Preview: Towing The J Line

MD: From a technical standpoint what do you think this 10 years of advancement has brought to the sound?

BJ: It’s about the processing, the electronics, components, and the way they package PAs now. The d&b system is a speaker box run by a d&b amplifier, with a d&b processor in it. It’s the software and the processor that probably makes the biggest difference. As they get chips that can take more memory and handle more processing power, the end product better reflects how it sounds when they design it in the computer.

L-Acoustics started off trying to achieve uniformity of audio characteristics with the V-DOSC. But in the end everyone throughout the world ended up running different amplifiers and processors. Even though the processor information was all written by L-Acoustics there are still big variations.

d&b achieved what L-Acoustics had set out to do – and all the manufacturers are probably going to take that approach now: to build a PA and package it with an amplifier with their processors in it so no one else can change or dictate how the PA sounds. And it also means d&b actually guarantees its products! Because the J series only runs on its own amp and processor, you can’t rate it incorrectly, and d&b will replace the parts for five years. You don’t get that with other brands.

MD: Has that uniformity changed the way you mix or just made it easier for you to set up?

BJ: This PA has made it very easy for me to mix. We start the Oasis line check at three o’clock and at about three minutes past three I walk away from the board. Because when we’re touring the J Series just sounds the same every day. We don’t have the previous issues where the same PA could sound great one day and like a dog the next.

At first we were dubious about the passive mid-high; other PAs are generally three-way active, so the horns, mids, lows, and subs are crossed over separately and a channel runs each section. On the J Series, one channel runs the mid and the horn via a passive crossover inside the speaker box. It takes a bit of power, but it also means it dictates the level between the horn and the mid. d&b have set it, and you really can’t change it. In the software there are contours to modify the sound of the horn but you certainly can’t turn it up and down like you can on other PAs. I’m sure that has a lot to do with why it sounds so good. You can’t mess with it! Sound guys love messing with things.

Everyone had this preconception that the J Series, with its passive mid-high and clean sound wouldn’t suit Oasis. But it’s been the opposite. Everyone’s saying how great the band sounds, and that they’ve never sounded as good. That’s proof in the pudding really.

NO SMALL CHANGE

MD: Does it hurt having to buy, not only a line array, but new amps as well?

BJ: I have to admit; from a company owner point of view it’s quite an expensive process. But when you buy these things now you’re generally supplied a turnkey solution, even the cabling, which would have cost us the same to make it. In the past, I’d always bought a bit here and a bit there, and I bought amplifiers for their sound. But those days are over now. When people tour the world, they just want to see the same thing everywhere.

MD: Can you match up the d&b amps and processors with anything else in your inventory?

BJ: The processor inside the d&b D12 amplifier runs every speaker box from the whole d&b product range, so the one amplifier does every job. If one blows up, you can always go steal another from your monitor or side fill rig because it’s exactly the same amplifier. That’s one of the benefits of it as an owner.

TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT

MD: How are you finding the J Series handles being pushed to its limit?

BJ: The Presets sounded great at Festival Hall, and the PA was working within an inch of its life. The meter was reading 108dB at the desk, nearly 110dB, which is way above what I normally mix these days. I was thinking, “my poor PA”. But there were no limiters coming on, and that was with intense volume and fatness, because the bottom end was getting really poleaxed by all the synthesizers. With Oasis, we found the same thing. We started out with 12 subs a side in a 20,000-seat arena, then scaled down to nine, only running at about 50 percent capacity. So we tried eight a side the next night to see what it sounded like caning the bottom end, and the bottom end sounded way better running at about 80 – 90 percent than it did at 50 percent. The PA sounds really great thrashed, and you don’t seem to be limited.

CHANGING THE TUNE

MD: I don’t need to tell you we’re in the middle of a recession at the moment. Has buying the d&b J Series line array proved to be a good move in this climate?

BJ: I bought the PA because I needed Johnston Audio to stand alone, to have its own branding as a PA company. We had V-DOSC, but in reality the V-DOSC network is represented by another company in Australia, so Johnston Audio gets no support. Plus, there were a few other PA companies throughout the world that had approached me about setting up their own network of d&b. Eighth Day Sound in America were really keen to have someone in Australia able to supply a similar large system, and it was the same with MSI in Japan, as well as Wigwam and Skan in the UK. All of us generally talk now, and word gets passed around. It was a way for Johnston Audio to take advantage of the client list that belongs to those other companies. With V-DOSC bands, 50 percent of them would just go straight to Jands, and the other 50 percent go to Johnston Audio because I’ve met the sound engineers or something like that. We needed a product that’s the best sounding product and that brings bands straight to us, no questions asked. If you look at a 12-month span, Mellencamp did a big arena tour, so did Coldplay and The Who, and our latest tour using the J Series is The Presets. They had V-DOSC quotes that were a lot less but were prepared to pay more money for the J Series because they know it sounds better. It’s also good to buy a new PA because everyone around the world talks about it. And if they’re talking about your company, it’s good – whether what they’re saying is good or bad.

MD: How has the J Series become popular, I would have thought it would be hard to coax some people off what they’ve become familiar with over the last 10 years?

BJ: Sound engineers always like to use the latest stuff, or the next big thing. And sometimes acts or their production team are looking for something different from other acts. A lot of bands touring America have been using it, like The Killers and Snow Patrol. There’s a big vibe on the PA anyhow, so a lot of sound guys want to try it. That’s another great thing about buying a new PA – the ‘try’ factor. You can have a really good couple of years from engineers trying your product.

I think our general plan will be to put it in front of engineers via festivals over the summer. We’ve got to be careful though, because I don’t want to put my brand new PA out in the mud. We bought it and sent it to Pyramid Rock last year, and it came back so dusty it took a week to clean!