Production Services & Manufacturing

Category: Equipment

Clair Cohesion Series Debuts at Muriel’s Wedding

After a first sold-out season at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Muriel’s Wedding has returned with a Melbourne run finished and Sydney currently packing in the audiences. Next stop is Brisbane for the highly rated production that has grown and changed a little since the 2017 premiere.

Again JPJ Audio are supplying the audio equipment with Michael Waters once again in charge of the sound design, which is quite distinct this time around. Michael won the 2018 Helpmann Best Sound Design for the original production of Muriel’s Wedding.

“Conceptually it’s similar but in terms of delivering the audio, it’s quite different,” Michael clarified. “We have a Clair PA and I believe it is the first time in the world that a Clair Cohesion CO-8 system has been used for theatre.”

Designed for a variety of uses, CO-8 combines very high output, flexible coverage, and premium sound quality into an extremely compact package. The CO-8’s diminutive size allows for a high degree of flexibility when integrating into virtually any application. Sydney’s Lyric Theatre saw 36 x CO-8 line array speakers utilized, along with four CP-218 subs, and Michael was thrilled by their performance.

“The CO-8 is such a punchy little box, slightly smaller than an L-Acoustics KARA or dV-DOSC, but they’ve got a really good bottom-end and low mid-section,” he added. “In fact it’s so good, I don’t need additional subs! The CP-218 subs are just so powerful I only need four of them; two on the floor and two in the air and the result is phenomenal. It’s a small yet beefy PA that is extremely efficient.”

This show has a wide dynamic range, ranging from ballads to pop/rock songs with a little rap here and there with severe bass drops, and Michael commented that the CO-8 system lends itself well to Kate Miller-Heidke’s and Keir Nuttall’s pop music. Having said that, Michael confirmed that he would be happy to use the CO-8 for most styles of musical theatre.

“The Cohesion Series has interchangeable Hornserts which allow a range of different dispersion flares for the horns,” explained Michael. “So within the arrays (left, right and centre cluster) there’s a range between 80° to 160° which allows incredible coverage right across the room. More to the point, it delivers better localization to the cast so that your ears aren’t leaping from one cluster to another. The CO-8 really does deliver seamless coverage.”

Delay speakers in the Lyric included 50 x L-Acoustics 5XT with eight more for front fill and a further 32 for surrounds. A couple of Cohesion Series CP-6 self-powered point source loudspeakers and CP-118 subwooofers are used as SFX speakers. L’Acoustics 108P’s are used for Outfills and Michael describes them as the best sounding and most versatile loudspeakers on the market.

Out front, Brendon Gardner runs a DiGiCo SD7T with Michael commenting that they have added more instrument channels, mainly in the keyboard department resulting in eight stereo pairs of keyboard alone across three players and synth bass, played by the bass guitarist. In fact, Keyboard #3 is played by Guitarist #2 …. not confusing for anyone!

“It’s a large show in terms of input tallies with 105 inputs for a cast of 28 and a nine-piece band, indeed up to nearly 150 channels including the Roland M48 mix returns,” he confirmed. “The only outboard device is the TC Electronics Reverb 4000 on the principal vocals with all other effects onboard. The dynamics and equalisers on the DiGiCo range are great. All matrixing is done onboard also, eliminating external matrix devices. Armed with an iPad I can tweak the mixes within snapshots, and system settings all over the theatre easily.”

Also at FOH is a QLab playback rack for sound effects.
The cast utilised DPA d:screet 4061 miniature microphones with one DPA d:fine 4066 omnidirectional headset mic for one scene where it’s rather loud and Michael needs to get the capsule closer to the mouth for gain reasons.

The band have the usual suspects as well as some interesting choices; Shure Beta 52, Beta 91 and Beta 57 for kick drum, Sennheiser e904s for toms, Earthworks SR30s on the overheads, AKG414s, KM84s, Beta 52a on percussion and Shure KSM313 dual-voice ribbon mics on the vibes. Added to that are Neumann KM184 over the strings and a Schertler P-Dyn48 on the double bass.

“I have the DPA 4099 for the acoustic guitars which sound beautiful,” said Michael. “The guitar players have the Helix Amp Modelers and when the 4099 ran through them, I was amazed at how warm and lovely they actually sound through the Helix. The guitarists control their own patches, so they control the muting of the mic, as a result we don’t have to fiddle around on the console’s snapshots or have external mute switches.”

The Lyric Theatre is a big house for any story, but Muriel’s Wedding fills the space with clear vocals and punchy songs, thanks to Michael Waters and JPJ Audio.

Gallery

September 13, 2019
Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane

Brisbane’s new Fortitude Music Hall is the largest ballroom/theatre styled venue in Australia, with a 3,000 person standing capacity and a 1,100 seated capacity. The venue is inspired by some of the world’s most loved live music venues, from classic art deco theatres to larger clubs, while still paying homage to the iconic venues of Brisbane’s past. The Fortitude Music Halls’ prime location in the heart of Brisbane’s entertainment precinct and state of the art production make the venue a truly world class performance space.

John ‘JC’ Collins, one-time Powderfinger bassist, is co-owner and manager of Fortitude Music Hall in partnership with Paul Piticco and Jess Ducrou of Secret Sounds Group, construction giant Hutchinson Builders and Live Nation.

The important element of the Music Hall, set in the middle of Brunswick Mall, is that it offers different sized spaces. The 3300-capacity room can be transformed into 1200 and 2000, with a smaller upstairs bar-style for 300.

The venue owners contacted JPJ Audio to design and install an audio system that would reflect their considerable investment in the venue. In recent times, JPJ has been installing elite, high end systems into venues as a pay as you go option which helps them sell the room and also saves touring acts production costs. It also makes tight touring schedules a bit easier as there are so many overnight shows these days.

JPJ is a leader in this area and currently have similar installations in the Palais Theatre, State Theatre, Horden Pavilion, Luna Park, Festival Hall and The Forum Theatre. Bruce Johnston, one of JPJ Audio’s Directors based in Melbourne, headed the project drawing on JPJ’s extensive network of experienced audio specialists around the country.

“For the Fortitude Music Hall, we decided on an L-Acoustics K2 speaker system with an L-Acoustic monitor system, as that would give us a bit of consistency with all the amplifiers and drive and thus some good redundancy,” explained Bruce. “In the console department we have gone with an Avid S6L 24C out front and a DiGiCo SD10 for monitors as this gives the venue both options and the ability to flip them end-to-end. We see that a lot in touring. We have also run multiple multicore options to cater for all consoles. Both consoles come with Waves servers.

When designing the system, Bruce asked Bob Daniels from JPJ’s Sydney office to plot and plan the room in order to try cover as much as the room as possible. The venue has viewing areas throughout and this had to be taken into account.

The main system is 16 x K2 (eight per side flown) with 12 x SB28 subs in pods of two running across the front of the stage. Downstairs there are two zones per side of two ARCS Focus, totaling eight, and four X8 live monitor enclosures for front lip-fills. Upstairs, to supplement the main hangs, there are three ARCs per side to service the outer corners and throw up the sides until the K2 takes over. At the rear of the room under the balcony are some more X8s filling in.

The venue built sub containment compartments in brick so JPJ could evenly run the subs across the front to reduce the sub-low getting back under the stage and this has worked really well.
“We did have rigging challenges to get around some air conditioning ducting,” added Bruce. “However the overall result has been very good and we have now had a few shows through with some great comments on the system. Over the next few months we will do some tweaking and go from there.”

JPJ supplied a variety of microphones to cater to all requirements including Shure B58A, B57A, SM57, B52A, B91A and Sennheiser 904 and 901s.

Bruce commented that Jay Van Lieshout from JPJ in Brisbane managed the installation and with his team, did an outstanding job.

“We wanted to give the Brisbane shop ownership of the install and be a part of the process,” he said. “They were there day after day as the room changed and evolved. Brendan Keane spent time aligning the system with a great result. It’s a very seamless sound walking around the venue.”

JPJ Team:

Jacob Elmer, Dan Charlton, Clint Crawford, Brendan Keane, Justin Ryan, Mathew Morrison, Regan Downs, Andrew Werlick.

Gallery

August 15, 2019
The Presets

Legendary Australian electronic duo The Presets have been back on the road promoting their Hi Viz album and JPJ Audio were with them all the way.

Having used an Avid Profile console for many years, FOH engineer Craig Gordon was keen to take an Avid Venue S6L console, with Waves card, on this tour and now he doesn’t want anything else!

“I love the Venue S6L and will find it hard to go back to a Profile,” he admitted. “I did a show last night with The Presets using a Profile and it was definitely not as good! The S6L certainly sounds better and there are way more options to customise the surface to how you want to use it. You can move all the groups and channels to wherever you want and set layouts, which you couldn’t do on the old console. You have outputs and auxes all on the same page, wherever you want to put them – and I really missed that last night on the Profile.”

Craig says that mixing for The Presets is fairly straightforward, as they have good backing tracks and decent sound coming to him.

“We had to do a few little things with Kim’s toms because he has really dead sounding disco toms but we figured it out with a few plugins,” added Craig.

Julian had his own effects for his vocal onstage to which Craig sometimes added some distortion or reverb just to beef up what he is already being sent. The majority of the effects were Midi timecoded so through the songs they change to different presets which is all done onstage.

“I mainly use the dynamic stuff in the rack and a few plugins onboard like a C6 but not too many,” said Craig. The outboard rack is pretty good with Alan Smart Research C2 stereo comps and Puigchild compressors. I still like to have the knobs and visual more than the plugins.”

The tour utilised inhouse PA systems but carried extra d&b B22 subs to reinforce the low end which worked well and was particularly useful in the smaller venues. The exception was Melbourne’s Forum Theatre where JPJ provided an L-Acoustics V-DOSC system.

Microphones were a Shure package as the band have been Shure endorsees for a long time. Vocals were Shure BETA 58s on UR radios, a standard Shure drum package of BETA 52s, KSM overheads and KSM 32s.

Cam Elias ran monitors on an Avid Profile using Shure PSM1000 IEMs.

JPJ Crew: Stacey Handley, Tim Lonergan

July 11, 2018
Led Zeppelin Evening as Bonham

Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening As Bonham garnered rave reviews as it toured through the country in May. The concert celebrates the life and music of his father, the legendary Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, and it was clear that this was a gig FOH engineer Tim Millikan was enjoying immensely.

“I’m like a dog with ten dicks at the moment!” he enthused. “It’s astounding, if you close your eyes you’d swear it was Led Zeppelin. The set goes for up to 2&¾ hours and covers a broad range of Led Zeppelin material. Having grown up listening to Led Zeppelin, I felt that I had been mixing it forever. There were times during the first show when I had to look up to check it wasn’t Robert Plant singing.”

JPJ Audio provided a FOH control package with inhouse PA systems used around the country. Out front, Tim decided upon an Avid Profile simply due to its ease of use and availability around the country and in New Zealand.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect prior to the tour so I thought I’d best make it easy on myself,” he explained. “I also have a couple of Avalon VT-737 out front for vocals and that’s about it. It’s a pretty stock standard package without much extra in the outboard world.”

However Tim remarked that there was quite a lot going on with onboard effects including pitch shifters going into a SansAmp for some crunch and distortion on the vocal.

“I run the pitch shift return pretty hard into that at times for the vocal effects such as in No Quarter and Since I’ve Been Loving You,” added Tim. “I have a super heavy duty flanger that I run the drum kit through for the big drum fill sections in Kashmir. There’s a long delay with a single repeat at about 600 milliseconds for all the extended vocal Robert Plant stuff and the rest is all short verbs just to sweeten things up. I don’t try to effect it too much preferring to let the band do its own thing. The keyboard sounds are fantastic and he’s clearly done a lot of work to replicate the Led Zeppelin sound. So a lot of it comes to me already sitting pretty well, the balances between patches is great and there are no issues there.”

Tim added that he is not overly compressing anything, just some multiband compression to tickle groups so it doesn’t get too out of control when they’re really going for it.

He spent more time concentrating on the overhead sound of the kit in general so when Jason hits the cymbals, they’re big and rich.

“I aim for a very natural sound using very light gating on the drums. It’s so super dynamic, you can’t squash it down too much and hold it in a position. I’ve got a C6 Multiband Compressor running over my master buss and I’m using that into an L3 Multimaximizer for a little bit of mastering on the output just to keep it in check.”

As it is such a long show, Tim explained that he tries to keep the sound level at around 95dB despite having had some people say it should be louder.

“For 2 ¾ hours that would be uncomfortable,” he said. “I can tighten up or loosen up the low end of my master stage to give a little more power when it needs it and pull it back when I want to keep it under control.”

Monitors were taken care of by Conor Dunne on a DiGiCo SD10 running Sennhieser IEMs and Shure radio mics. Jason also has a robust Stereo drum fill in the form of an L-Acoustics SB118 sub with an ARC II on top.

“It’s pretty loud onstage which in smaller venues makes it pretty tough,” said Tim. “The guitar player has a pair of 100 watt Marshalls running pretty hot plus there are two Ampeg SVT 8 X 10 rigs for the bass. The keyboard rig had a couple of Nord Stage 2s then there are a couple of acoustic guitars and a mandolin.”
Jason has a Crown CM311 head-worn condenser microphone as he sings in a couple of songs but mainly talks in between songs, although sometimes he also uses a Shure KSM9 radio mic.

For the drums there is a Shure Beta 52 on the kick drum (no hole in the kick drum so it’s placed directly in front), Shure 57s on top and bottom of snare, Shure 181 on hats and ride, Sennheiser 421s on toms and 414s on overheads. Guitars are Sennheiser e906 and Audio Technica ATM450 whilst vocals are Sennheiser e945 and e935. DIs were a combination of Radial J48s and JDIs as well as Countrymans.

Tim was clearly in his element with this tour adding that the band’s crew were great and that Jason himself is a lovely bloke, in fact it’s one of the most chilled and casual tours he’s done in a while. And Tim must have done something right as he has been asked to join the American run ….. work Visa pending.
Rule number one of touring – don’t leave home without your passport!

May 29, 2018
The Killers produce a Killer Tour

FOH Engineer Kenny Kaiser has been working with The Killers since the start of their Battle Born tour, where he started out as a system tech, then moved into the role of FOH mixer towards the end of that tour.

Kenny comments that when mixing The Killers there are many, many elements to consider. As there are so many people, instruments, and inputs on the stage he aims to keep things very simple at FOH saying that he prefers to keep as little failure points as possible!

Out front Kenny was running a Solid State Logic SSL500 console which he says sounds great.

“So right off the bat that is the best feature of this console,” he added. “After that it had to do with reliability. By far the biggest thing on this console that does not get much press is the All Pass filter. It’s a game changer to me. I am also a big fan of the delays and reverbs on the L500 followed by the bus comp and the subharmonic tool.”

Outboard effects were a couple of Bricasti M7 reverbs; one for lead singer Brandon Flowers and one for the snare. Kenny admits that’s a little over kill but it does sound good on the snare!

For the Australian tour, the show featured an L-Acoustics K1/K2 PA with the mains and sides comprising of K1 with K2 underneath. The amount of K1 for each hang changes per show but it is four K2 for the under hangs. Between the main and side hang at a 45 degree angle are flown K1-SBs.

“The PA has been great with even coverage and no complaints so far, from myself or the crowd,” commented Kenny.

Monitor engineer Marty Beath also ran a Solid State Logic SSL500 console with everyone but Brandon utilizing Shure PSM1000 IEMs and Axient AXT400. Brandon used a total of ten M2 wedges with two d&b J8s on top of a single d&b J-Sub for side fills.

For microphones, Brandon favoured a Shure Beta SM-58A, all the mics on the drums are Telefunken M80s and M81s, the cymbals are Heil PR30, guitars are Heil PR30, and all the backing vocals are on Heil PR35.

“The service from JPJ Audio had been great and the crew is A-level,” remarked Kenny. “Marty and I came into this run with a little concern about packaging because there are a lot of elements to the show and being able to set everything up in time is a big deal. JPJ Audio were able to make all the carts and dollies we asked for, so every day we were able to have a little time for a coffee before the band showed up …… so my hat is off to JPJ!”

JPJ crew were Tim Seconi, Paul Kennedy, Joel Pearson and Kellie McKee.

May 7, 2018
Russell Peters Qudos Arena Sydney

The audio system JPJ Audio supplied for Russell Peters is amongst the largest we would routinely put in to Qudos Arena. In fact there were more speaker cabinets than we would hang for an average rock concert in the same space!

This is because comedy relies on high intelligibility in the vocal range. If the audience can’t hear every joke, in every seat, they are not going to enjoy the show. If the audience can’t hear, they won’t laugh at the jokes, and this will impact the comedian’s performance (especially if the front rows can’t hear!!!).

This clear audio is achieved through acoustic modelling of the venue prior to arrival, careful placement of the PA hangs, and having enough speaker boxes to achieve the required SPL. This is all sound checked by walking around the edge of every seating block in the venue, with a handheld radio mic and making adjustments to the different PA zones. This verifies that every seat in the house can hear every joke.

The main hangs were two hangs of 12 x L-Acoustics K1 and 6 x L-Acoustics K2 with two hangs of 12 x L-Acoustics K2 for side hangs. Frontfill was 6 x single L-Acoustics Kara, outfill was 4 x L-Acoustics Arcs and subs were 12 x L-Acoustics SB28 Subwoofer Enclosures. All powered by L-Acoustics LA-8 and LA-12 amplifiers.

A Dante drive system using Dolby LM44’s was utilized and this involved running a completely digital signal path from the FOH console all the way to the amplifiers via AES and Dante signal processing.

A seamless back-up analogue audio fallback is also in every system using DANTE. Back-up systems and engineer comfort are critical to industry acceptance, so are always at the forefront of all JPJ Audio designed systems.

FOH engineer for the tour was James Kilpatrick on an Avid Profile with Waves 9. James used a C6 multiband compressor to keep the speech clear at low level and cut the horn band back when shouting. He also had a vocal rider live in reverse to keep the mic level low in between pauses in speech to reduce room tone in the microphone.

Crew:

FOH systems engineer: Tim Seconi
FOH systems technician: Bianca Martin
Monitors systems engineer: Kellie McKee
PA technician: Ben Northmore
Special Guest Appearance Multicores and front fill trainee: Mats Frankl

February 9, 2018
Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Ten years on and Michael Waters tells a different story

After winning a glittering array of international awards on Broadway, the West End, Europe and Asia, Simon Phillips’ spectacular production Priscilla Queen of the Desert has returned to Australia for its 10th anniversary celebration tour.

Opening at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre, the show is set to tour the country over the coming months with all audio supplied by JPJ Audio.

Sound designer Michael Waters created the original production over a decade ago and since then he says that the evolution of digital technology is clearly the biggest change.

“We started with a digital platform of a Yamaha PM5d but since then I’ve moved onto a DiGiCo system which makes everything a lot more flexible,” he commented. “It sounds great and combined with the Aviom system, it makes it all streamlined. The progression of the networked L-Acoustics amplifiers has made a big difference too. Ten years ago we were using Crown 5002 amplifiers which sounded awesome but everything eventually had to move into the digital realm. Having the flexibility of networked processors, coupled with remote control accessibility via my iPad, means I can wander the building and mix off my iPad. We didn’t have that technology at our disposal back then!”

The Stealth Core 2 infrastructure with the DiGiCo means there is a lot more processing available on their consoles. With the SD10 that Michael uses, he goes direct from the DiGiCo system, from the SD rack straight into the LA8 amplifiers – basically cutting out a drive system.

“A lot of the system processing is done on the console itself, which in turn is controlled by the iPad,” he added. “I have complete flexibility in control of the sound system including the mix itself just from the one app. There is also processing going on with the LA8s and that’s also controlled from the iPad via Network Manager.”

Michael is still using an L-Acoustics dV-Dosc PA system, describing it as fantastic, with the configuration used at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre very similar to the original. The only difference is the addition of a KARA centre cluster and several more delay subs to ensure the disco beats are everywhere and with even coverage in the huge barn that is the Regent.

“There are quite a lot of L-Acoustics subs in the system – DV-subs on each of the four L/R arrays, SB28’s on the aprons, SB18’s on the Delay Cluster and then spread out in the stalls,” said Michael. “In the dress circle there are Meyer 650P’s and then a pair of L-Acoustics SB118 subs above the mix position in the roof. That way we can keep the vibe jumping along all the way to the back!”

Microphones are still DPA 4066, double mic’ed with a DPA 4061 for the three Queens and also the three Divas who fly through the air. All DPA’s are run on Shure UR-4D wireless systems and Shure Micro Belt packs.

“I had to go with the DPA 4066 because of the amount of head dresses that all require quick changes,” explained Michael. “If we were to use lapel mics on the forehead, they would just get ripped off. The DPA 4066 also allows for a higher SPL which is good as there are so many disco come rock numbers in the show. The only exception is the young boy who uses a DPA 4061 because his contribution is only in quiet scenes.”

Microphones for the band include Shure Beta 52, Beta 91 for the kick, Beta 57 and Beyerdynamic Opus 87 for the toms, and a smattering of Audio Technica AT4050’s, Firefly DI on the bass and a couple of Coles 4038 ribbon mics on trumpet and saxophone, which sound very warm and smooth in the high end.

Gallery

February 7, 2018
Paul McCartney 2017

Two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, 21-time Grammy Award winner and recipient of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire Sir Paul McCartney brought his acclaimed long-running One On One Tour to Australia this December, his first Australian tour since 1993’s The New World Tour more than 24 years ago.

The show featured nearly three hours’ worth of the greatest moments from the last 50 years of music, dozens of songs that have formed the soundtracks of our lives. FOH engineer Paul Boothroyd – known more commonly in the industry as Pab – has been with Sir Paul for a fair portion of this journey.

“I first started working for him in 1989,” said Pab. “As well as being on stage for three hours, he also does a one hour sound check every day. With line checks and system checks as well, I’m probably behind the console twiddling knobs for five hours so it’s quite an extensive day technically.”

That FOH console was an Avid Venue S6L which Pab has used ever since it was released and he describes it as one of the best consoles on the market. Pab’s S6L carries dialed-in snapshots for more than 100 songs.

“It’s very powerful and has massive capability,” remarked Pab. “My vocal chain for Paul is fairly straightforward; I’m using a Sonnox Oxford EQ and Avid Pro compressor. For effects there are some general reverbs (short, medium and large), a little bit of delay ADT and that’s it. There’s no playback or inputs from anywhere else, it’s all live.”

Plug-ins that are used sparingly include Smack!, ReVibe II, ReVibe I on drums and Mod Delay III.

JPJ Audio supplied the crew and gear for the tour including their Clair Brothers’ Cohesion Series for PA. At the Sydney show indoors at Qudos Bank Arena, Pab had sixteen CO12 L+R, fourteen CO12 LL+RR, twelve CO12 LLL+RRR, six CP218 Subs flown per side, three CP218 Subs per side ground stacked and twelve CO8 for front fill.

“It’s absolutely the PA of choice for me,” said Pab. “I find it very flexible, light, and simple to manage. It delivers great results and is very accurate.”

The stage is fairly loud with only Wixy (musical director/multi-instrumentalist Paul “Wix” Wickens) wearing IEMs. The rest of the band opts for Clair R4 sidefills with ML18 subs and SRM wedges. Monitor engineer John “Grubby” Callis uses an analog Midas Heritage H3000.

“It’s very old-school rock and roll,” says Pab. “It’s loud sidefills and wedges up there because he likes to rock out.”

Microphones were a mixed bag with Pabs never swayed by fashion or freebies preferring to apply the correct microphone to suit the job.

“I like Audix on the drums and Shure for the vocals,” he added. “Paul’s very happy with the SM58A because he’s used to it – there may be a better microphone to suit his vocals these days but he is very used to what he has had for the past thirty years. So why change?”

Having not toured Australia for a good few years, Pab says he was very pleased to be greeted with such a professional JPJ team, a very happy team who just dealt with anything that was asked.

“Thanks JPJ for the fun and hard work, greatly appreciated,” he added.

One On One Tour Crew

Back row: Joel Larson, Alex McCormack, Tim Seconi, and Andrew Dowling SE from Clair Global
Front row: Tech Sean Baca, FOH engineer Paul ‘Pab’ Boothroyd, monitor engineer John ‘Grubby’ Callis, and monitors system engineer Paul Swan.

December 12, 2017
SIA Nostalgic for the Present tour

SIA’s Nostalgic for the Present tour delivered three stadium shows: Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland.

FOH engineer Jon Lemon has known SIA for most of her life and has been doing gigs for her on and off since 2002. When he wasn’t out on tour with the big name acts he works for, he would do the clubs and small theatres with her. Today SIA is an international music star and Jon is still there at FOH, albeit mixing in a stadium rather than a club.

“It’s a very organized show,” said Jon. “The biggest challenge was putting it all together in the first place as it’s mostly playback in terms of the music. The brief I had was to make it feel like it was live but also sound like the record with SIA then singing live on top of it.
“I see it a lot with hip hop and rap where it’s just the artist and a DJ with minimum amount of stems and the engineer has just got nowhere to go and nuance it like the record. The environment changes the audio all the time, it might be a gig sucking out all the percussive stuff or over emphasizing the bass and you need control over all of those things.”

A DiGiCo guy through and through, Jon was using an SD5 with a couple of Waves Servers on it plus a little bit of outboard; Waves MaxxBass, a few Maag EQ4’s and Smart C2 compressors to keep it all in control and even the sound out. “SIA has a big voice so I use Waves Renaissance compressors as well as their 1176 limiters on her vocals as she is so dynamic,” said Jon. “It’s pretty dialed in and quite simple because we did a lot of the work beforehand, in this modern way of doing things.”

Jon has around fifty inputs on his DiGiCo SD5, all split up and presented like it’s a live band playing – with more consistency than usual and less egos!

“A lot of people may think it’s complicated but I don’t because I have been so close to the music and the process of it,” elaborated Jon. “I know how she sings and I know how to ride it around to keep it level. As everything is so consistent we have a pretty good result most of the time. A lot of modern music is about the system engineer and how the company sets up the system. When I first started out, I was doing it all but realized a few years back that the complexities of these big venues, with networking, delays, and timing, is best left to someone else so I can concentrate on the art part of it. Of course, I oversee it all and will walk the room …. but on this tour I have one of the best L-Acoustics system engineer and designers in the business which makes my life easier.”

That system tech is Vic Wagner who, alongside JPJ Audio’s Mats Frankl, ensured the L-Acoustics K1 / K2 PA was tuned, timed and ready for action. Multiple delay towers and rings were required to cover the stadium as much as possible, delivering maximum SPL possible without upsetting the EPA people.

Jon reports that he had complete faith in his support team of Mats Frankl, JPJ Audio’s Bob Daniels and Vic Wagner commenting that the entire JPJ crew impressed him.

“The L-Acoustics K1 is a really reliable PA and sounds great,” added Jon. “We had two main hangs, subs across the front, sides a mixture of K1 and K2 and then four K2 delay towers. It all worked perfectly.”

SIA has always used a trusty Shure SM58 microphone and according to Jon, she always will.

“I’d like to change it but she is so used to using the SM58 dynamically its part of the way she sings,” he explained. “That’s why I use the Maag EQ4’s as analogue inserts because they have the airband on them which means you can actually make an SM58 sound like an expensive microphone!”

Jon remarked that he had a great JPJ crew on the tour and, seeing as he worked for JPJ when it was Jands Production Services many moons ago and he knows so many staff, he sees working with JPJ as a family event …..in fact he wouldn’t even consider using anyone else in Australia.

Jon will be touring Australia with Roger Waters early next year and again he will reunite with JPJ Audio.

December 2, 2017
Ariana Grande

The world’s biggest pop sensation, Ariana Grande, bought her Dangerous Woman Tour to Australia this September and JPJ Audio joined her on the road!

Ariana Grande may be tiny, but her voice is big enough to drown out a stadium packed with thousands of screaming fans …. with a little help from a Clair Cohesion PA and her FOH engineer Simon ‘Si’ Thomas.

Toby Francis, Ariana’s usual FOH engineer, asked Si to replace him at the helm of the DiGiCo SD7 last May as he left to work on Katie Perry’s new tour.

The Clair Cohesion PA has been utilized for her entire tour, unless unavailable in a country and then an L-Acoustics K1 or d&b J series stepped in, and it’s a system that Si is more than happy to have inherited. In Sydney, Ariana played the ICC Sydney Theatre with sixteen CO-12 per side in the main hang, twelve CO-12 per side in the side hang and three CP-218 flown per side in cardioid. Another six CP-218 per side were ground stacked in cardioid. Infills were Clair CO-8.

“It’s very compact and light weight compared to other line arrays in its class and it’s got lots of headroom,” commented Si. “It has a really good high/mid which is very smooth. With this kind of music there’s a lot of odd sub content that goes down really low with which the CP-218’s do a really good job. The CP-218 sub is particularly good, it’s very powerful.” Si described the ICC Sydney Theatre as an ‘interesting’ venue but at the end of the day, he was happy with the result.

“No one had flown subs in there like we did and I believe that made a lot of difference because if there’s too much down on the floor, it’s pointless,” he said. “Once you get some sub higher up, it works really well. I had heard horror stories about the venue but it was fine and quite decent sounding. Although getting in and out of it is a pain in the arse!”

FOH there is a fair amount of analogue involvement, with Si using the SD7’s subgroups to route out through Lake Processors which convert the digital to analogue. “I then have a Neve Portico 5059 Satellite 16×2+2 Summing Mixer and within that I’ve inserted various types of compression – Smart C2 for the drums, Crane Song STC-8 for the music, backing vocals a Tube-Tech SMC 2B multiband optical compressor and for Ariana’s vocal a Rupert Neve Shelford Channel,” explained Si. “The various compressors are on the A Channel side of the Portico summing mixer, which are then all fed to the B side of the summing mixer to create a master mix which has a Portico II Master Buss compressor across it. Then that would then output and come back into the Master Buss return insert point of the SD7 with yet another Lake, converting to AES. Basically it’s a like one big insert chain.”

Added to that were a couple of TC M5000’s used for drum and vocal reverbs. Si readily admits that it took him a bit of time to get his head around what was going on but concludes that the system works very well.

Ariana uses a Sennheiser MD 5235 dynamic microphone capsule with a Lake inserted across her channel so all of her vocal EQ’s are done in the Lake and not the console. In fact a lot of the serious work is not done in the DiGiCo which is basically being used as a big router! The Digico channel expander was used on the vocal to keep the noise floor down so when Ariana is in front of the thrust and is not singing, you’re not hearing the room noise or PA.

“I’m using a Telefunken M82 kick drum mic which is really, really nice,” added Si. “I also have Telefunken M81’s for the snare drums but the rest of the mics are fairly standard.”

Vish Wadi also used a DiGiCo SD7 to run monitors with everyone using Sennheiser 2050 IEMs plus there are flown sidefills, some CM-22 stage monitors on the floor for the dancers and CP-118’s providing sub onstage for the band.

“The Australian tour was good fun and we really enjoyed it,” said Si. “To be honest, it was quite easy …. partly due to my system tech Jerrell Evans and the JPJ crew of Tim Seconi and Alex McComark, who were good lads.”

September 15, 2017