I read the wikipedia page on it and im still confused on how it is made and what exactly was so good about it. Im not familiar with music production but ive seen people mention Spector and how he contributed to music and the “wall of sound” is always something i see people mention. But i never know what exactly that is
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In short, it’s reverb.
There was more to it than that, but the most unique aspect of production that Spector developed was reverb.
He would record a song. Then play it back in a tiny, tiny room filled with speakers. He would record what that room sounded like. And use that track recorded in the tiny room for the Final Product. The room was an echo chamber that gave reverb to his music.
I have also been frustrated, researching this term, by seeming non-answers that lurk in jargon. This was the explanation which helped me understand
Some responses here have mentioned using multiple instruments playing the same parts, and recording at high gain levels to near-distortion to achieve high saturation; and both are absolutely accurate descriptions—but I think the key to understanding the Wall of Sound is grasping how these two techniques interact. Since this is an ELI5, I’m going to generalize, so please don’t take the following as a hardcore technical description. It is not. I’m just trying to explain the overall concept.
It works kinda like this: Imagine you’re recording 10 parts (3 voices, 3 guitars, 1 bass, 2 drum kits, and 1 piano.) Instead of recording each one at 10% of the available headroom and layering them to achieve 100% fullness, you record each one at 100% fullness and use a series of audio equipment to let more of one track through as another gets softer. If all 10 tracks are in the mix, the equipment pulls each one down to 10% of its fullness. If 5 are in, they’re each pulled down to 20%. If 2 are in, they’re each going to be 50%. No matter how many instruments are in the mix, the overall fullness stays at 100%.
Now imagine you’re not just recording 10 instruments, but 30 or 50 and they’re all pumping in and out against each other at very high speeds. And that piano part isn’t just on the piano. Instead, half the horn section and half the string section are also playing the melody while the other halves are playing the chords. Eventually you can’t tell the difference between piano, strings, and horns. *And* the overall sound is staying at 100% the whole time. That’s basically the concept behind the Wall of Sound. Today we call it “Shoegaze.”
Obligatory Deadhead interjection : the “Wall of Sound” was also the name of an innovative speaker system developed by the Grateful Dead’s tech branch Alembic in 1973-1974. A 30-foot-high wall of speakers behind the band did the job of both monitors and house PA: the band heard exactly what the audience heard, and vocal-mic feedback was eliminated by the use of double-microphones: they sang into the top one and whatever sound hit both mics at once (ie what was coming from the speakers) was cancelled out.
The instrumental sound was amazing but the vocals sounded tinny. It looked very impressive on stage but it was too big for some venues, and it was so time-consuming to set up that two sets of scaffolding would sometimes have to leapfrog venue to venue, requiring extra trucks, drivers and tech crew. The Grateful Dead Movie (filmed Oct 74) has a whole sequence where they set the thing up.
The whole touring operation became too big by 74. Too expensive (the Arab oil embargo didn’t help), with too many extra hangers on, too many shows. They took a hiatus in late 74 and when they came back they used a conventional system. Parts of the speaker array survived/were recycled by Garcia Band and some other SF bands.
Devin Townsend was the first musician who came to mind. You could also try My Bloody Valentine, Ulver, Sunn O, Neurosis, Cloudkicker, MGLA
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