Need help with fully functional Doors 1968 Stage

[MojoRisinRay]

Hi, I'm new to the forum...but it's something that I've been looking for for years. I'm a Doors nut, and an acoustic nut as well. I'd love to have Vince's custom built Doors stage setup, but...this is as close as I can get.

http://www.doorstribute.com/markjbio.html

I'm the organist in Mojo Risin a tribute to The Doors, located in Northeast Ohio. We have gathered together 99% of the same equipment that the Doors used on their 1968 stage. Gibson organ, Gold Fender Rhodes Bass, Sg Specials, Les Paul Custom, Ludwig kit...but the tough ones had been the 4 acoustic heads, 8 acoustic cabs, mics, and the mic mixers. It took years to figure it all out, then years to find it all. But now we have the fully functional 1968 Doors stage.




Now for my question. The only person in the world who can answer it is Mr. Vince Treanor III.

How does it all get accurately wired?

I have come up with my idea on how it's all run, after years of studying grainy dark pics of mixers, amps and cables. But if you have all the accurate equipment... you don't want to screw it up with the wrong amp to the wrong cab. This might seem a bit over the top to some people, but I'd really like to get this as authentic as possible.



Please Vince, let me know if I am even close on this diagram. Or if the short cabs on the inside stack are really vocal monitors.

Help me Vince Treanor...you're my only hope!

Thanks,
Mark Jamieson

[vince]

Well, you are close but I don't think I would give the cigar. Not just yet anyway.

I want you to think for just a moment. Why would I put Robby, Ray and Ray through individual amps to get the clean sound and then smash Jim's voice with the tump and whump of a bass or Tom drum sound.....

Not too much logic is there?

Jim had two columns on each side of the stage. Each column consisted of two Acoustic amps- that is 4 Acoustics on each side of the stage. Noting - I mean NOTHING went through those columns except Jim's voice. Naturally, Ray and on rare occasion Robby, was there as well.

John had his own drum amps - a pair of them, one on each side. to the far right and left of the instrument amps.

The mixer was a Shure 6 channel with built in reverb. I used the EV 676 cardoid mikes for vocals and AKG D-1000 mikes for the drums.

The drum mixer was a little Shure with 5 inputs and a master. This went to the preamp input of the Drum Amp head.

The order of things.Starting at the far left and right - Drums, Then came Organ, Then Guitar and last, next to John's platform, was the Bass amps.

However, these were the acoustic folded horn types.

The small cabinets on top were two Acoustic with 10" speakers and horn. These were monitors.

Pleaseremember that NO INSTRUMENTS ever mixed with vocals and no instruments used any other amps. There were all exclusive.

Johm was on an 18" riser with a red shag carpet to hold the drums steady.

Can you excuse me for a day. I have urgent business and can't write more now.

Vince Treanor

[MojoRisinRay]

Vince,

Thanks greatly for your reply.

I will try to get the adjustments sorted out. I guess that I still had my mind in accepted, non-logical, everything into the board through 2 speakers, PA Logic. It really doesn't make any sense. But, that's why I asked you how to do it right.

I really love what you are doing on this site, all of the stories and information is really great! I look forward to hearing more from you on this topic, or anything else for that matter.


Thanks again,
Mark J

[sullen and aborted]

the bass amps which acoustic made were the 360 head and the 361 powered cab with a single 18 inch speaker which faced the rear of the cab and projected the bass sound in a rather odd manner. some bassists would say they couldn't hear themselves very well when they stood near the speaker cabinet yet someone standing 40 feet in front of the cabinet would say that the signal overwhelmed the other instruments and sounded muddy to boot. --- you would probably be happier using your present set up for the electric bass piano than you would be using the 360 and 361's. You can probably hear your bass piano just fine when you perform now , and I believe that if you purchase a 360 and some 361's , you will probably be disappointed with the unwanted side effects and final result.

Vince will probably go into the set up more fully when he has time.. One reason behind Vince's decision to build new amplifiers and speaker cabinets for the Doors was that he felt that the stock Acoustic stuff didn't totally fulfill what he had in mind for a full live sound.

[vince]

Strongbow hasprovided you with some interesting obervations on the Acoustic Bass amp. It was in development wile I was working for Acoustic as production manager. Doug Luban tested one of them ans was quite impressed. Other bass players liked them as well.

The concept was a folded hord. The speaker was a Vega 15" 200 watt unit which I think Steve had Vega make to take the wattage. The speaker was mounted facing the rear of the cabimet. It was in a box which was set at the front plane of the box leaving a space behind it. The upper and lower corners of the cabinet were cut a 45*.There was an opening at both top and bottom to allow the sound to come put. It should also be noted that the box in which the speaker was mounted had sloping sides this formed the basis for the ever widening path that gave additional development to the sound energy developed by the speaker itself.

This was based on older theories. It was not something Steve did originally. He justmade it compact enough to be used on the road.

The speakers I made were slightly different than Steve's - This was my organ building experience in the development of sound by Reed pipes in a pipe organ as well as some of the theories of Haskell used in short length pipes to develope full length sounds without suffering the effects of being stopped - Impossible in a speaker system.

Muddy - Clear. I must say that in a room full of screaming kids, generally with the acoustics of a cathedral tone xontrol was a very small aspect of the sound from the stage. The biggest problem was overcoming the background noise and blending the instruments into a cohesiove backdrop for the singer without -as seems the practive of today - over riding the vocals.

Responce. If you stood off to one side of the speaker you could note a diminished volume of sound because it was a orn and obviously dirfection. Thus we had two of them to form a broader sound front.

Please note - through all this discussion, the Doors set up for 1968 DID NOT include the Acoustic bass amps. We did use the standard acoustic cabinet as you showed in your set up plan.

It was only AFTER I made the new system. evvectively adding one more cabinet to each station, that the two bass orns were introduced.

You are safe is using your current plan You should find a Shure mixer, owever, It was NOT one of the small versions Shure made. It was a big unit with a grey cover and quite colorful face paenl. There were 6 indep[endat inputs with tone control on each and one master out. We could have power out or preamp out. We used the preamp to drive the Op-Amps for the new system. as well as driving the original acoustics.

ALSO note that the small amps atop the amp line were vocal monitors for Jim. AND the vocal cabinets were set at the FRONT of the stage. They were NOT in the same line as the rest of the instrument amps. This gave me two advantages - reduced the tendancy for feedback and put the amps where jim was - out front.

[MojoRisinRay]

Vince,

Thank you for your replies. I have used the acoustic bass amps before, and do like them quite a bit, but like you said, they weren't a part of the 1968 stage.

Not to confuse the matter with more pics, but I just want to see if I'm on the right track so far.



1,2,11,12 Vocals (out in front corners of stage)
3,9 Vocal monitors
after that I'm not quite sure, I would have thought:
4,5 organ
6,7 bass
8,10 guitar
But, that way I don't know where the drums would go.

So instead of making assumtions, I'll ask you where to go from there. If I'm completely wrong, please let me know how to do it properly.

[jim4371]

There are 2 stacks on each corner of the stage, for a total of 4 261's and 4 263's.

[vince]

There were two cabinets for each instrument. Robby has two Ray had four and Jim had 8

Two guitar on stage left, Two organ on stage right, Two bass amps one on each side of John. Jim had two columns on each side of the stage, Each colum was two cabinet. One was facing straight out and the other was tilted outward, toward the side of the hall, by about 30*.

It was after Hwd Bowl that I added two drum cabinets. John complained that he was left out.

The Drum and vocal mixers were on the drum platform. They were too big to sit on the amps. The Shure mixer, when and if you can find one, was very large. You will find it convenient to put it on the drum platform to the Drummer's left (Snare) side.

I stood by John so that, should he put a stick through his snare drum, I could make a quick change with the spare snare drum. This was also tricky because the two of them had to be tuned exectly the same. We got into the habit of letting him play three or four shows and then change the head before disaster struck. These old heads were also used as "Payment" for this Band Boys - one night helpers actually, who worked with us in remote places.

Now you should know about the cords

There were mike cors 30' long and 15' lonk. These had cannon 3 pin locking connectors. All the mokes were low impedance. The EV-676 mikes had a screw-on connector on the mike end.

The instrument cords were the standard phone jack, These were in lengths of 30', 15' 7' and 3'

MARKINGS - Each mike cord had two bands of tapes. The first one, next to the connector was a color indicating the number of the cable. The second set - about 1 foot away from the connector was the length indicator.

There was a color code - it is the standard resistor code. Black, Brown, Red, Orange.... for 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.

There was a problem with the length codes. a 30' cord had an organ band and a black band. But the cable was bl;ack. We solved that problem by wrapping white tape on the cable first. Then the two bands indicating color went over that. Because of this you could never confuse the length code and the number code - none of which ever went over 8 in any given length.

How to store

These were folded in half, then again and again until you had a bundle about 2 or 3' long. This was tied into a simple knot to keep together and tossed into the cord box. Each cable was kept neat and separate and because of the codes you could grab what you wanted without trouble. Even if you tossed the box around the cables never got tangled.

That is about it.

[MojoRisinRay]

Vince,

Thank you so much for all the information. It's been extremely helpful to get the stage setup to correct spec.

I've finally got most of the cables sorted out in the proper system.

Most of the time we are only able use the instrument amplifiers, and not the vocal or drum setup...club politics...

Now if only those soundmen will let us use our EV676's...

Thanks,
Mark J

[universalmind69]

Vince,

Thank you so much for all the information. It's been extremely helpful to get the stage setup to correct spec.

I've finally got most of the cables sorted out in the proper system.

Most of the time we are only able use the instrument amplifiers, and not the vocal or drum setup...club politics...

Now if only those soundmen will let us use our EV676's...

Thanks,
Mark J

hah....you`ve got the Ray look down nice touch with the pscyhed out screen in the background...very Fillmore East of you

Would have been nice to have heard you guys play sometime...live a bit too far away I`m afraid but you never know, right?

[RayMan]

Awesome. Even the drum stool is right. After seeing these pics I'm almost embarrassed to go onstage with Peace Frog with my Gibson organ and Mo6 and rocksoc drum stool. Ironically, I decided I hated those original drum stools and avoided them after having to set Ray's up in 2002 !

JH

[MojoRisinRay]

Thanks for noticing the details, I try to get as close as possible.

I was using a nice, comfortable Tama stool until a few years ago. But it just looked wrong next to everything else.

[vince]

Hello - I am sorry for such a late reply. Every time I tried to open the message the thing locked up and I had to restert. Today I gues everything went right.

It looks just right. You did a good job of it. I am not sure that I got the description of how we made the color coding for the mike and instrument cables but it was based on the standard resistor code

For the cable boces I found a standard boc and if I remember right it was about 12 or 14" high, maybe 20" front to back and 24" wide. It could be bigger but certainly not smaller. There were two latched for the cover and a handle on the side.

We had 3 of these. One was for the mike cables and the instrument cords. Naturally we had more than necessary since I sometimes had to do work for other bands and needed the extras. But for us, these cables went in and out in a specific order so keeping them separated was never a problem.

The second was fro all the AC cords, junctions and adapters. the Acoustics did not draw a great deal of power so this box was more important to have good rugges cords with carefully made connections. We never wanted anything to fall apart and fail during a performance. Most of the connections were soldered so they would not come apart without serious violence.

The last boc, which I doubt you would bneed today, had the coms equipment - headphones & mikes, allt he cables and such - we did not have wireless but we did have walkie talkies. These were stolen along with everything else.

I had six cabinets and 3 heads. When I see your set up I feel badly that they were taken from me. It woudl have been so much better to give them to someone who appreciated them. I had everything for the sound system.

That reminds me - the mixer was a huge 6 channel Shure unit in a box that built for it. It had built in reverb and tone controls. I don't know if you could find one.

As far as using 676 mikes. You tell the "Sound Guy" that these are the mikles you use. They can connect to any standard 3 pin low impedance connector if you have the pigtails (6' Long) to go from the special EV mike base to the standard cord.

What has the sound man got to do with you? You have you own system. Tell them to control your own sound. You need a good, aggressive R.M. I promise, no one ever told me what mikes to use.

Well - You have done a nice job of it. Now I see lots of beards and such. Before 1969 there was none of this. The guys were clean shaven. It was not until some girl told Jim that he was getting fat that he had a beard.

In my observations, by the way, with the exception of cops, it seems that guys who are over-weight seem to be the highest numbers of those who wear facial hair.

Take care - Vince

[jim4371]

Hello - I am sorry for such a late reply. Every time I tried to open the message the thing locked up and I had to restert. Today I gues everything went right.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Never had any issues with Firefox.

[MojoRisinRay]

Vince,
Thanks for the kind words and encouragement.

Nice facial hair insight as well. I've never considered it...but nowadays there is an overwhelming ratio of weight related beards now that I think about it. And as you noted, now that I have the 1968 stage as close as I can...the singer wants to be the 1969-70 "old blues man". I don't thiiiiink that he un-der-staaands...

I would love to get a solid Road Manager, I guess that is the next thing that our show needs.

I'm still on the lookout for the larger Shure mixer, but I don't think I've found it yet.

I did finally hunt down a gold EV 676G. It even has the gold amphenol 4 pin jack that I re-wired to the 6' cord and 3-pin XLR adapter. That blew everybody in the band away at rehearsal. Why did Jim stop using that gold mic anyway? In the pictures that I've seen from Madison Square Garden and the New York (PBS) Critique show Jim is using a regular silver EV 676. I read about your bargain with Jim to respect the mic, and wondered if there was a story there.

If you don't mind another question...
Do you know what piece of gear Robby (the exception to the beard/ weight rule) is posing in front of in this picture? I don't want to assume anything about it.


Thanks again,
Mark J

[jim4371]

That's from the Palladium in '71.
It was recorded by Bruce, so it's probably recording apparatus.