an embryonic version of "Dark Side" both prior to and during their sessions at Abbey Road throughout the whole of 1972.

The live rehearsals for this new concept piece were initially held in January 1972 at the now-defunct Rainbow Theatre in London's Finsbury Park, and they were notable for both the first use of their new sound and light systems, and the introduction of a new team member. Mick Kluczynski had worked with a number of Scottish bands since 1965, one of whom received an offer to record in London in 1971 as Cliff Bennett's backing band. Kluczynski accompanied them but the whole deal soon fell to pieces. One of the band members, Chris Adamson, survived by working as a Floyd roadie and arranged for Kluczynski to also join their small team as part of the "Quad Squad".

"There was no formal crew, just four of us loosely employed to handle all aspects of the sound and rigging," says Kluczynski. "My first job was to empty the tour manager's garage, which was full of all the old WEM PA columns and return them to Charlie Watkins, because we had just taken delivery of the latest generation of PA. The 2 by 15-inch bins had a Vitavox horn on the top and a JBL 075 bullet super tweeter -- I used to carry these things on my back up into balconies! When we played the first Earls Court show, we used our maximum number of Kelsey and Martin bins and horns. The bins were three high, with 13 at each side of the stage, and in the center piece where there were bins missing was a column of JBL horns. On top of those, we had a row of double Vitavox horns, on the back of which were throats that we had made up, which took two ElectroVoice 1829 drivers in the same throat. ElectroVoice claimed it wouldn't work, but we got up to four in one throat. One quad section would drive two horns in one phase direction, and another quad section would drive another two in the opposite phase direction. But EV wouldn't believe it until they saw 15,000 people walk out of Earls Court at the end of the night dazed and speechless."

The band's existing WEM amplifiers came second place to the new American Phase Linear models, discovered by Kelsey, and so yet another injection of quality was given to their PA. It was common for Pink Floyd to modify off-the-shelf equipment for their own purposes, thereby creating unique products. Along with Crown and BGW, Phase Linear became one of the few brands of amplification taken seriously by the top touring bands of the early '70s. Whilst the Phase Linear 400 and 700 models were taken on board by the Floyd, because of their superior sound quality, in their regular domestic format they were unfit for the rigors of the road due to their slight physical construction and the weight of the transformers on their chassis. To compensate for this, the band's technicians designed a new metal chassis into which the amp would fit, while the mains transformer was removed from the amp and supported horizontally on the outside of the chassis."


P.S.
I'll post a few words about Mick Kluczynski later on - strong contributor to Pink Floyd success story...

 

[P.L.F.]

Mick Kluczynski & Pink Floyd

A bit sad...

[...]

RE: Mick Kluczynski

Saturday 28 February 2009

to all Herald Scotland staff:

Event producer and sound engineer; Born March 30, 1949; Died February 6, 2008. MICK Kluczynski, who has died of a heart attack aged 59, was one of the British music industry's most influential personalities whose name became synonymous with the Brits. He is rightly credited with steering the event to the prestige international position that it now holds.

He is rightly credited with steering the event to the prestige international position that it now holds. He died just before this year's event at London's Earl's Court arena. It went ahead just as Kluczynski and his team had conceived it, and was dedicated to his memory. Kluczynski held a similar role with the Classical Brits from its inception in 2000 and with the annual Mobo awards ceremony for almost a decade.

In May 1995 Kluczynski was executive producer of the massive concert in London's Hyde Park to mark the 50th anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) Day. He famously coaxed Dame Vera Lynn, the forces sweetheart, out of retirement in a programme that included Sir Harry Secombe and Sir Cliff Richard, as well as contemporary artistes.

Kluczynski's role was appropriate as he was essentially "a child of the Second World War". His exiled Polish father and a colleague were living in Harbin, north-east China, where a British consular official advised them to head to Beijing if they were to enlist - an 800-mile journey mostly done on foot.

As the Sino-Japanese war raged, they finally made it to Hong Kong, just before it fell to the Japanese. On arrival off the steamer in the UK, they were urged to join the Free Polish Navy and seconded to the Royal Navy. In Aberdeen, Kluczynski senior met and married a local girl. An injury while fishing off the Faroe Islands ended his sea-going career. With a young family he switched to farm-work in the Inverness area, where Kluczynski, his older brother Marek and sister Liz were brought up.

Kluczynski left school aged 15 without qualifications, soon enrolling as a trainee psychiatric nurse in Inverness; as a teenager his hobby was radio sets which he repaired and assembled. That put him in demand for maintaining and repairing amplification for local teenagers who had formed semi-pro beat groups.
In 1969, he took the plunge and was hired at £5 per week as roadie by Spiggy Topes, a young band from the north of Scotland; for his money Kluczynski was also expected to act as doorman collecting entrance fees.

Kluczynski also cannibalised valves and components to modify ex-Ministry of Defence amplifiers to make the band's sound system. After moving to London, Spiggy Topes split but Kluczynski then landed a job with Pink Floyd, initially lugging equipment from vehicle to stage.

A lifelong avid reader, Kluczynski immersed himself in the theory of how different musical notes travel as soundwaves though the air and was soon drawing illustrative graphs.

As Pink Floyd's horizons expanded, they aspired to be able to reproduce crisply and cleanly studio sound from stage to the maximum audience size, up to tens of thousands of fans. Kluczynski found himself a key member of their small team aiming for the world's finest amplification set-up. To help achieve this, Pink Floyd used a warehouse at Britannia Row, north London, between tours to store their ever-expanding array of PA, stage and other equipment. This allowed Kluczynski freedom to invent and innovate; they lent equipment to other bands, to whom it was valueless without someone who understood and could operate it. Kluczynski was thus with Queen's memorable 1976 Hyde Park show, among many other gigs and tours.

By the mid-1970s, Kluczynski was Pink Floyd's production manager. One of the group's later 1970s tours saw income from merchandise exceed that from ticket sales; a ground-breaking first.

Most other bands using the hired gear became aware of its advantages and, by the late 1970s, several of Kluczynski's key continuing technological advances were incorporated by British rock-band sound-gear manufacturers as standard. This will be an enduring Kluczynski legacy.

In the late 1970s, Kluczynski embarked on a successful international freelance career, with a who's who of the world's rock-stars as eager clients.

He embarked on a period of close collaboration the British band The Cure, where his electronic sound inventiveness continued. In 1983, he met his Finnish future wife, Mari, in Helsinki, while on tour with American rockers The Fabulous Thunderbirds; they wed in 1988.

In 1991, he helped put together the massive classical concert in Red Square, Moscow, before a 100,000 audience, starring Barcelona tenor Jose Carreras and the Bolshoi Orchestra. The event unofficially celebrated the end of Russian communism.

In the early 1990s, Kluczynski set up MJK Productions, aiming for one-off productions, not only for rock, but classical, sporting and commercial clients; a memorable later one was the collaboration with Phil Collins on Cadbury's chocolate "drumming gorilla" TV advertisement. His 1995 onwards success with the Brits led to requests from more countries than could be handled for replicas; but Spain and India received the genuine Kluczynski touch.

For the last number of years, Kluczynski's main home was an upgraded cottage at Ulva Ferry on Mull. He enjoyed hill-walking, and bird and whale watching there. The holder of a yacht-master's skipper's ticket had also sailed across the Atlantic, as well as afloat locally in the Hebrides.

In later years he restricted his touring to Elton John, with whom he had a long, productive collaboration. In 2007, he produced the Rocket Man live before 18,000 fans at the Caledonian Stadium in his home town of Inverness.

In a January 2009 trade magazine article, Kluczynski stated: "My business ethos is very simple. Have a contract for every job, be honest with your client, be transparent with the budget and deliver a full set of auditable accounts at the end of the job."

After his humanist funeral, held at London's Mortlake Crematorium, written and pictorial tributes from such as Pink Floyd members decorated an internal wall of the suite in Earl's Court arena where his life was celebrated.

[...]

 

[laatsch55]

Thanks PLF...

 

[P.L.F.]

Clair Bros S4 with Phase Linear Amps package

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re: http://www.soundbroker.com/SPEAKERS/LISTINGVIEW/COMPLETE_CLASSIC_CLAIR_BROS_S-4_SPEAKER_SYSTEM/

" The S4 embodied the most off the shelf JBL components one could fit on the front baffle of a 45 x45 x 22.5 inch package, ideal for the 90 inch truck boxes of the time. If you were on axis to one box the sound was that of a JBL studio monitor on steroids. Unfortunately, they have lots of destructive interference patterns when arrayed.

The S4 were normally run three way active, with a passive crossover between the 2440 (or 2441, 75 watts RMS) and the 2405 slot tweeters (10 watts RMS) at about 7000 HZ. IIRC, crossover points were 200 and 1200.

The 200 HZ cross point would be considered quite high for an 18” to 10” point now days, but was common back when S4s were ruling the concert world.

I am not sure of the 10 & 18” model numbers, but 75 watts RMS per 10 and 150 to 300 watt RMS power handling for the 18” would be typical for this era of drivers.

The system would have four cabinets per amp rack (block) 8x4 =32 S4.

Having 8 racks allows for flexibility of splitting the system into 4 or even 8 smaller systems, and allows for turning down the down front cabinets.

My guess is all components were 16 Ohm, all the amps loaded at four ohms, one amp for eight x 18”, two amps for 16) 10”, each side of the high amp for 4) 2440 or 2441 and 4) 2405. 18" LF were 8 ohms each wired in parallel for 4 ohms; 10" MF were 8 ohms each wired series-parallel for 8 ohms.

I don't remember the HF section wiring, but I seem to recall the 2" drivers were 8 ohms wired in series. I don't remember how the slots were configured. (Rex?)

The S4 embodied the most off the shelf JBL components one could fit on the front baffle of a 45 x45 x 22.5 inch package, ideal for the 90 inch truck boxes of the time.

The S4 is an odd duck for dispersion. Flown in a vertical hang, the 10” will work like a line array, but the hi mid 2343 exponential oval horn has a narrow 30 degree horizontal dispersion, and wider 60 degree vertical dispersion, which is somewhat narrowed by the vertical orientation of the two horns. The 2405 (20 watt pink noise) slot tweeters have very wide 140 horizontal dispersion and 40 degree vertical dispersion.

Because of the narrow hi mid horizontal dispersion, a 32 box system would typically be deployed 6 cabinets (three bumpers) wide, the inside 4 three deep and the outside two 2 deep. The bottom row of cabinets would be angled down until they “tipped” forward, the back of the bottom cabinet hitting towards the front bottom of the cabinet above. The rigging strap had a swivel that would allow the angle. This arrangement resulted in the front of the bottom cabinet not following a proper arc. All seats of an arena would be covered (with massive comb filtering).

The 440 pound cabinets required lots of chain motors. Clair's “bumpers” were a good design for the S4, and allowed for in the air aiming when using two motors between bumpers.

In latter years the S4 used a proprietary mid horn and new rigging that addressed some of the aforementioned problems. I don’t know the exact time of the changes, but I’d guess the corner rigging, the lighter weight back panel and the horn change were all done around the same time, though with touring commitments, probably were done over a fairly long period of time.

There are (and were) many cabinets with more consistent array coverage than the S4s, but they did about half of all the arena shows for well over a decade.

I often have wondered where around 1000 S4s (between Clair and A.A.- 4000 JBL components) ended up, other than the ones that found their way back into Clair’s other cabinets and into the crusher.

Modified Phase Linear 700 power amps were used to drive the S4. The four amp Phase Linear racks had the bottom two amps (four channels) driving one LF section each of four cabinets, the next amp up ran two cabinets' MF per channel, and the top amp ran two cabinets' HF per channel. These rack were gradually replaced with the 12 Carver amplifier double rack beginning in 1983 or 1984. "

By Art Welter

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[premiumplus]

PLF...thanks for these great articles. This thread has become my favorite daily reader here at Phoenix.
As a concert goer in the true "Classic Rock" era, (1968-1983) and as an audio enthusiast, I always looked at the cabs that were flown above my head and checked out the desk at the show. We'd fantasize about having a couple of those racks for our home stereo... Some of the concerts I went to had modules of PL700B amps flying with cabs that sound like the S4 described above. We thought that they were Altec Voice of the Theater cabs at the time, but during those years we were never, ever sober when we attended a show...I am clear about seeing multiple racks of PL amps though.
The best sounding show I've ever been to was New Years Eve 1976, the Bicentennial Beach Boys Concert at the Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles. They had the whole oval area above the arena floor circled with, as I recall, 32 of those modules that I thought had 4 PL 700 amps and 8 large cabs of some sort in each module...any idea what those may have been? Thinking about it, it may have been 4 cabs and a pair of 700B's in each...I'm foggy on that, (and it was 38 years ago!).