Bruce Jackson (audio engineer)
Encyclopedia
Bruce Jackson was an Australian audio engineer who co-founded JANDS, an Australian audio, lighting and staging company. He joined American touring audio engineer Roy Clair and mixed concert stage monitors
for Elvis Presley
in the 1970s. With Clair Brothers, a concert sound company, Jackson designed audio electronics including a custom mixing console
. Beginning in 1978, Jackson toured as Bruce Springsteen
's band engineer for a decade, using Clair Brothers sound systems. A business interest in Fairlight CMI
in Sydney introduced Jackson to digital audio
, and he subsequently founded the digital audio company Apogee Electronics
in Santa Monica, California
, where he lived at the time. After selling his share of Apogee, Jackson co-founded with Roy and Tony Clair a joint venture which produced the Clair iO, a loudspeaker management system for control of complex concert sound systems. Jackson turned the venture commercial with the help of Dave McGrath's Lake Technology. Dolby Laboratories
bought the technology and formed Dolby Lake with Jackson as vice president, then in 2009 Lab.gruppen
acquired the brand. Jackson was honored with the Parnelli Innovator Award in 2005 for his inventive loudspeaker controller.
While still a partner at Apogee, Jackson began touring with Barbra Streisand
, mixing concert sound and serving as sound designer from 1993 to 2007. With two other audio engineers he received an Emmy Award
for sound design and sound mixing on Streisand's TV special Barbra: The Concert. Jackson worked on sound design for the 2000 Summer Olympics
in Sydney and served as audio director for the opening and closing ceremonies. He performed the same role in Doha
, Qatar, at the 2006 Asian Games
and in Vancouver, Canada, at the 2010 Winter Olympics
.
. His wealthy parents moved to a mansion in Point Piper
, a seacoast suburb east of Sydney in the district of Vaucluse
, New South Wales. (The mansion, "Altona", is one of Australia's most expensive homes.) Jackson first expressed an interest in electronics at age 13 when he set up a basement workbench and small lab under his parents' mansion. While at Vaucluse Boys' High School
, Jackson was discovered by investigators of the Postmaster-General's Department
, along with a group of his electronics-minded schoolmates, operating a too-powerful AM transmitter
—a pirate radio
station which the boys powered up after school, tuned to the upper end of the commercial AM band to avoid more powerful commercial signals. The boys did not know that their tube transmitter and very long, very efficient antenna were so well crafted that their unlicensed signal was broadcasting all over Sydney.
At age 17 or 18, Jackson and one of the boys, Phil Storey, became partners in business. They used their surname initials to form the company name: J&S Research Electronics. The partnership's largest customer, Roger Foley, doing business as Ellis D Fogg
, a producer of psychedelic lighting effects, refused to write out the full company name and instead wrote JandS on his checks. The company changed its name to JANDS in response. After moving the company from Point Piper to Rose Bay, JANDS made "whatever the hell they felt like", according to Jackson: lighting equipment, guitar amplifier
s and public address system components such as column loudspeakers. He described how, with so many American servicemen stationed in Vietnam spending their recreation time in Sydney, Australian bands and clubs were doing well: "the live music scene was jumping, and we were busy". JANDS' successful rental business paid for the design of new gear. After two years, Jackson quarreled with Storey and left the company. Later, JANDS grew "to become Australia's largest sound and lighting company."
when they stopped at Sydney for a concert held at Randwick Racecourse
. Clair had brought his unusually large American concert sound system to Australia and Jackson was curious to hear it, and to see how the big black 'W' bins were designed. He and a friend sneaked into the concert and spoke with Clair, asking "a whole stack of questions". Clair decided to leave his sound system in Jackson's hands for a series of Johnny Cash
tour dates coming up in some six months, rather than shipping all the gear home to the USA and back in between. Jackson stored the system and then mixed the Cash tour across Australia. Afterward, Clair invited Jackson to visit him in Lititz, Pennsylvania
. Following a trip to London, Jackson stopped in at Clair Brothers and stayed to live in Pennsylvania.
Jackson assisted Clair Brothers by teaming with Ron Borthwick to design a mixing console
that folded up into its own road case
, a proprietary model used by Clair Brothers for some 12 years of top tours. The console used novel plasma bargraph meters which displayed both average and peak sound levels, combining the characteristics of fast peak meter
s and slower VU meter
s. Clair Brothers built 10 of the consoles, the first live sound console to incorporate parametric equalization.
Working for Clair Brothers, Jackson toured with Elvis Presley
, mixing monitors while independent engineer Bill Porter mixed front of house
(FOH) for the audience. Clair Brothers supplied all the audio gear; Jackson designed a powerful stage monitor system for Presley's show. To make more room for audience seating, he also used a sound reinforcement system
that was not mounted on scaffolding but hung with steel chain above the audience from overhead beams, using chain hoists rigged upside down to raise the loudspeakers from the floor—a now-common method used by licensed riggers
. Jackson has said that he made a number of concert recordings during this period, all unreleased.
The earliest of these Clair Brothers-supported dates did not have a dedicated monitor engineer—monitors were mixed from FOH by Porter, assisted by Jackson. Jackson noticed that Presley's performance was very much dependent on how easily he was able to hear himself from the monitor speakers. Jackson said, "some nights would work well and others would be a total train wreck." He advocated for a separate monitor mixing position at the side of the stage and after overcoming resistance to the concept was given this dedicated position. Asked whether he thus invented the role of concert monitor engineer, Jackson replied, "no, not really. It was more that its time had just come."
Jackson had to deal with Presley's absence from rehearsals at Graceland
and concert soundcheck
s. The singer would usually show up at the concert venue at the last minute, walk out on stage and start to sing, having never heard the sound system. Presley sometimes turned to the side of the stage to ask Jackson to make changes, and a few times he stopped the show to have Jackson come out and stand center stage and listen carefully to the monitors while Presley sang to 20,000 people. One night in Fort Worth, Texas
, Presley led the audience in singing "Happy Birthday to You
" in honor of the engineer's birthday—an "amazing, and very embarrassing" occasion for Jackson. Jackson can be seen at his side-stage mix position in Presley's 1977 "CBS Special" TV show. At Presley's final performance on 26 June 1977, he said "I would like to thank my sound engineer: Bruce Jackson from Australia."
Touring with Presley was like no other assignment. Presley and his entourage traveled in four or five jets to the next tour stop: one for Elvis and his closest colleagues, one for the band, one for Colonel Tom Parker
(Presley's manager), one for concessions and crew, and a Learjet used by RCA Records
management who would fly ahead of everyone else. For two weeks during June and July 1973, Elvis flew on an all-black DC-9
airliner with a Playboy logo
on the tail; the aircraft was named Big Bunny. Jackson said he and the other Elvis-chosen passengers were served food and drinks by elite Playboy Bunnies
called "Jet Bunnies".
Parker managed the concert tours for Presley, and exerted a strong influence. Jackson quit his job while on tour after he was "pushed too far" by Parker, according to Roy Clair. Presley apologized to Jackson, and he rejoined the tour as an independent engineer, answering only to Presley. Jackson mixed hundreds of concerts for the singer, who called him "Bruce the Goose"—a working life filled with strange hours, hard physical labor and constant traveling. In August 1977 he was in Portland, Maine
setting up at the next Presley engagement when he heard he had died.
As an independent engineer, Jackson signed a contract to work directly for Bruce Springsteen
, on concert tours supported by Clair Brothers. Jackson mixed Springsteen on four major tours from 1978 to 1988, and is credited as engineer on the album Live/1975–85. The tours include Darkness
, The River
, Born in the U.S.A.
and Tunnel of Love Express
. Prior to each tour, Springsteen and the E-Street Band practiced at Clair Brothers in Lititz to check out new sound system components and lighting effects, and to give crew members a chance to work out the technical details. Jackson mixed the rehearsals and concerts on the folding console he designed for Clair Brothers. Springsteen called him "BJ".
Right away, Jackson noticed that Springsteen was a very particular critic of his own concert sound. At every new venue, Springsteen would take "BJ" around to various seats in the concert venue, sitting in every section, even the last row of seats, and listen to the E-Street Band play. He asked Jackson why the sound was not so good far away as it was up close, and if the audio crew could do anything about it. Jackson said, "we can do a lot about it", and worked with Clair Brothers to design a ring of delay loudspeakers positioned closer to the farthest seats to augment the high frequencies lost over distance by sound waves traveling through air. This made the hi-hat
sound more "crisp and clean", with higher quality sound in the back row than previously experienced in such large venues. Throughout Jackson's years with him, Springsteen maintained his interest in delivering high quality sound to every seat, and the solutions grew in size and complexity until by 1984 there were eight rings of delays set up for the largest venues.
In 1985 for the Born in the U.S.A. tour, Jackson arrived at a "checkerboard" configuration of loudspeakers which were supplied with nominal left and right stereo signals, the signals connected throughout the sound system in an alternating pattern of vertical lines of eight loudspeakers each, giving the audience a semblance of stereo imaging
otherwise impractical on such a large scale. A reporter from Popular Mechanics
described the 160 main and 40 auxiliary loudspeakers typically used at a large arena or stadium. Jackson set the main loudspeakers 54 feet (16.5 m) high on scaffolding, each enclosure
holding two 18-inch low-frequency cone drivers, four 10-inch mid-frequency cone drivers, two high-mid compression drivers and two high-frequency compression drivers. The auxiliary zones covered audience areas which wrapped around to the sides of the stage. The 200 loudspeakers were driven by 96 amplifier channels capable of putting out a total of 380,000 watts. The tour was said to have drawn "unusual critical acclaim for crispness and distortion-free performances." Jackson was nominated for a TEC Award as 1985's best sound reinforcement engineer but Gene Clair received the honor.
Jackson worked closely with individual musicians in Springsteen's band to help them achieve the sound they wanted. Keyboard player Danny Federici
received attention from John Stilwell and Jackson who collaborated in modifying his cut-down Hammond B-3 organ. Clarence Clemons
came to Jackson with his ideas about microphones; subsequently, the sound of his saxophones was picked up by a device invented jointly by Clemons and Jackson. Bassist Garry Tallent
described the elements of his bass rig to a reporter then summed up its overall effect by saying, "the rest is up to God and Bruce Jackson."
Jackson was close to Presley, but the two men were not near in age. Springsteen was closer to Jackson's age and the two got along as friends, the singer giving a Jeep
off-road vehicle
as a gift in thanks for his contribution to successful concerts. Jackson said of the Jeep that he sold it after tiring of "bouncing around the place in it." In 1988, Jackson quit touring at the birth of his son Lindsey. He settled in Santa Monica, California, to concentrate on audio electronics ideas.
's producer asked him to mix her first concert tour in decades. Jackson signed on partly because he was assured he could do anything to make her concert sound as good as possible. Jackson determined that huge concert venues such as Wembley Stadium
and Madison Square Garden
would be carpeted for Streisand, and that expensive heavy drapes would be hung at the walls to damp sound reflections. After discovering that Streisand did not like to listen to any stage monitors made after the 1960s, he designed a stage wedge which used soft dome drivers for midrange and for high frequencies rather than the more powerful compression drivers in common use after the 1970s. As well, the main sound system Jackson specified was a new design by Clair Brothers, a proprietary line array
system called the I4. Streisand was not willing to wear in-ear monitors but the band was fitted with them, to reduce stage wash
and make the band's instruments stand out better individually in the mix. The stage monitors, line array and extravagant acoustic treatments were a hit with Streisand, who said of Jackson that he was "the best sound engineer in the world."
Streisand employed Jackson's mixing talents on her 1995 TV special called Barbra: The Concert. Along with Ed Greene and Bob La Masney who worked on post-production mixing, he received an Emmy Award
for sound design and the mixing of the live show. Jackson designed the sound for Streisand's 1999–2000 Timeless: Live in Concert Tour, and he mixed the New Year's Eve concert 31 December 1999 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas
. He mixed Streisand's appearances in Sydney and Melbourne in March 2000, connecting the large backing choir's sound mix by optical fibre from a nearby polo field where the choir was stationed. The fibre connection was Jackson's real-world test of a similar setup planned to be used for the Summer Olympics six months later.
Jackson mixed Streisand's U.S. and world tours in 2006 and 2007
, using a Digidesign
Venue
digital mixing console at FOH for its smaller footprint (allowing more audience seats) and its plug-in audio effects. As well, the Venue mixing system was chosen for its integration with Pro Tools
hardware and software, to make 128-channel hard disk recordings
of the concerts directly from the three Digidesign consoles: one to mix strings
, one to mix brass, reeds and percussion, and one under Jackson's control out in the audience, with Streisand's microphone inputs and stems (submixes of other microphones) from the other consoles. The recordings made in New York City and Washington, D.C. were remixed into the album Live In Concert 2006
—Jackson was listed as sound designer. Sharing sound designer and FOH mixing duties with Chris Carlton, Jackson made certain that the custom soft dome monitor wedges were positioned correctly aiming up from under the stage to cover everywhere Streisand might walk. Clair Brothers supplied 18 Dolby Lake Processors for the tour, the majority used by Jackson to tune
the main sound system, and the rest for control of monitor wedges used by Streisand and by the supporting artist, Il Divo
. For Streisand's voice, Jackson auditioned several wireless microphone
s and ended up using a Sennheiser
SKM 5200 transmitter equipped with a Neumann
KK 105 S supercardioid capsule. He used the vocal microphone to test the sound system from different locations around the arena. When the tour hit the UK and continental Europe, Jackson changed from a Neumann to a Røde Microphones
capsule, custom made to his requirements; one that Røde called the "Jackson Special". Jackson used Millennia microphone preamps
for any microphone that was required to be sent to multiple mixing consoles, such as at Madison Square Garden where cable runs to the recording trucks were 800 feet (243.8 m) long. The use of only one preamp prevents the microphone output from being loaded down by too little resistance which can change its tone quality.
, Stevie Wonder
, Rod Stewart
and the Faces
, Barry White
, Jefferson Airplane
, Ozzy Osbourne
, Carly Simon
, Three Dog Night
, The Jackson 5
, Cat Stevens
, Glen Campbell
, Art Garfunkel
, Procol Harum
and Lou Reed
. During 1983 when Springsteen was not touring, Jackson mixed sound for Stevie Nicks
on The Wild Heart Tour, June to November 1983. Fourteen years later he mixed for Fleetwood Mac
during their live performances recorded in Burbank
for MTV, released as the album The Dance
.
of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) to mix sound for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney. Jackson felt that his skills would be put to best use as organizer and audio director rather than as one man behind a mixing console. He put together a team of audio professionals as well as an equipment design composed of digital nodes linked with optic fibre to transport digital audio around the largest venues without attenuation or ground hum
. To wire the spectacle which played to 110,000 people in attendance and some 3 billion distant viewers around the world, redundant systems were connected throughout so that a single failure point could not halt the show. To complete the assignment, Jackson said one of the main factors was working within budget, which was not unlimited as it had been with Streisand. He served as audio director for the opening ceremony
on 15 September and the closing ceremony on 1 October. Before the event, he told a reporter, "I have a well rehearsed crew in place and there is every reason to expect it to go well."
In December 2006, Jackson served as audio director at the 15th Asian Games
, held in Doha
, Qatar. The main loudspeakers for the opening and closing ceremonies were the KUDO model from L-ACOUSTICS
. Jackson found that extreme heat and occasional downpours did not adversely affect the Optocore fibre audio connections around the largest venues. Digital audio was passed to a combination of Lake Contour and Dolby Lake Processors.
Following his success in Sydney, Jackson was tapped to direct the audio design and production at the 2010 Winter Olympics
in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where he directed the opening ceremony
and the closing ceremony
. His sound design for BC Place Stadium
did not have loudspeakers at ground level aimed up at the seating areas—Jackson determined that this approach would produce too much uncontrolled reverberation from sound waves bouncing off the ceiling. Instead, he configured two rings of loudspeakers hung from the ceiling 100 ft (30 m) above the ground, aimed downward. The inner ring held 8 arrays each composed of 12 Clair Brothers i3 line array speakers and the outer ring held 12 arrays of 7 Clair Brothers i3 line array speakers, augmented by 16 subwoofer
s. The lot was powered by 160 Lab.gruppen amplifiers which were also hung from the ceiling, and were networked via Dante
in a triple-redundant configuration. Two DiGiCo
D5 digital mixing console
s served as main and backup for the main audience sound, and two Yamaha
PM1Ds handled main and backup duties for monitor mixing. Other equipment included dual-redundant Optocore fibre connections, two Dolby Lake Processors, and time code generated by two pairs of Fairlights which also handled audio cues timed to the action on the field.
Jackson directed sound for the 2010 Shanghai Expo opening ceremony
, held on 30 April 2010. He used four Fairlight digital audio systems to replay music cues, connected to Studer
routing and distribution gear which supplied signal to Soundcraft
digital mixers and an analogue mixer. Some 64 kilometres (39.8 mi) of fibre optic cable in a dual-redundant star topology connected 72 amplifier racks along both sides of the Huangpu River
. Each amp rack held a BSS Audio loudspeaker controller and multiple Crown International
amplifiers, pushing audio signal to more than 400 JBL
loudspeakers.
, a digital sampler
made by fellow Australians Peter Vogel
and Kim Ryrie. (Ryrie grew up in Point Piper next to Jackson's house.) The earliest Fairlights were prohibitively expensive, and their 24 kHz sampling rate was not considered high enough for audio mastering, but Jackson found that musicians immediately discovered how useful the Fairlight was for composition. Rick Wakeman
explored the sampler, as did Tony Bongiovi
, founder of the Power Station recording studio in New York City. There, Springsteen was shown the sampler and said, "Ah yeah, BJ that's great, but what am I gonna do with it?"
None of Jackson's prospects bought one in the first year. He had better luck with Herbie Hancock
, Stevie Wonder
, and Geordie Hormel
who bought two for $27,500 each. Wonder, who had recently recorded Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants" using a Computer Music Melodian sampler, paid for his Fairlight by signing a personal check with his thumbprint. He then convinced Jackson to mix sound for a tour he was undertaking in support of Secret Life of Plants. Jackson's close association with Fairlight made him intimately aware of the limitations of early digital audio
, "weaknesses" such as noise and inharmonic distortion.
During an April 1985 Springsteen tour leg in Japan, Jackson first listened to Compact Discs played on a CD player connected to his concert sound system, and he did not like what he heard.
in December 1985 (announced in the 23 November issue of Billboard
) and started investigating 44 kHz digital audio circuits for audible problems. They found that "textbook filters" which were unnecessarily steep were protecting the CD player output from high levels of 20 kHz signals, an exceedingly unlikely occurrence in music. Jackson determined that Apogee could improve the sound of CDs if the low-pass filter
s used in the recording process were made less steep, for less phase shift throughout the hearing range. The small company produced better anti-aliasing filter
s for recording equipment. Initially operating out of his garage, Jackson served as the company's owner and president, and his third wife Bennett headed up sales. They demonstrated their first product at the Audio Engineering Society
's 81st convention held in Los Angeles in November 1986: the 944 Series low-dispersion, linear phase, active low-pass filter, intended to replace existing filters on multi-track digital tape recorders such as the Sony
PCM-3324. After a slow start, the firm sold 30,000 of the filters: "a great success." The 944 earned a TEC Award in 1988, the first of many such awards for Apogee.
Apogee's branding was largely Jackson's doing. Bennett said in 2005 that the company's decision to sell purple-colored products was one of Jackson's ideas: "He has a good eye for design, and we wanted to distinguish ourselves from the all-black rack gear that everybody had at that point." Jackson encouraged a lighting designer from Clair Brothers to sketch a company logo on a cocktail napkin over dinner one evening, and that was immediately made the Apogee logo.
In 1994, Jackson spoke to a Billboard reporter about digital audio. Described as Apogee's president and chief engineer, he said, "digital is finally living up to the warm, natural sound of analog that we know and love." A decade later, he warned against the belief that bigger specification numbers guarantee better sound quality. He noted that 192 kHz sampling rate was often cited as being better than 96 kHz because of it being twice as fast "when in reality there's a whole bunch of other influencing factors responsible for any audible improvements."
Jackson and Bennett divorced in the mid-1990s and he sold his share of Apogee to finance the divorce settlement. Company co-founder Bennett became CEO.
by an audio engineer walking around to various seating sections in a concert venue, to tailor the system's response more precisely.
Jackson then joined with Dave McGrath of Lake Technology to produce a commercial version of the controller, the Lake Contour, essentially the same hardware but with different software. McGrath and Jackson acquired Clair Technologies LLC, the earlier joint venture. In turn, Dolby Laboratories
bought Lake in 2004, Jackson staying with the product line to become vice president of the live sound division at Dolby, and by 2005 the loudspeaker controller was being used by seven of the ten top concert tours; 3,000 units had been built. Jackson moved back to Sydney in 2005 with Terri—his fourth wife—and their children, but in November he returned to the U.S. to accept his Parnelli Innovator Award. In 2006, the digital audio product was redesigned and introduced as the Dolby Lake Processor, capable of 4-in, 12-out operation as a loudspeaker crossover; 8-in, 8-out operation as a system equalizer
; or a combination of 2 crossovers and 4 equalizers—the whole integrated with Smaart
audio analysis software. A collaboration between Dolby and Swedish audio electronics company Lab.gruppen
was announced in 2007; Jackson's technology would be incorporated into Lab.gruppen's Powered Loudspeaker Management (PLM) system. Two years later, Lab.gruppen acquired the Lake brand for further development of the PLM and other product lines. John Carey of Dolby said, "As we pass the live sound torch to Lab.gruppen we are confident that they will continue to innovate and evolve the technology."
Jackson was an avid pilot, licensed to fly from early adulthood. He flew often, for pleasure, one of the few concert audio engineers who did. In the 1970s between Presley concert dates, Jackson flew the singer's personal jet airliner, a converted Convair 880
named Lisa Marie after Presley's daughter
. For Presley's band rehearsals at Graceland, Jackson would fly some 800 miles (1,287.5 km) from Lititz to Memphis with the back of a small plane loaded with assorted mic stands, cables and monitor loudspeakers. The band would rehearse for a bit in Graceland's racquetball court, then hang out in the Jungle Room waiting for Presley who rarely came downstairs.
A small aircraft owner, at one time Jackson operated a 1975 Grumman American AA-5
B Tiger. In 1979 he sold it to his lighting company friend, Tait Towers founder Michael Tait, to pay for an earlier purchase of a more powerful aircraft, a new Mooney M20
J that he registered 7 December 1978. Jackson used the M20J to carry Fairlight samplers across the U.S. to demonstrate them to studios and musicians, once flying from New York to Los Angeles in 15 hours after he heard Herbie Hancock was interested. Interviewed in 2005 at his Sydney office, Jackson said he missed his "little plane" terribly, that it was kept in a hangar for his use whenever he visited California, surrounded by dusty boxes of audio gear and stored memorabilia. He said he had considered flying it from California to Australia but his wife was "not too keen on the idea."
Jackson was interested in aviation developments. In mid-2010 he flew himself and a friend to Mojave Air and Space Port to see Virgin Galactic
's VSS Enterprise
, a sub-orbital spacecraft being glide-tested.
(the lowest elevation airstrip in North America) near the visitor center of Death Valley National Park
early in the afternoon of 29 January 2011. He had no flight plan filed. Following a brief stop he took off in clear, sunny weather bound for Santa Monica, but a few minutes later he crashed and died about 6.5 miles (11 km) south of the airfield in a dry lake bed. The wreckage was discovered by park rangers on the morning of 31 January, and was later examined by investigators who did not determine a cause for the accident. Jackson was survived by two brothers and two sisters, and by his fourth wife, Terri, their daughter Brianna, and Aja, Jackson's stepdaughter. Jackson was also survived by his second wife Ruth Davis who sang background vocals for Springsteen. He was survived by his third wife Betty Bennett and their son Lindsey and daughter Alex. He was also survived by his first wife Margaret who married him when they were both 21 years old. Margaret was with him when he started JANDS, and accompanied him to the U.S. when he went to work for Clair Brothers.
A memorial celebration of Jackson's life was held 25 February at the Sydney Opera House
. Some 500 attendees listened to remembrances and anecdotes from family members and from business colleagues such as Roy Clair and David McGrath. Prerecorded videos were played, sent from Springsteen, the band U2
, Streisand and her manager Martin Erlichman
, and members of Fleetwood Mac.
Foldback (sound engineering)
Foldback is the use of rear-facing heavy-duty loudspeakers known as monitor speaker cabinets on stage during live music performances. The sound is amplified with power amplifiers or a public address system and the speakers are aimed at the on-stage performers rather than the audience...
for Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
in the 1970s. With Clair Brothers, a concert sound company, Jackson designed audio electronics including a custom mixing console
Mixing console
In professional audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a sound board, mixing desk, or mixer is an electronic device for combining , routing, and changing the level, timbre and/or dynamics of audio signals. A mixer can mix analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer...
. Beginning in 1978, Jackson toured as Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
's band engineer for a decade, using Clair Brothers sound systems. A business interest in Fairlight CMI
Fairlight CMI
The Fairlight CMI is a digital sampling synthesizer. It was designed in 1979 by the founders of Fairlight, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, and based on a dual-6800 microprocessor computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia...
in Sydney introduced Jackson to digital audio
Digital audio
Digital audio is sound reproduction using pulse-code modulation and digital signals. Digital audio systems include analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion , digital storage, processing and transmission components...
, and he subsequently founded the digital audio company Apogee Electronics
Apogee Electronics
Apogee Electronics is a manufacturer of digital audio interfaces and audio converters based in Santa Monica, CA.- Company Information :...
in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
, where he lived at the time. After selling his share of Apogee, Jackson co-founded with Roy and Tony Clair a joint venture which produced the Clair iO, a loudspeaker management system for control of complex concert sound systems. Jackson turned the venture commercial with the help of Dave McGrath's Lake Technology. Dolby Laboratories
Dolby Laboratories
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. , often shortened to Dolby Labs, is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction and audio encoding/compression.-History:...
bought the technology and formed Dolby Lake with Jackson as vice president, then in 2009 Lab.gruppen
Lab.gruppen
Lab.gruppen is a Swedish sound equipment company, based in Kungsbacka, dedicated to building mainly public address power amplifiers. The company now has 130 employees and is owned by TC Group which also holds Tannoy, TC Electronic, TC-Helicon, and TC Applied Technologies.- History :Kenneth...
acquired the brand. Jackson was honored with the Parnelli Innovator Award in 2005 for his inventive loudspeaker controller.
While still a partner at Apogee, Jackson began touring with Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, mixing concert sound and serving as sound designer from 1993 to 2007. With two other audio engineers he received an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for sound design and sound mixing on Streisand's TV special Barbra: The Concert. Jackson worked on sound design for the 2000 Summer Olympics
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
in Sydney and served as audio director for the opening and closing ceremonies. He performed the same role in Doha
Doha
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
, Qatar, at the 2006 Asian Games
2006 Asian Games
The 15th Asian Games, officially known as the XV Asiad, is Asia's Olympic-style sporting event that was held in Doha, Qatar from December 1 to December 15, 2006. Doha was the first city in its region and only the second in West Asia to host the games...
and in Vancouver, Canada, at the 2010 Winter Olympics
2010 Winter Olympics
The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially the XXI Olympic Winter Games or the 21st Winter Olympics, were a major international multi-sport event held from February 12–28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University...
.
JANDS
Jackson was the first of five children born to Bruce Jackson, Sr and Mavis Jackson, living in Rose Bay, New South WalesRose Bay, New South Wales
Rose Bay is a harbourside, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Rose Bay is located 7 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of Waverley Municipal Council and Woollahra Council .Rose Bay has views of both the Sydney...
. His wealthy parents moved to a mansion in Point Piper
Point Piper, New South Wales
Point Piper is a small, harbourside eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located six kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area known as the Municipality of Woollahra....
, a seacoast suburb east of Sydney in the district of Vaucluse
Electoral district of Vaucluse
Vaucluse is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales, based on the suburb of Vaucluse. Vaucluse is one of two original electorates to have never been held by the opposing Labor party and always by the Liberal Party or its predecessors, the other...
, New South Wales. (The mansion, "Altona", is one of Australia's most expensive homes.) Jackson first expressed an interest in electronics at age 13 when he set up a basement workbench and small lab under his parents' mansion. While at Vaucluse Boys' High School
Vaucluse High School
Vaucluse High School , known from 1960-1981 as Vaucluse Boys' High School , is a former high school in the eastern Sydney suburb of Vaucluse, New South Wales, Australia...
, Jackson was discovered by investigators of the Postmaster-General's Department
Postmaster-General's Department
The Postmaster-General's Department was created at Federation in 1901 to control all postal services within Australia. Its minister was the Postmaster-General. In mid-1975 it was disaggregated into the Australian Telecommunications Commission and the Australian Postal Commission...
, along with a group of his electronics-minded schoolmates, operating a too-powerful AM transmitter
AM broadcasting
AM broadcasting is the process of radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation. AM was the first method of impressing sound on a radio signal and is still widely used today. Commercial and public AM broadcasting is carried out in the medium wave band world wide, and on long wave and short wave...
—a pirate radio
Pirate radio
Pirate radio is illegal or unregulated radio transmission. The term is most commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for entertainment or political purposes, but is also sometimes used for illegal two-way radio operation...
station which the boys powered up after school, tuned to the upper end of the commercial AM band to avoid more powerful commercial signals. The boys did not know that their tube transmitter and very long, very efficient antenna were so well crafted that their unlicensed signal was broadcasting all over Sydney.
At age 17 or 18, Jackson and one of the boys, Phil Storey, became partners in business. They used their surname initials to form the company name: J&S Research Electronics. The partnership's largest customer, Roger Foley, doing business as Ellis D Fogg
Ellis D Fogg
Ellis D Fogg is the pseudonym of Roger Foley who the National Film and Sound Archive have described as Australia's "most innovative lighting designer and lumino kinetic sculptor." The term Lumino Kinetic Art was first used in 1966 by Frank Popper, Professor of Aesthetics at the University of...
, a producer of psychedelic lighting effects, refused to write out the full company name and instead wrote JandS on his checks. The company changed its name to JANDS in response. After moving the company from Point Piper to Rose Bay, JANDS made "whatever the hell they felt like", according to Jackson: lighting equipment, guitar amplifier
Guitar amplifier
A guitar amplifier is an electronic amplifier designed to make the signal of an electric or acoustic guitar louder so that it will produce sound through a loudspeaker...
s and public address system components such as column loudspeakers. He described how, with so many American servicemen stationed in Vietnam spending their recreation time in Sydney, Australian bands and clubs were doing well: "the live music scene was jumping, and we were busy". JANDS' successful rental business paid for the design of new gear. After two years, Jackson quarreled with Storey and left the company. Later, JANDS grew "to become Australia's largest sound and lighting company."
Clair Brothers
Jackson first met Roy Clair in 1969 or 1970 during a world tour by the band Blood, Sweat & TearsBlood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears is an American music group, originally formed in 1967 in New York City. Since its beginnings in 1967, the band has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a multitude of musical styles...
when they stopped at Sydney for a concert held at Randwick Racecourse
Randwick Racecourse
Royal Randwick Racecourse is a racecourse for horseracing in the Eastern Suburbs in Sydney, New South Wales. Randwick Racecourse, is operated by the Australian Jockey Club and known to many Sydney racegoers as headquarters...
. Clair had brought his unusually large American concert sound system to Australia and Jackson was curious to hear it, and to see how the big black 'W' bins were designed. He and a friend sneaked into the concert and spoke with Clair, asking "a whole stack of questions". Clair decided to leave his sound system in Jackson's hands for a series of Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
tour dates coming up in some six months, rather than shipping all the gear home to the USA and back in between. Jackson stored the system and then mixed the Cash tour across Australia. Afterward, Clair invited Jackson to visit him in Lititz, Pennsylvania
Lititz, Pennsylvania
Lititz is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 6 miles north of the city of Lancaster.-History:Lititz was founded by members of the Moravian Church in 1756, and was named after a castle in Bohemia near the village of Kunvald where the ancient Bohemian Brethren's Church had...
. Following a trip to London, Jackson stopped in at Clair Brothers and stayed to live in Pennsylvania.
Jackson assisted Clair Brothers by teaming with Ron Borthwick to design a mixing console
Mixing console
In professional audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a sound board, mixing desk, or mixer is an electronic device for combining , routing, and changing the level, timbre and/or dynamics of audio signals. A mixer can mix analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer...
that folded up into its own road case
Road case
A road case, commonly referred to as a roadie case, is a shipping container specifically built to protect musical instruments, motion picture equipment, audio and lighting production equipment, properties, or other sensitive equipment when it must be moved between locations, or frequently thrown...
, a proprietary model used by Clair Brothers for some 12 years of top tours. The console used novel plasma bargraph meters which displayed both average and peak sound levels, combining the characteristics of fast peak meter
Peak meter
A peak meter is a type of visual measuring instrument that indicates the instantaneous level of an audio signal that is passing through it...
s and slower VU meter
VU meter
A VU meter is often included in audio equipment to display a signal level in Volume Units; the device is sometimes also called volume indicator ....
s. Clair Brothers built 10 of the consoles, the first live sound console to incorporate parametric equalization.
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, mixing monitors while independent engineer Bill Porter mixed front of house
Front of House
Front of house is primarily a theatrical term, referring to the portion of the building that is open to the public. In theatre and live music venues, it typically refers to the auditorium and foyer, as opposed to the stage and backstage areas...
(FOH) for the audience. Clair Brothers supplied all the audio gear; Jackson designed a powerful stage monitor system for Presley's show. To make more room for audience seating, he also used a sound reinforcement system
Sound reinforcement system
A sound reinforcement system is the combination of microphones, signal processors, amplifiers, and loudspeakers that makes live or pre-recorded sounds louder and may also distribute those sounds to a larger or more distant audience...
that was not mounted on scaffolding but hung with steel chain above the audience from overhead beams, using chain hoists rigged upside down to raise the loudspeakers from the floor—a now-common method used by licensed riggers
Rigger (entertainment)
A rigger is one who works on ropes, booms, lifts, hoists and the like for a stage production .The term "rigger" originally referred to a person who attended to the rigging of a sailing ship. In the age of sail, trading followed seasonal patterns with ships leaving port at set times of the year to...
. Jackson has said that he made a number of concert recordings during this period, all unreleased.
The earliest of these Clair Brothers-supported dates did not have a dedicated monitor engineer—monitors were mixed from FOH by Porter, assisted by Jackson. Jackson noticed that Presley's performance was very much dependent on how easily he was able to hear himself from the monitor speakers. Jackson said, "some nights would work well and others would be a total train wreck." He advocated for a separate monitor mixing position at the side of the stage and after overcoming resistance to the concept was given this dedicated position. Asked whether he thus invented the role of concert monitor engineer, Jackson replied, "no, not really. It was more that its time had just come."
Jackson had to deal with Presley's absence from rehearsals at Graceland
Graceland
Graceland is a large white-columned mansion and estate that was home to Elvis Presley in Memphis, Tennessee. It is located at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard in the vast Whitehaven community about 9 miles from Downtown and less than four miles north of the Mississippi border. It currently serves as...
and concert soundcheck
Soundcheck
A soundcheck is the preparation that takes place before a concert, speech, or similar performance, when the performer and the sound crew run through a small portion of the upcoming show on the venue's sound system to make sure that the sound in the venue's "Front Of House" and stage monitor sound...
s. The singer would usually show up at the concert venue at the last minute, walk out on stage and start to sing, having never heard the sound system. Presley sometimes turned to the side of the stage to ask Jackson to make changes, and a few times he stopped the show to have Jackson come out and stand center stage and listen carefully to the monitors while Presley sang to 20,000 people. One night in Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
, Presley led the audience in singing "Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to You
"Happy Birthday to You", also known more simply as "Happy Birthday", is a song that is traditionally sung to celebrate the anniversary of a person's birth...
" in honor of the engineer's birthday—an "amazing, and very embarrassing" occasion for Jackson. Jackson can be seen at his side-stage mix position in Presley's 1977 "CBS Special" TV show. At Presley's final performance on 26 June 1977, he said "I would like to thank my sound engineer: Bruce Jackson from Australia."
Touring with Presley was like no other assignment. Presley and his entourage traveled in four or five jets to the next tour stop: one for Elvis and his closest colleagues, one for the band, one for Colonel Tom Parker
Colonel Tom Parker
"Colonel" Thomas Andrew "Tom" Parker born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, was a Dutch-born entertainment impresario known best as the manager of Elvis Presley...
(Presley's manager), one for concessions and crew, and a Learjet used by RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
management who would fly ahead of everyone else. For two weeks during June and July 1973, Elvis flew on an all-black DC-9
McDonnell Douglas DC-9
The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 is a twin-engine, single-aisle jet airliner. It was first manufactured in 1965 with its maiden flight later that year. The DC-9 was designed for frequent, short flights. The final DC-9 was delivered in October 1982.The DC-9 was followed in subsequent modified forms by...
airliner with a Playboy logo
Playboy Enterprises
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. is a privately held global media and lifestyle company founded by Hugh Marston Hefner to manage the Playboy magazine empire. Its programming and content are available worldwide on television networks, Websites, mobile platforms and radio...
on the tail; the aircraft was named Big Bunny. Jackson said he and the other Elvis-chosen passengers were served food and drinks by elite Playboy Bunnies
Playboy Bunny
A Playboy Bunny is a waitress at the Playboy Club. The Playboy Clubs were originally open from 1960 to 1988. The Club re-opened in one location in The Palms Hotel in Las Vegas in 2006...
called "Jet Bunnies".
Parker managed the concert tours for Presley, and exerted a strong influence. Jackson quit his job while on tour after he was "pushed too far" by Parker, according to Roy Clair. Presley apologized to Jackson, and he rejoined the tour as an independent engineer, answering only to Presley. Jackson mixed hundreds of concerts for the singer, who called him "Bruce the Goose"—a working life filled with strange hours, hard physical labor and constant traveling. In August 1977 he was in Portland, Maine
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
setting up at the next Presley engagement when he heard he had died.
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, on concert tours supported by Clair Brothers. Jackson mixed Springsteen on four major tours from 1978 to 1988, and is credited as engineer on the album Live/1975–85. The tours include Darkness
Darkness Tour
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's Darkness Tour was a concert tour of North America that ran from May 1978 through the rest of the year, in conjunction with the release of Springsteen's album Darkness on the Edge of Town...
, The River
The River Tour
The River Tour was a concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band that took place in 1980 and 1981, beginning concurrently with the release of Springsteen's album The River.-Itinerary:...
, Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A. Tour
The Born in the U.S.A. Tour was the supporting concert tour of Bruce Springsteen's massively popular Born in the U.S.A. album. It was his longest and most successful tour to date. It featured a physically transformed Springsteen. After two years of bodybuilding, Springsteen had bulked up...
and Tunnel of Love Express
Tunnel of Love Express Tour
The Tunnel of Love Express was a concert tour featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band that took place in 1988. It followed by four and a half months the release of Springsteen's 1987 album, Tunnel of Love.-Itinerary:...
. Prior to each tour, Springsteen and the E-Street Band practiced at Clair Brothers in Lititz to check out new sound system components and lighting effects, and to give crew members a chance to work out the technical details. Jackson mixed the rehearsals and concerts on the folding console he designed for Clair Brothers. Springsteen called him "BJ".
Right away, Jackson noticed that Springsteen was a very particular critic of his own concert sound. At every new venue, Springsteen would take "BJ" around to various seats in the concert venue, sitting in every section, even the last row of seats, and listen to the E-Street Band play. He asked Jackson why the sound was not so good far away as it was up close, and if the audio crew could do anything about it. Jackson said, "we can do a lot about it", and worked with Clair Brothers to design a ring of delay loudspeakers positioned closer to the farthest seats to augment the high frequencies lost over distance by sound waves traveling through air. This made the hi-hat
Hi-hat
A hi-hat, or hihat, is a type of cymbal and stand used as a typical part of a drum kit by percussionists in R&B, hip-hop, disco, jazz, rock and roll, house, reggae and other forms of contemporary popular music.- Operation :...
sound more "crisp and clean", with higher quality sound in the back row than previously experienced in such large venues. Throughout Jackson's years with him, Springsteen maintained his interest in delivering high quality sound to every seat, and the solutions grew in size and complexity until by 1984 there were eight rings of delays set up for the largest venues.
In 1985 for the Born in the U.S.A. tour, Jackson arrived at a "checkerboard" configuration of loudspeakers which were supplied with nominal left and right stereo signals, the signals connected throughout the sound system in an alternating pattern of vertical lines of eight loudspeakers each, giving the audience a semblance of stereo imaging
Stereo imaging
Stereo imaging is an audio jargon term used for the aspect of sound recording and reproduction concerning spatial locations of the sound source, both laterally and in depth. An image is 'good' if the performers can be effortlessly located; 'bad' if there is no hope of doing so...
otherwise impractical on such a large scale. A reporter from Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics is an American magazine first published January 11, 1902 by H. H. Windsor, and has been owned since 1958 by the Hearst Corporation...
described the 160 main and 40 auxiliary loudspeakers typically used at a large arena or stadium. Jackson set the main loudspeakers 54 feet (16.5 m) high on scaffolding, each enclosure
Loudspeaker enclosure
A loudspeaker enclosure is a purpose-engineered cabinet in which speaker drivers and associated electronic hardware, such as crossover circuits and amplifiers, are mounted...
holding two 18-inch low-frequency cone drivers, four 10-inch mid-frequency cone drivers, two high-mid compression drivers and two high-frequency compression drivers. The auxiliary zones covered audience areas which wrapped around to the sides of the stage. The 200 loudspeakers were driven by 96 amplifier channels capable of putting out a total of 380,000 watts. The tour was said to have drawn "unusual critical acclaim for crispness and distortion-free performances." Jackson was nominated for a TEC Award as 1985's best sound reinforcement engineer but Gene Clair received the honor.
Jackson worked closely with individual musicians in Springsteen's band to help them achieve the sound they wanted. Keyboard player Danny Federici
Danny Federici
Daniel Paul "Danny" Federici was an American musician, best known as the longtime organ, glockenspiel, and accordion player for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.- Career :...
received attention from John Stilwell and Jackson who collaborated in modifying his cut-down Hammond B-3 organ. Clarence Clemons
Clarence Clemons
Clarence Anicholas Clemons, Jr. , also known as The Big Man, was an American musician and actor. From 1972 until his death, he was a prominent member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, playing the tenor saxophone. He released several solo albums and in 1985, had a hit single with "You're a...
came to Jackson with his ideas about microphones; subsequently, the sound of his saxophones was picked up by a device invented jointly by Clemons and Jackson. Bassist Garry Tallent
Garry Tallent
Garry Wayne Tallent , sometimes billed as Garry W. Tallent, is an American musician and record producer, best known for being the longtime bass player in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band....
described the elements of his bass rig to a reporter then summed up its overall effect by saying, "the rest is up to God and Bruce Jackson."
Jackson was close to Presley, but the two men were not near in age. Springsteen was closer to Jackson's age and the two got along as friends, the singer giving a Jeep
Jeep
Jeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler . The first Willys Jeeps were produced in 1941 with the first civilian models in 1945, making it the oldest off-road vehicle and sport utility vehicle brand. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover which is the second...
off-road vehicle
Off-road vehicle
An off-road vehicle is considered to be any type of vehicle which is capable of driving on and off paved or gravel surface. It is generally characterized by having large tires with deep, open treads, a flexible suspension, or even caterpillar tracks...
as a gift in thanks for his contribution to successful concerts. Jackson said of the Jeep that he sold it after tiring of "bouncing around the place in it." In 1988, Jackson quit touring at the birth of his son Lindsey. He settled in Santa Monica, California, to concentrate on audio electronics ideas.
Barbra Streisand
Jackson was working as an entrepreneur in digital audio electronics in 1993 when Barbra StreisandBarbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
's producer asked him to mix her first concert tour in decades. Jackson signed on partly because he was assured he could do anything to make her concert sound as good as possible. Jackson determined that huge concert venues such as Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium
The original Wembley Stadium, officially known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, a suburb of north-west London, standing on the site now occupied by the new Wembley Stadium that opened in 2007...
and Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
would be carpeted for Streisand, and that expensive heavy drapes would be hung at the walls to damp sound reflections. After discovering that Streisand did not like to listen to any stage monitors made after the 1960s, he designed a stage wedge which used soft dome drivers for midrange and for high frequencies rather than the more powerful compression drivers in common use after the 1970s. As well, the main sound system Jackson specified was a new design by Clair Brothers, a proprietary line array
Line array
A line array is a loudspeaker system that is made up of a number of loudspeaker elements coupled together in a line segment to create a near-line source of sound...
system called the I4. Streisand was not willing to wear in-ear monitors but the band was fitted with them, to reduce stage wash
Stage wash (audio)
Stage wash in professional audio is unwanted sound entering a microphone on stage during a concert. Stage wash can come from the main public address system, from monitor loudspeakers, from instrument amplifiers such as for guitars and keyboards, and from loud instruments such as drums...
and make the band's instruments stand out better individually in the mix. The stage monitors, line array and extravagant acoustic treatments were a hit with Streisand, who said of Jackson that he was "the best sound engineer in the world."
Streisand employed Jackson's mixing talents on her 1995 TV special called Barbra: The Concert. Along with Ed Greene and Bob La Masney who worked on post-production mixing, he received an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for sound design and the mixing of the live show. Jackson designed the sound for Streisand's 1999–2000 Timeless: Live in Concert Tour, and he mixed the New Year's Eve concert 31 December 1999 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
. He mixed Streisand's appearances in Sydney and Melbourne in March 2000, connecting the large backing choir's sound mix by optical fibre from a nearby polo field where the choir was stationed. The fibre connection was Jackson's real-world test of a similar setup planned to be used for the Summer Olympics six months later.
Jackson mixed Streisand's U.S. and world tours in 2006 and 2007
Streisand: The Tour
Streisand: The Tour is the unofficial name to Barbra Streisand's Fall 2006 North American concert tour. Comprising 20 shows, it was Streisand's first United States tour since 1994 and her first live concert events since her supposed farewell concerts that took place in Las Vegas in December 1999...
, using a Digidesign
Digidesign
Avid Audio is an American digital audio technology company. It was founded in 1984 by Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooks. The company began as a project to raise money for the founders' band, selling EPROM chips for drum machines. It is a subsidiary of Avid Technology, and during 2010 the Digidesign...
Venue
Venue (sound system)
Venue is a brand of live sound digital mixing consoles introduced by Digidesign in February 2005. The system now includes three different consoles and a number of ways they can be configured. They can all be connected to Pro Tools, the audio editing software also created by Avid/Digidesign, to...
digital mixing console at FOH for its smaller footprint (allowing more audience seats) and its plug-in audio effects. As well, the Venue mixing system was chosen for its integration with Pro Tools
Pro Tools
Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation platform for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, developed and manufactured by Avid Technology. It is widely used by professionals throughout the audio industries for recording and editing in music production, film scoring, film, and television...
hardware and software, to make 128-channel hard disk recordings
Hard disk recorder
A hard disk recorder is a type of direct to disk recording system that uses a high-capacity hard disk to record digital audio or digital video. Hard disk recording systems represent an alternative to more traditional reel-to-reel tape or cassette multitrack systems, and provide editing...
of the concerts directly from the three Digidesign consoles: one to mix strings
Violin family
The violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the sixteenth century. The standard modern violin family consists of the violin, viola, cello, and double bass....
, one to mix brass, reeds and percussion, and one under Jackson's control out in the audience, with Streisand's microphone inputs and stems (submixes of other microphones) from the other consoles. The recordings made in New York City and Washington, D.C. were remixed into the album Live In Concert 2006
Live in Concert 2006
Live in Concert 2006 is a live album by Barbra Streisand which was recorded during her record setting 2006 U.S. tour known as Streisand: The Tour. The double album contains songs recorded at different shows and venues including New York's Madison Square Garden and Washington DC's Verizon Center...
—Jackson was listed as sound designer. Sharing sound designer and FOH mixing duties with Chris Carlton, Jackson made certain that the custom soft dome monitor wedges were positioned correctly aiming up from under the stage to cover everywhere Streisand might walk. Clair Brothers supplied 18 Dolby Lake Processors for the tour, the majority used by Jackson to tune
Performance tuning
Performance tuning is the improvement of system performance. This is typically a computer application, but the same methods can be applied to economic markets, bureaucracies or other complex systems. The motivation for such activity is called a performance problem, which can be real or anticipated....
the main sound system, and the rest for control of monitor wedges used by Streisand and by the supporting artist, Il Divo
Il Divo
Il Divo is a multinational operatic pop vocal group created by music manager, executive, and reality TV star Simon Cowell. Formed in the United Kingdom, they are also signed to Cowell's record label, Syco Music...
. For Streisand's voice, Jackson auditioned several wireless microphone
Wireless microphone
A wireless microphone, as the name implies, is a microphone without a physical cable connecting it directly to the sound recording or amplifying equipment with which it is associated...
s and ended up using a Sennheiser
Sennheiser
Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG is a private German audio company specializing in the design and production of a wide range of both consumer and high fidelity products, including microphones, headphones, telephony accessories, and avionics headsets for consumer, professional, and business...
SKM 5200 transmitter equipped with a Neumann
Georg Neumann
Georg Neumann GmbH , founded in 1928 and based in Berlin, Germany, is a prominent manufacturer of professional recording microphones. Their best-known products are condenser microphones for broadcast, live and music production purposes...
KK 105 S supercardioid capsule. He used the vocal microphone to test the sound system from different locations around the arena. When the tour hit the UK and continental Europe, Jackson changed from a Neumann to a Røde Microphones
Røde Microphones
RØDE Microphones, based in Silverwater, New South Wales, Australia, is a company, established in 1967 by Henry and Astrid Freedman, that designs and manufactures microphones and related accessories...
capsule, custom made to his requirements; one that Røde called the "Jackson Special". Jackson used Millennia microphone preamps
Preamplifier
A preamplifier is an electronic amplifier that prepares a small electrical signal for further amplification or processing. A preamplifier is often placed close to the sensor to reduce the effects of noise and interference. It is used to boost the signal strength to drive the cable to the main...
for any microphone that was required to be sent to multiple mixing consoles, such as at Madison Square Garden where cable runs to the recording trucks were 800 feet (243.8 m) long. The use of only one preamp prevents the microphone output from being loaded down by too little resistance which can change its tone quality.
Other artists
In addition to Presley, Springsteen and Streisand, Jackson mixed concert sound for Diana RossDiana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
, Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
, Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
and the Faces
Faces (band)
Faces are an English rock band formed in 1969 by members of the Small Faces after Steve Marriott left that group to form Humble Pie...
, Barry White
Barry White
Barry White, born Barry Eugene Carter , was an American composer and singer-songwriter.A five-time Grammy Award-winner known for his distinctive bass voice and romantic image, White's greatest success came in the 1970s as a solo singer and with the Love Unlimited Orchestra, crafting many enduring...
, Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne
John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...
, Carly Simon
Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...
, Three Dog Night
Three Dog Night
Three Dog Night is an American rock band best known for their music from 1968 to 1975. During that time the band charted 21 Billboard top 40 hits in America, three of which reached Number One...
, The Jackson 5
The Jackson 5
The Jackson 5 , later known as The Jacksons, were an American popular music family group from Gary, Indiana...
, Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam , commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam....
, Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell
Glen Travis Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.During his 50 years in show...
, Art Garfunkel
Art Garfunkel
Arthur Ira "Art" Garfunkel is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and actor, best known as being a member of the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel...
, Procol Harum
Procol Harum
Procol Harum are a British rock band, formed in 1967, which contributed to the development of progressive rock, and by extension, symphonic rock. Their best-known recording is their 1967 single "A Whiter Shade of Pale"...
and Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
. During 1983 when Springsteen was not touring, Jackson mixed sound for Stevie Nicks
Stevie Nicks
Stephanie Lynn "Stevie" Nicks is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her work with Fleetwood Mac and an extensive solo career, which collectively have produced over forty Top 50 hits and sold over 140 million albums...
on The Wild Heart Tour, June to November 1983. Fourteen years later he mixed for Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
during their live performances recorded in Burbank
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
for MTV, released as the album The Dance
The Dance (album)
The Dance is a live performance by Fleetwood Mac, released on Cassette, CD and VHS in 1997, and later on DVD. It hailed the return of the band's most successful line-up of Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie and Stevie Nicks, who had not released an album together since...
.
World events
In 1998, Jackson was contacted by Ric BirchRic Birch
Ric Birch, born in Australia. Former Rock TV producer and director.He started his career studying Law, but his lifetime profession took him down a different path...
of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) to mix sound for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney. Jackson felt that his skills would be put to best use as organizer and audio director rather than as one man behind a mixing console. He put together a team of audio professionals as well as an equipment design composed of digital nodes linked with optic fibre to transport digital audio around the largest venues without attenuation or ground hum
Mains hum
Mains hum, electric hum, or power line hum is an audible oscillation of alternating current at the frequency of the mains electricity, which is usually 50 Hz or 60 Hz, depending on the local power line frequency...
. To wire the spectacle which played to 110,000 people in attendance and some 3 billion distant viewers around the world, redundant systems were connected throughout so that a single failure point could not halt the show. To complete the assignment, Jackson said one of the main factors was working within budget, which was not unlimited as it had been with Streisand. He served as audio director for the opening ceremony
2000 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony
The Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics was described by IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch as the most beautiful ceremony the world has ever seen. Held on the evening of Friday 15 September 2000, the Opening Ceremony represented everything Australian, from sea creatures and flora/fauna...
on 15 September and the closing ceremony on 1 October. Before the event, he told a reporter, "I have a well rehearsed crew in place and there is every reason to expect it to go well."
In December 2006, Jackson served as audio director at the 15th Asian Games
2006 Asian Games
The 15th Asian Games, officially known as the XV Asiad, is Asia's Olympic-style sporting event that was held in Doha, Qatar from December 1 to December 15, 2006. Doha was the first city in its region and only the second in West Asia to host the games...
, held in Doha
Doha
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
, Qatar. The main loudspeakers for the opening and closing ceremonies were the KUDO model from L-ACOUSTICS
L-ACOUSTICS
L-ACOUSTICS is a French manufacturer of loudspeakers, amplifiers and signal processing devices for rental and installed sound markets. Headquartered in Marcoussis, just south of Paris, the company has satellite operations in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, as well as a global Rental...
. Jackson found that extreme heat and occasional downpours did not adversely affect the Optocore fibre audio connections around the largest venues. Digital audio was passed to a combination of Lake Contour and Dolby Lake Processors.
Following his success in Sydney, Jackson was tapped to direct the audio design and production at the 2010 Winter Olympics
2010 Winter Olympics
The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially the XXI Olympic Winter Games or the 21st Winter Olympics, were a major international multi-sport event held from February 12–28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University...
in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where he directed the opening ceremony
2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony
The Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics was held on February 12, 2010 beginning at 6:00 pm PST at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This was the first Olympic opening ceremony to be held indoors...
and the closing ceremony
2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony
The Closing Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics took place on February 28, 2010, beginning at 5:30 pm PST at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada...
. His sound design for BC Place Stadium
BC Place Stadium
BC Place is a multi-purpose stadium located at the north side of False Creek, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the home field for the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League and the Vancouver Whitecaps FC of Major League Soccer . Originally opened on June 19, 1983 as the...
did not have loudspeakers at ground level aimed up at the seating areas—Jackson determined that this approach would produce too much uncontrolled reverberation from sound waves bouncing off the ceiling. Instead, he configured two rings of loudspeakers hung from the ceiling 100 ft (30 m) above the ground, aimed downward. The inner ring held 8 arrays each composed of 12 Clair Brothers i3 line array speakers and the outer ring held 12 arrays of 7 Clair Brothers i3 line array speakers, augmented by 16 subwoofer
Subwoofer
A subwoofer is a woofer, or a complete loudspeaker, which is dedicated to the reproduction of low-pitched audio frequencies known as the "bass". The typical frequency range for a subwoofer is about 20–200 Hz for consumer products, below 100 Hz for professional live sound, and below...
s. The lot was powered by 160 Lab.gruppen amplifiers which were also hung from the ceiling, and were networked via Dante
Dante (networking)
Dante is a combination of software, hardware and network protocols designed to deliver uncompressed, multi-channel, low-latency digital audio over a standard Ethernet network...
in a triple-redundant configuration. Two DiGiCo
DiGiCo
DiGiCo is a British company, founded in 2002, that manufactures digital mixing consoles targeted for live audio mixing applications.DiGiCo's most current console lineup comprises the SD-Series of consoles, powered by Stealth Digital Processing. Pioneered with their flagship SD7, Stealth Digital...
D5 digital mixing console
Digital mixing console
In professional audio, a Digital Mixing Console , is an electronic device for combining, routing, and changing the dynamics of digital audio samples. The digital audio samples are summed to produce a combined output. A professional digital mixing console is a dedicated desk or control surface...
s served as main and backup for the main audience sound, and two Yamaha
Yamaha Pro Audio
Yamaha Pro Audio, Inc. is a company that offers a complete line of professional audio products for the live sound and sound reinforcement markets...
PM1Ds handled main and backup duties for monitor mixing. Other equipment included dual-redundant Optocore fibre connections, two Dolby Lake Processors, and time code generated by two pairs of Fairlights which also handled audio cues timed to the action on the field.
Jackson directed sound for the 2010 Shanghai Expo opening ceremony
2010 Shanghai Expo opening ceremony
The 2010 Shanghai Expo opening ceremony occurred on April 30, 2010 at the Shanghai World Expo Cultural Center in Shanghai, People's Republic of China, a day before the opening of the Expo 2010.The opening ceremony was planned and designed by ECA2`s founder,Yves Pepin.-Pre-ceremony:On April 29,...
, held on 30 April 2010. He used four Fairlight digital audio systems to replay music cues, connected to Studer
Studer
Studer is a Swiss manufacturer of professional audio equipment, founded in Zurich in 1948 by Willi Studer. It is known primarily for the design and manufacture of analog tape recorders and mixing consoles. Studer also produce other technology solutions, such as telephony management systems and...
routing and distribution gear which supplied signal to Soundcraft
Soundcraft
Soundcraft is a British manufacturer of mixing consoles and other professional audio equipment. It was founded by sound engineer Phil Dudderidge and electronics designer Graham Blyth in 1973.-History:...
digital mixers and an analogue mixer. Some 64 kilometres (39.8 mi) of fibre optic cable in a dual-redundant star topology connected 72 amplifier racks along both sides of the Huangpu River
Huangpu River
The Huangpu River is a -long river in China flowing through Shanghai...
. Each amp rack held a BSS Audio loudspeaker controller and multiple Crown International
Crown International
Crown International, or Crown Audio, is a manufacturer of audio electronics, and is a subsidiary of Harman International Industries. Today the company is known primarily for its power amplifiers, but has also manufactured microphones, a line of commercial audio products as well as digital audio...
amplifiers, pushing audio signal to more than 400 JBL
JBL
JBL is an American audio electronics company currently owned by Harman International. It was founded in 1946 by James Bullough Lansing. Their primary products are loudspeakers and associated electronics. There are two independent divisions within the company — JBL Consumer and JBL Professional...
loudspeakers.
Digital audio
Beginning in 1979 between Springsteen tour dates, Jackson crisscrossed the U.S. promoting the Fairlight CMIFairlight CMI
The Fairlight CMI is a digital sampling synthesizer. It was designed in 1979 by the founders of Fairlight, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, and based on a dual-6800 microprocessor computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia...
, a digital sampler
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
made by fellow Australians Peter Vogel
Peter Vogel (computer designer)
Peter Vogel is an Australian inventor and technologist. He was born in Sydney on 30 August 1954 and now lives in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney with his wife Lorraine and Jasmine, the youngest of his four daughters, in a which he spent 4 years building himself.-History:In his youth Peter was...
and Kim Ryrie. (Ryrie grew up in Point Piper next to Jackson's house.) The earliest Fairlights were prohibitively expensive, and their 24 kHz sampling rate was not considered high enough for audio mastering, but Jackson found that musicians immediately discovered how useful the Fairlight was for composition. Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
explored the sampler, as did Tony Bongiovi
Tony Bongiovi
Tony Bongiovi is a record producer and recording engineer with expertise in Electrical & Acoustical Engineering. He helped to remodel an old building in Manhattan—once a power plant for Edison, and later a television studio—into the Power Station recording studio in 1977.Bongiovi was born in the...
, founder of the Power Station recording studio in New York City. There, Springsteen was shown the sampler and said, "Ah yeah, BJ that's great, but what am I gonna do with it?"
None of Jackson's prospects bought one in the first year. He had better luck with Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
, and Geordie Hormel
Geordie Hormel
George "Geordie" Hormel was the son of Jay Catherwood Hormel and grandson of George A. Hormel. He was a musician and recording studio proprietor....
who bought two for $27,500 each. Wonder, who had recently recorded Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants" using a Computer Music Melodian sampler, paid for his Fairlight by signing a personal check with his thumbprint. He then convinced Jackson to mix sound for a tour he was undertaking in support of Secret Life of Plants. Jackson's close association with Fairlight made him intimately aware of the limitations of early digital audio
Digital audio
Digital audio is sound reproduction using pulse-code modulation and digital signals. Digital audio systems include analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion , digital storage, processing and transmission components...
, "weaknesses" such as noise and inharmonic distortion.
During an April 1985 Springsteen tour leg in Japan, Jackson first listened to Compact Discs played on a CD player connected to his concert sound system, and he did not like what he heard.
Apogee Electronics
After finishing Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. tour, Jackson expressed his ideas about possible improvements to digital audio in a conversation with Christof Heidelberger, a designer of digital audio electronics, and Betty Bennett, the president of Soundcraft's U.S. division. Jackson, Bennett and Heidelberger formed Apogee ElectronicsApogee Electronics
Apogee Electronics is a manufacturer of digital audio interfaces and audio converters based in Santa Monica, CA.- Company Information :...
in December 1985 (announced in the 23 November issue of Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
) and started investigating 44 kHz digital audio circuits for audible problems. They found that "textbook filters" which were unnecessarily steep were protecting the CD player output from high levels of 20 kHz signals, an exceedingly unlikely occurrence in music. Jackson determined that Apogee could improve the sound of CDs if the low-pass filter
Low-pass filter
A low-pass filter is an electronic filter that passes low-frequency signals but attenuates signals with frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The actual amount of attenuation for each frequency varies from filter to filter. It is sometimes called a high-cut filter, or treble cut filter...
s used in the recording process were made less steep, for less phase shift throughout the hearing range. The small company produced better anti-aliasing filter
Anti-aliasing filter
An anti-aliasing filter is a filter used before a signal sampler, to restrict the bandwidth of a signal to approximately satisfy the sampling theorem....
s for recording equipment. Initially operating out of his garage, Jackson served as the company's owner and president, and his third wife Bennett headed up sales. They demonstrated their first product at the Audio Engineering Society
Audio Engineering Society
Established in 1948, the Audio Engineering Society draws its membership from amongst engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or products for audio, and persons working...
's 81st convention held in Los Angeles in November 1986: the 944 Series low-dispersion, linear phase, active low-pass filter, intended to replace existing filters on multi-track digital tape recorders such as the Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
PCM-3324. After a slow start, the firm sold 30,000 of the filters: "a great success." The 944 earned a TEC Award in 1988, the first of many such awards for Apogee.
Apogee's branding was largely Jackson's doing. Bennett said in 2005 that the company's decision to sell purple-colored products was one of Jackson's ideas: "He has a good eye for design, and we wanted to distinguish ourselves from the all-black rack gear that everybody had at that point." Jackson encouraged a lighting designer from Clair Brothers to sketch a company logo on a cocktail napkin over dinner one evening, and that was immediately made the Apogee logo.
In 1994, Jackson spoke to a Billboard reporter about digital audio. Described as Apogee's president and chief engineer, he said, "digital is finally living up to the warm, natural sound of analog that we know and love." A decade later, he warned against the belief that bigger specification numbers guarantee better sound quality. He noted that 192 kHz sampling rate was often cited as being better than 96 kHz because of it being twice as fast "when in reality there's a whole bunch of other influencing factors responsible for any audible improvements."
Jackson and Bennett divorced in the mid-1990s and he sold his share of Apogee to finance the divorce settlement. Company co-founder Bennett became CEO.
Loudspeaker management system
After leaving Apogee, Jackson entered into a joint venture with Clair Brothers to design a digital loudspeaker controller for control of complex concert sound systems. Jackson estimated that the project would cost $800,000 in U.S. dollars, but it ended up costing Clair Brothers more than $2M. From the same garage in which he started Apogee, Jackson developed the proprietary Clair iO: a two-input, six-output digital audio matrix with opto-isolated output circuits. An essential element of the system was its ability to be controlled by wireless tablet computerTablet computer
A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen...
by an audio engineer walking around to various seating sections in a concert venue, to tailor the system's response more precisely.
Jackson then joined with Dave McGrath of Lake Technology to produce a commercial version of the controller, the Lake Contour, essentially the same hardware but with different software. McGrath and Jackson acquired Clair Technologies LLC, the earlier joint venture. In turn, Dolby Laboratories
Dolby Laboratories
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. , often shortened to Dolby Labs, is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction and audio encoding/compression.-History:...
bought Lake in 2004, Jackson staying with the product line to become vice president of the live sound division at Dolby, and by 2005 the loudspeaker controller was being used by seven of the ten top concert tours; 3,000 units had been built. Jackson moved back to Sydney in 2005 with Terri—his fourth wife—and their children, but in November he returned to the U.S. to accept his Parnelli Innovator Award. In 2006, the digital audio product was redesigned and introduced as the Dolby Lake Processor, capable of 4-in, 12-out operation as a loudspeaker crossover; 8-in, 8-out operation as a system equalizer
Equalization (audio)
Equalization is the process commonly used in sound recording and reproduction to alter the frequency response of an audio system using linear filters. Most hi-fi equipment uses relatively simple filters to make bass and treble adjustments. Graphic and parametric equalizers have much more...
; or a combination of 2 crossovers and 4 equalizers—the whole integrated with Smaart
Smaart
Smaart is one of the most widely used audio and acoustic measurement tools, a software application for the analysis portion of acoustical measurements and instrumentation...
audio analysis software. A collaboration between Dolby and Swedish audio electronics company Lab.gruppen
Lab.gruppen
Lab.gruppen is a Swedish sound equipment company, based in Kungsbacka, dedicated to building mainly public address power amplifiers. The company now has 130 employees and is owned by TC Group which also holds Tannoy, TC Electronic, TC-Helicon, and TC Applied Technologies.- History :Kenneth...
was announced in 2007; Jackson's technology would be incorporated into Lab.gruppen's Powered Loudspeaker Management (PLM) system. Two years later, Lab.gruppen acquired the Lake brand for further development of the PLM and other product lines. John Carey of Dolby said, "As we pass the live sound torch to Lab.gruppen we are confident that they will continue to innovate and evolve the technology."
Pilot
Convair 880
The Convair 880 was a narrow-body jet airliner produced by the Convair division of General Dynamics. It was designed to compete with the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 by being smaller and faster, a niche that failed to create demand...
named Lisa Marie after Presley's daughter
Lisa Marie Presley
Lisa Marie Presley is an American singer and songwriter, also known as the "Princess of Rock and Roll". She is the only child of Elvis Presley, and daughter of Priscilla Presley.-Early life:...
. For Presley's band rehearsals at Graceland, Jackson would fly some 800 miles (1,287.5 km) from Lititz to Memphis with the back of a small plane loaded with assorted mic stands, cables and monitor loudspeakers. The band would rehearse for a bit in Graceland's racquetball court, then hang out in the Jungle Room waiting for Presley who rarely came downstairs.
A small aircraft owner, at one time Jackson operated a 1975 Grumman American AA-5
Grumman American AA-5
The US Grumman American AA-5 series is a family of all-metal, 4-seat, light aircraft used for touring and training. The line includes the original American Aviation AA-5 Traveler, the Grumman American AA-5 Traveler, AA-5A Cheetah, and AA-5B Tiger, the Gulfstream American AA-5A Cheetah, and AA-5B...
B Tiger. In 1979 he sold it to his lighting company friend, Tait Towers founder Michael Tait, to pay for an earlier purchase of a more powerful aircraft, a new Mooney M20
Mooney M20
The Mooney M20 is a family of piston-powered, propeller-driven general aviation aircraft, all featuring a low-wing and tricycle gear, manufactured by the Mooney Airplane Company.The "M20" was the twentieth design from Al Mooney, and his most successful...
J that he registered 7 December 1978. Jackson used the M20J to carry Fairlight samplers across the U.S. to demonstrate them to studios and musicians, once flying from New York to Los Angeles in 15 hours after he heard Herbie Hancock was interested. Interviewed in 2005 at his Sydney office, Jackson said he missed his "little plane" terribly, that it was kept in a hangar for his use whenever he visited California, surrounded by dusty boxes of audio gear and stored memorabilia. He said he had considered flying it from California to Australia but his wife was "not too keen on the idea."
Jackson was interested in aviation developments. In mid-2010 he flew himself and a friend to Mojave Air and Space Port to see Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic is a company within Richard Branson's Virgin Group which plans to provide sub-orbital spaceflights to the paying public, along with suborbital space science missions and orbital launches of small satellites...
's VSS Enterprise
VSS Enterprise
The VSS Enterprise is the first of five commercial suborbital spacecraft being constructed for Virgin Galactic by Scaled Composites....
, a sub-orbital spacecraft being glide-tested.
Death
Jackson landed his Mooney at Furnace Creek AirportFurnace Creek Airport
Furnace Creek Airport is a public airport located west of Furnace Creek, Death Valley, serving Inyo County, California, USA. This general aviation airport covers and has one runway. At MSL, it is the lowest elevation airport in North America....
(the lowest elevation airstrip in North America) near the visitor center of Death Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park is a national park in the U.S. states of California and Nevada located east of the Sierra Nevada in the arid Great Basin of the United States. The park protects the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and contains a diverse desert environment of salt-flats, sand dunes,...
early in the afternoon of 29 January 2011. He had no flight plan filed. Following a brief stop he took off in clear, sunny weather bound for Santa Monica, but a few minutes later he crashed and died about 6.5 miles (11 km) south of the airfield in a dry lake bed. The wreckage was discovered by park rangers on the morning of 31 January, and was later examined by investigators who did not determine a cause for the accident. Jackson was survived by two brothers and two sisters, and by his fourth wife, Terri, their daughter Brianna, and Aja, Jackson's stepdaughter. Jackson was also survived by his second wife Ruth Davis who sang background vocals for Springsteen. He was survived by his third wife Betty Bennett and their son Lindsey and daughter Alex. He was also survived by his first wife Margaret who married him when they were both 21 years old. Margaret was with him when he started JANDS, and accompanied him to the U.S. when he went to work for Clair Brothers.
A memorial celebration of Jackson's life was held 25 February at the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
. Some 500 attendees listened to remembrances and anecdotes from family members and from business colleagues such as Roy Clair and David McGrath. Prerecorded videos were played, sent from Springsteen, the band U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
, Streisand and her manager Martin Erlichman
Martin Erlichman
Martin Lee "Marty" Erlichman is a manager in the entertainment industry who is perhaps best known for discovering Barbra Streisand and managing her career for over 40 years. Unique among his peers, Mr. Erlichman has produced award-winning and record-setting motion pictures, concerts, record...
, and members of Fleetwood Mac.
