Priscilla had its World Premiere at the Lyric Theatre, Sydney in 2006, and
is now headed for the Regent Theatre, Melbourne.

Photo - Josh Neufeld

JPS used the Kylie tour to debut one of its new Dolby Lake Processor (DLP) drive racks made up of 4 x LP4D12 units and a Motion 1200 wireless tablet.

“They sound very, very nice,” said Pat Richardson, JPS’s crew chief. “I believe that they are quite a marked development audio wise and you can definitely hear the difference.” Other JPS crew on the tour includes Cameron Elias, Dave Richardson and Simon Farrell.

Chris Pyne is also trialing an experimental convolution reverb that Dolby/Lake has produced

“As far as I know it’s the only one that exists,” Chris revealed. “It can alter parameters by computer, convolution reverbs are usually just a sampled space such as a room and that’s all you get. This model has sampled spaces that you can adjust the parameters on and that’s very interesting. Bruce Jackson, who works for Dolby, spoke about this prototype when I visited him in the US recently where he is doing front of house for Barbra Streisand.”

Dolby Live Sound

Speaking about the purchase JPS General manager, Jim Straw, said ”JPS purchased the Digidesign VENUE as part of our commitment to supplying the latest technology to our clients. Due to its stable platform, reliability and constant appearance on technical riders. We are now the first rental company in Australia to offer a fully optioned 96ch D-Show Console.”

The Digidesign VENUE console has made its debut for JPS on the current Pearl Jam tour with front of house engineer Greg Nelson in the drivers seat. Having graduated from a Midas XL4 to a Yamaha PM5D last year, Greg decided to switch to the VENUE console four months ago.

“I’m very comfortable operating the VENUE,” stated Greg at the band’s sold-out Sydney gig. “It’s laid out so well and is very user friendly. It sounds fantastic and makes my job so much easier. I can go anywhere with just my USB key, plug into the console and my whole mix is up. I believe that making the switch from an analogue console to the VENUE is easier than any other digital console. You’re not consciously thinking about how to do things, you just find yourself doing it instinctively. It makes the mixing more emotion driven than cerebral.”

Greg believes that the wide variety of plug-ins available for the VENUE bring a whole new element to a live digital console. “They add all sorts of different colour to everything,” he said. “It makes the console a lot of fun to mix on.”

The Pearl Jam audio rig supplied by JPS also included an L-Acoustics V-DOSC speaker system, Crown amplifiers and BSS system drive whilst the band tours its own monitoring equipment.

“JPS has been fantastic and Paul Schofield in particular has taken great care of me,” added Greg. “When turned on, the PA sounded just as it should and that’s all you can ask for. Everything I requested via email was here and working perfectly. The JPS crew (Tristan Johnson, Guy Gilchrest and Tim Seconi) are nice, pleasant to be around and it’s been a really good experience.”

Digidesign

Photo: Jim Straw, JPS General Manager, Justin Baird, Product Manager, Dolby Live Sound Group, and Brad Adamson, JPS Operations Manager, show off some of the new monitor racks.

The new monitor racks debuted in September on a national concert tour by Australian electro-rock band Rogue Traders. ‘This is the best monitor system I have ever heard, they sound absolutely fantastic.’ said monitor engineer Ben Shapiro after the event. ‘After I ran the 12AMs with the new Clair Dolby Lake Processor presets, I left my outboard equalisers back at the shop.’

The Dolby Lake Processor provides a unique set of features for monitoring applications, including reference quality audio converters, the Iso-FloatT ground isolation system, and patented low-latency sample rate conversion. Coupled with the SmaartLiveT Controller, the Dolby Lake Controller integrates RTA and Spectrograph displays within the EQ user interface to provide immediate identification of feedback and spectrum analysis.
Dolby Live Sound

Sound designer Michael Waters - who won a Helpmann Award for Best Sound Design for Dusty: The Musical - specified a L-ACOUSTICS V DOSC system which includes 36 V-DOSC, 27 dV-DOSC, 4 ARCS and 18 SB218 subwoofers. Jim Straw, general manager of Jands Production Services, stated that, “The Boy from Oz is a complex and ambitious arena musical theatre spectacular. This production has unique audio requirements and demands a very different approach to live concert arena tours. Jands Production Services provided a complete audio solution for the tour which included design and technical expertise, eight sound operators and technicians, along with the latest state of the art equipment including a V-DOSC speaker system.”
ABC review

Photo - Jeff Busby