HARMAN’s JBL M2 Master Reference Monitors Prove “Pitch Perfect” for Music Mixer Joseph Magee

NORTHRIDGE, California — Music mixer Joseph Magee, whose impressive credits include Saving Mr. Banks, Pitch Perfect, High Fidelity, Into the Wild, The Muppets, Spider-man 3 and many more, is currently on location in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, mixing music for the feature film, Pitch Perfect 2. For this music-heavy project, Magee is putting HARMAN’s JBL Professional flagship large-format M2 Master Reference Monitors to the test. Recently signed by Hollywood’s TODD-SOUNDELUX, where he is responsible for the company’s expanding music services, Magee chose the M2 system for projects at TODD-SOUNDELUX’s Hollywood facility. For Pitch Perfect 2, Magee transported his JBL M2 monitors along with a pair of JBL LSR308 studio monitors to Baton Rouge, where the film is in production. The music recording studio for the project was built specifically for the film in an existing 4-story warehouse structure.

With the objective of recording 95 percent of all the on-camera a cappella performances in a new, untested studio environment, Magee relies on the M2’s ability to provide exceptional performance in any production environment. “I’ve been using the M2 monitors in my music dub room at TODD-SOUNDELUX and I’m now getting accustomed to using them on the road,” Magee said. “I think a lot of people perceive the M2’s as monitors that are meant to be permanently installed in a control room, tuned to the room and then left alone. But the reality is these loudspeakers sound great out of the box, so taking them to Baton Rouge was an easy decision.” With the dynamic range needed for film production yet with a footprint of only 20 feet wide by 14 feet deep, the M2 is finding its way into smaller rooms where traditional cinema speakers are prohibitive. With included room EQ, the M2 system can deliver accurate response in any mix environment.

Having used other large-format studio monitors, in Magee’s opinion, JBL’s patented-pending Image Control Waveguide, coupled with JBL’s patented low-distortion D2 high-frequency driver sets the M2 apart from the pack. “The waveguide is so darn fast, I’m hearing things I haven’t heard before in my mixes and I’m hearing things differently—in a good way,” he said. “At the TODD-SOUNDELUX facilities, all the engineers who have come through have been shocked at how authoritative these M2 loudspeakers are and they’ve been amazed at the clarity of the system.”

In addition to the M2 system, Magee uses a pair of JBL’s powered 3 Series LSR308 studio monitors as his near-field listening system. In a portable, “bookshelf”-size format, and available at an entry-level price, the 3 Series studio monitors share the Image Control Waveguide technology developed for the M2 to provide detailed imaging. “In all honesty, when I was first auditioning the M2 system at TODD-SOUNDELUX, I didn’t fully understand what I was working with,” Magee noted. “But then I worked with the 308 monitors at home and it all clicked for me. I simply wasn’t used to the imaging and level of detail these speakers provide.”

To further meet Magee’s needs, JBL custom-designed a panel in its HARMAN HiQnet System Architect™ software that enables Magee to quickly create a simple, 4-band Room EQ in the DSP of the Crown I-Tech 5000 HD amplifiers being used to power the system.

Looking towards the future, Magee sees no boundaries for the M2. “I envision a lot of opportunities for different applications with the M2,” he said.

For more information on Joseph Magee, please visit his IMDB page at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0535848/

For more information on TODD-SOUNDELUX, please visit www.toddsoundelux.com

HARMAN designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of 14,800 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.7 billion for the last twelve months ended December 31, 2013.

►

Multi-GRAMMY® Award-Winning Engineer Frank Filipetti Lends His Ears to the Development of HARMAN’s JBL M2 Master Reference Monitor

NEW YORK, New York – Frank Filipetti needs little introduction. Since the 1980s, producer, recording and mixing engineer Filipetti has worked with Carly Simon, Luciano Pavarotti, Billy Joel, Elton John, Korn, Barbra Streisand, Meatloaf and countless other top artists. He has mixed chart-topping singles and albums for Foreigner, the Bangles and KISS and in 1998 won GRAMMY® awards for Best Engineered Album and Best Pop Album for James Taylor’s Hourglass.

Filipetti has been a pioneer in mixing for surround sound, earning a 2012 GRAMMY nomination for his 5.1 surround mix of An Evening With: Dave Grusin. Adding to his resume, he played a significant role in the development of HARMAN’s JBL M2 Master Reference Monitor, a 2-way large-format loudspeaker designed to set new standards for sonic accuracy and dynamic range in professional monitoring environments.

In developing new loudspeaker systems, JBL has always welcomed input from recording engineers and producers and in the development of JBL’s new flagship M2 master reference monitor, JBL turned to Filipetti for his critical review and astute feedback. Like many industry pros, he’s used a number of JBL studio monitors, including his go-to system, the LSR6300 series monitors. When JBL went into production of the M2 in the spring, Filipetti installed a pair in his studio and has been mixing projects non-stop. “About two years ago JBL invited me to listen to a new studio monitor concept they were excited about,” said Filipetti. However, after listening for more than two hours, the loudspeakers didn’t win him over. Filipetti came away from the initial audition thinking this early iteration of the M2 was good, but not special, and encouraged the JBL team to work hard to elevate it to the next level. His comments did not go unheeded by the JBL team.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2012, when Filipetti got a call to come back and listen again. Within the first 20 seconds of listening he realized he was hearing something very exciting. “I’ve been listening to studio monitors all my life and they’re one of the types of products I pay closest attention to, as they’re so integral to my work.”

It took Filipetti less than a minute to realize this new speaker wasn’t like anything he’d heard before—in his experience, it was revolutionary. “The whole experience of the beauty of the music, the sound and the emotional content of the performance all came through to me in a way I had never heard before. I honestly couldn’t sleep the next few nights.” The JBL engineers made a few final tweaks and the production-version M2 was born.

Filipetti attributes much of the special qualities of the JBL M2 to the new D2 dual diaphragm, dual-voice-coil compression driver and JBL’s new “Image Control” waveguide, a patent-pending horn design that delivers more musical detail and smoothness than he’d ever heard previously in any loudspeaker, and never in a loudspeaker with a horn. In his estimation, most horns sound “peaky” in the midrange and don’t provide the extension a soft-dome tweeter can deliver while the M2 has a smooth midrange, high-frequency response up to 40kHz and wide dispersion. “You can stand halfway between two M2 loudspeakers and hear all the top end you’d hear when you’re sitting right in line with the drivers, along with a deep, strong, focused center image. I’ve never heard that from any speaker before,” Filipetti noted.

“Forget everything you know about horns and monitor speakers. The JBL M2 is different,” he emphasized. “I’ve had people that work in music, film and all different genres come by my studio and listen and they all hear what I hear: the closest thing to a universally accurate studio monitor speaker we’ve ever heard.”

HARMAN (www.HARMAN.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. The company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 14,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.3 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013.

►

Legendary Engineer and Producer Bruce Botnick Outfits His Studio with Three of HARMAN’s JBL Professional M2 Master Reference Monitors

NEW YORK, New York – To anyone in the pro audio industry, it’s not much of a secret that Bruce Botnick is one of the industry’s most accomplished engineers and producers. He secured his reputation in the 1960s as the producer of the Doors’ classic LA Woman album, engineer of the first two Love albums and co-producer of the band’s masterpiece, Forever Changes. Botnick has worked on records by the Rolling Stones, Eddie Money and many others and as an engineer for film composer Jerry Goldsmith on more than 100 movie soundtracks. Recently, Botnick purchased three JBL M2 Master Reference Monitors for use as Left/Center/Right loudspeakers in his studio. The M2 is a 2-way large-format loudspeaker designed to set new standards for sonic accuracy and dynamic range in professional monitoring environments.

Botnick has always kept an eye on recording technology advancements and first encountered the M2 at the 2012 AES Convention, when it was still in the development stage. “I heard these loudspeakers in a less-than-ideal environment and they still sounded amazing,” said Botnick, who then told JBL’s Peter Chaikin he’d like to try them and judge them in his studio as soon as they were in production. In early 2013, Botnick visited the JBL Professional headquarters in Northridge for a second listen and found the sound exceptional. “At that point I made the decision to simply go ahead and buy them without ever having mixed on them in my studio,” he said. After the M2’s arrived, Botnick immediately began a project to mix the score for the historical drama Parkland. In preparation, his newly installed L,C,R M2 system was tuned by the Dolby staff, accessing the filters in the BSS Soundweb London BLU800 processor which in Botnick’s system, serves as the M2 crossovers and also the system’s room EQ. All parameters in the Soundweb London can be accessed from a laptop using HARMAN London Architect™ software. The M2’s system tune-ability ensures an extremely accurate tonal balance in a broad range of mix environments.

“I loved mixing on the M2 system right off the bat,” Botnick added. “I was able to mix for many hours and not get ear fatigue. The sonic images that came out of the M2 were really big, so when we subsequently went into the main dubbing theater at post-production facility Todd AO in Hollywood and put the music up, it translated incredibly well.” The correlation between the sound heard in Botnick’s studio and the Todd AO sound stage meant he could trust his mixes more than ever before in going from the studio to the cinema.

Another advantage Botnick finds is that he doesn’t have to restrict himself to listening in a narrow sweet spot, thanks to the excellent off-axis response made possible by a new Image Control Waveguide, designed specifically for the M2. The Image Control Waveguide provides a seamless transition between the M2’s newly developed D2 high-frequency driver and the woofer and delivers an accurate tonal balance and superlative imaging and detail to a broad area of the listening room. “I can turn sideways to work on something and still hear the balance. It’s not ‘pointy’ and the speakers don’t buzz on the high end,” Botnick noted.

Botnick can play the M2 at a relatively loud level and still be confident of hearing accurate reproduction. “Film music mixing should be done at an 85dB level and I’m very strict about that,” he said. “The image size of the M2 is just breathtaking, and you don’t’ feel like your hearing the speakers as separate entities in the room—you get the sense that you’re hearing everything in the correct proportions behind the screen as you would in the cinema.”

“The M2 speaks to you effortlessly,” Botnick added. “It’s a much easier loudspeaker to listen to than most and I can get a good balance almost instantly. If it doesn’t sound good on the M2, it doesn’t sound good, period—for me a great speaker also lets me hear if something isn’t working.”

In mixing Parkland, Botnick went into the final mix with 10 5.1 surround sound stems. “Even with 10 stems totaling 60 tracks, the M2 let me hear into the mix, perfectly layered on top of one another no matter how complex the mix became. Hearing that deeply into the score enabled me to tailor all the reverbs and ambient sounds so they translated really well and created the perfect sonic environment for every scene.” Parkland had its theatrical release this month.

Botnick recognizes the engineering effort that went into the JBL M2. “I appreciate the fact that the people who worked on the M2 actually listen to music and know what it’s supposed to sound like, and can trust their ears and not just a measurement graph. They know how a good mix should sound.”

HARMAN (www.HARMAN.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. The company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 14,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.3 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013.

►

Pick Of The Hits - JBL in Mix, October 2013

►

Pick Of The Hits - JBL in Mix, August 2013

►