JPS Australia

History

Soundwave Festival 2010

This year’s soundwave festival was a sell-out success and rocked Australia. With bands like Faith no More, Placebo, AFI, Paramore, Jimmy Eat World, Janes Addiction and many more it made for a huge few weeks.
The festival kicked off in Brisbane and ran over 2 long weekends.

With the 2 overnight festival events, JAS supplied the audio for the main stages 1 & 2 and it was decided this year to tour the systems and duplicate the audio. V-Dosc speakers were used to provide consistency throughout the festivals and sideshows at the Horden Pavilion and Festival hall which both have in-house V-Dosc systems.

JAS supplied a total of 10 Digidesign Profile console systems and also Jamie Davidson as the console tech for the entire run.

Dates

February 20-21, 26-27
March 1

SYSTEM A

Main stage 1 & 2
36 x V-Dosc over 3 x 12 hangs
36 x SB218
12 x ARC

FOH Consoles

3 x Digidesign Profile consoles
1 x Digidesign D-show

Monitor consoles

2 x Yamaha PM5D consoles
1 x Digidesign Profile
1 x Digidesign D-show

Stage monitors

24 x Wayloud wedges
16 x Nexo PS15 wedges
4 x Nexo Alpha side-fill systems

JAS Crew

FOH system tech: Jock Bain
FOH system tech: Nathan McGuinness
Monitor system Tech: Mathew “Boz” Boaro
Monitor system Tech: Dave Leggatt
Audio system tech: Shaun Ayles
Audio system tech: Stephen Brown
Audio system tech: Jamie Davidson

SYSTEM B

Main stage 1 & 2
36 x V-Dosc over 3 x 12 hangs
36 x Wayloud SB218
12 x ARC

FOH Consoles

3 x Digidesign Profile consoles
1 x Digidesign D-show

Monitor consoles

2 x Yamaha PM5D consoles
1 x Digidesign Profile
1 x Digidesign D-show

Stage monitors

24 x Wayloud wedges
16 x Nexo PS15 wedges
4 x Nexo Alpha sidefill systems

JAS Crew

FOH system tech: Peter O’leary
FOH system tech: Josh DeJong
Monitor system Tech: Richie Robinson
Monitor system Tech: Mark Nicholls
Audio system tech: Nahuel Gutierrez
Audio system tech: Otavio ‘Guto!!’ Santos
Audio system tech: Scott Barry

Rob Thomas 2010

Rob Thomas hit Australia for the first time on a solo tour and a D&B system was requested. Jim Yakaistori contacted us and mentioned he was keen to us the J system and ran us through what he was looking for. It ended up being quite a substantial setup.

JAS supplied 2 x 96ch Digidesign console systems with 2 x HD3 pro-tools recording/playback systems.

A surprise at the Melbourne show was INXS who turned up and played the last 3 songs with Rob Thomas with a hint of what might be coming later in the year.

The tour ran through a combination of arenas and wineries throughout Australia.

DATES

February 12-13

SYSTEM

48 x D&B J8 & J12 line array boxes.
16 x D&B J-Subs. There was a combination of flown and ground sub J-subs.
16 x D&B M2 wedges
Digidesign 96ch FOH console
Digidesign Pro-tools HD3 system FOH
Digidesign 96ch FOH monitor console
Digidesign Pro-tools HD3 system Monitors

JAS crew

FOH system tech: Doug Pringle
Monitor system Tech: Conor Dunne
Audio system tech: Nicholas Brunney

Pearl Jam 2009

Story & photos by Cat Strom. Originally published in Pro Audio Asia

Excessive temperatures and strict noise pollution controls faced Pearl Jam and their crew at their massive outdoor gig at Sydney’s Football Stadium in support of their latest release, Backspacer. This was also the tour that Australian rental-company and long-standing L-Acoustics Rental Network Agent, Jands Production Services (JPS) was using to debut its new K1/Kudo line array system.

JPS – along with several of the world’s leading rental companies – are collaborating with the L- Acoustics R&D team in advanced field proofing of the new system that is specifically designed for stadiums. As a result the company has taken delivery of one of the limited number of K1 systems in the pilot programme. “The new K1 isn’t intended as a replacement for V-Dosc,” explains Jim Straw, JPS general manager. “The combination of K1 and Kudo is aimed at providing a scaled solution for large venues with Kudo providing a flexible horizontal and greater vertical dispersion, while the K1 offers fixed horizontal dispersion with a maximum of 5° inter-element angles for larger venues.

Pearl Jam’s FOH engineer, Greg Nelson, first heard the K1 system at Coachella, admitting that he was ‘blown away’ with how much sub bass could be achieved out of the main flown system. “Ratsound, our sound provider in the US, had purchased the system and I got to preview it at last year”s Coachella festival. I was wildly impressed with the performance,” he says. “The box just sounded better than anything else I had ever heard – straight out flat, just turn it on and go.
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JPS purchase a Digidesign Venue console

JPS has added a Digidesign VENUE D-Show™ system to its already extensive range of consoles.Digidesign Venue
Greg Nelson pictured with the Digidesign Venue console at Sydney’s Acer Arena

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