Also amazing would be the fact that a large percentage of in-house PA systems would have likely been based on Dukane/Operadio style of equipment.
That would typically be a four channel, tube amplifier with no tone controls!!
Can you imagine?
With four channels live, that would be three vocal mics (although they often used only two) and a single drum overhead........just like a lot of the concert pix from this era.
Where I start to wonder though is with shows like Hollywood Bowl, which by many accounts was the first time the sonics of one of their live performances may have lived up to their recorded output.
At the time, the Hollywood Bowl actually had one of the most sophisticated PA's around as house equipment, and there is little doubt that the Beatles made use of it (there are numerous comments on the record that state just that)............but I personally think that somebody had to mix it, it was just too big and complex to "turn it on and forget about it".
I'm starting to suspect that the timeline that led into large scale, full range PA systems (of which of course we had the first "huge" example at Woodstock, although they were around for a few years before that) may have just missed the Beatles.
I'm left wondering if there are a number of "house" engineers who may have had a turn at the knobs of the greatest band of all time.........but for whom there would have been little or no formal acknowledgment at the time simply because the concept of a dedicated audio engineer who was actually part of the band just didn't exist yet??
I love the hunt for the information though..........that's 90% of the fun for me
Thanks for that info from "Beatles Gear" Alexis, I've got "Recording the Beatles" on the way in the post and didn't think "Beatles Gear" would be required reading at the same time......but it looks like a trip to Amazon is called for now!