of course, these are not b
now you're catching on!
.... even though these have nothing at all to do with bass cabs
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Cabs with unusual driver combinations
- Thread starter zortation
- Start date
.... even though these have nothing at all to do with bass cabs
Leland Sklar Sold His Billy Thorpe Rig 
Klipsch MCM MSM 1900 Loudspeaker PA System Altec 291-16B Leland Sklar #37951 | Techno Empire | Reverb
Klipsch MCM MSM 1900 Loudspeaker PA System Altec 291-16B Leland Sklar #37951 | Techno Empire | Reverb
Last edited:
Leland Sklar Sold His Billy Thorpe Rig
Klipsch MCM MSM 1900 Loudspeaker PA System Altec 291-16B Leland Sklar #37951 | Techno Empire | Reverb
View attachment 3842080
I took a look at Lee's description from the listing -- some telling details toward the end!
***
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION: This listing is for a Klipsch MCM 1900 Loudspeaker System w/ Altec 291-16B High-Frequency Drivers Owned by Lee Sklar.
This massive speaker system was used by Leland as his live bass rig while touring with Billy Thorpe in support of his hit song "Children of the Sun" in 1979!
We recently removed this system from Lee's gear locker here in Los Angeles where it has been in storage for 40 years!
As Leland tells it....
"Billy Thorpe was a huge child star in Australia. We did this album and it was a conceptual album that he came up with. Spencer Proffer produced it in his studio in Hollywood called Pasha. We cut it as a trio: it was me and Billy and Alvin Taylor on drums. Billy was great. He was so strong and powerful and into it. He had such a commanding presence.
When we did that album it was another one that became a deep, deep cult thing. We went out and did a few gigs with it and it was really, really fun to play live. I’ve got a bass rig sitting in a warehouse that I put together specifically for playing with Billy. We played Santa Monica Civic out here in L.A., and it took over a semi just for our three guys’ band gear. When they pulled my bass rig in and set it up, they thought it was the PA system. The bass bins were two “W”-folded cabinets that are so huge that it takes like four guys to lift each one. I had two of those, then on top I had four midrange cabinets that were the same shape but they were front-loaded. Then I had four high-end speakers mounted on top of those. I made a trade with the guy who owned Altec Speakers. I had a pile of Yamaha P2200 amps and he wanted a couple of those. I gave him two of mine and he gave me two Altec 1000-watt mono amps. So each bass bin was run by a 1000-watt mono Altec amp. I had six more P2200’s driving all the midrange stuff, and then I used an SVT as a preamp for the rig.
Bob Easton at the time had come up with the 360 Systems Bass Synth, which was a pickup system that ran off the bass, and a guy named Wayne Yentis put this whole thing together. I had a transposition pedal hooked up for the bass synth that I could literally hit my low E string and drop it almost three octaves. We were getting down in the area of 6Hz at probably about 130dB. The first time we actually tested it we all threw up and cracked a wall in the warehouse. It was fantastic. It has been in moth balls since that tour. It is a true hi-fidelity system originally designed for theaters to be able to adequately represent earthquakes and things like that." -Lee Sklar
(Please note that the center synthesizer rack case along with the foot pedals and all the rack gear is being sold separately and not included in this listing. It is shown in the photos only as a reference for how the system was used)
Good call, was just gonna post a pick of that! When I was starting out I thought the 8x8 was the coolest thing going. I had a crappy Carlsbro though, same as many of us in the UK I guess!
