There’s a new book entirely about the Wall of Sound:
Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection
There’s a fairly lengthy sample from the book there.
There’s also an interview with the author here:
Imagine the damage that thing could do if you played something heavier than the Dead through it.
Einstruzende Neubaten comes to mind.
Interesting article. Thank you for posting this.
I believe that I’ve read that the bass guitar sound was split into 4 different channels, each with its own stack of amps, as though each string had its own stack.
I’m not a sound engineer, all hail Bear Stanley!
And what if they turned it up to eleven?!
The interview linked above has a quote from Dennis McNally, the Grateful Dead’s former publicist:
“There is a standard joke in rock-and-roll about turning an amp up to 11, given that all amp dials are calibrated to 10. With the Wall, there was so much power available that the musicians generally turned things up to 2.”