Stage Monitor Wedge
Bill invented the modern stage monitor "wedge" working with Neil Young's Buffalo Springfield. Bill used rebel loudspeaker cabinets turned sideways. Directional mics, invented decades before, allowed performers to hear their instruements and each other without inducing feedback. Today, such monitor systems are indispensible and wedge sales are measured in millions of dollars per year.
Before this time, performers monitored their sound through cabinets placed at the left and right sides of the stage.
Meyer psm-2 Wedge
Front of House (FOH) Mixing
In the dark ages of sound reinforcement, (and even in some unenlightened places today!) live mixing was done from horribly unsuitable locations. Backstage, theater boxes, balconies and "wings" or, worst of all, someplace more remote ...perhaps under the stage. Though that's often a great place for monitoring a recording, it's a nightmare for live mixing. Any self respecting Engineer will usually tell a prospective client who insists on making a fiasco in this manner to hire someone else, and happily supply the name of his or her least favorite competitor.
Bill's insistence on sound quality meant demanding the best location for the the Engineer's ears. This often meant that Managers had to give up money-making space on the floor. To accomplish this, Bill had an uphill battle. He invented the term "Front of House" and insisted on having this advantage whenever possible.
FOH mixing is the single most important development in live mixing. Without it, sound quality, quite simply, sucks and loud systems would be painfully out of control.
A Snake!
The "FOH" mix technique made the stage snake necessary.
In 2007, speaking to the Audio Engineering Society, Fleetwood Mac's first Tour Manager "Dinky" Dawson credited Bill with developing the first multicore stage "snake." Snakes supply a means of wiring microphones and other stage devices conveniently to the mixer and other controls.
Proco 24/4 Stage box&snake
Stage
Bill designed and built the Magic Stage, an early hydraulic rig that he claims could be assembled by a single person faster than any other system in the world.