FEATURE

NAME BEHIND THE NAME Roger Quested – Quested Monitors Quested is one of the most respected names in monitoring on the planet, counting Trevor Horn and Hans Zimmer as devotees. But there’s a lot more to the Roger Quested story than a handy knack with soft domes and crossovers.

Text: Andy Stewart

He was a renowned studio engineer in Simon, Cat Stevens, Rick Springfield… even a Third Party: “Did you know that Roger England in the ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s and young Clive James, and that’s just the very short recorded the drums on Led Zeppelin 1 at today he’s a widely acclaimed acoustician and list. But perhaps one of his earliest experiences as Olympic with just three mics?! That’s just speaker manufacturer with a penchant for an impressionable assistant engineer is his most amazing, isn’t it?” large and expensive soffit-mounted monitor memorable; working on and bearing witness to Roger: “… it was four mics, actually… and I designs. He’s a riddle wrapped in an enigma one of the most famous debut rock albums of all was just the assistant.” (to paraphrase Winston Churchill), a shy and time, Led Zeppelin 1. laconic man not known for rabbiting on about I caught up with Roger Quested recently while Led Zeppelin 1 was a seminal rock album of his own expertise or eventful past. In fact, at he was in Australia to attend the SMPTE trade the late ’60s where Roger worked with the times it’s difficult to get a word out of Roger show in Sydney – and it was there that we had legendary Glyn Johns, whom he credits as being Quested at all. His British wit is as dry as a long and hilarious chat about speaker design a significant and influential figure: “Glyn was an Australian summer and when faced with and a sprinkling of his engineering past. I use an amazing engineer and a real mentor to me in excitable ‘audio dweebs’ he projects an enigmatic the term ‘hilarious’ relatively because on the the early days. I owe him a lot really.” mixture of diffidence, reluctance and genuine previous day when we spoke, Roger wasn’t humility. He refuses all flattery, deflecting Glyn and Roger famously recorded John feeling the best, it must be said. He’d had a praise like a martial artist and his self-effacing Bonham’s fantastic drum sound on Led terrible flight over, the bright lights in the trade nature is almost impenetrable: “I just make Zeppelin 1 with only four mics, and yet this hall were driving him batty and his dislike for speakers… I dunno what all the fuss is about.” particular story wasn’t told to me by Roger public appearances was palpable. If he’d had his himself, but rather, a third party who seemed to way I suspect he would have run screaming from And yet Roger has much to skite about. He’s find the tale of the recording method far more the trade hall, never to return. So it was with been instrumental in the design of many major enthralling. Roger himself stood quite still and some degree of trepidation that I’d organised studios the world over and his speakers of all stared through his round-rimmed glasses as to interview him on camera for the AT website shapes and sizes take pride of place in countless if to say: ‘Do I really need to be hearing this – something I rarely do, and something Roger facilities large and small (including my own). As story again?’, speaking only when a fact was seemed reticent about… to say the least. So it an engineer he’s worked with bands such as The incorrectly told or an embellishment took the was probably just as well that when the time Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Kinks, Paul story too far:

AT 42 came to film the interview, the camera up surely the most common of all Quested speakers and died and I was reduced to recording our nowadays. How and when did you start “ Led Zeppelin 1’s sound is conversation on an analogue cassette. But instead designing those? mainly the sound of very of this technical hitch sending the interview RQ: Well, the development behind all of my competent people in there downhill like a billycart, Roger sparked up and speakers starts with work on the drive units talked openly about his speaker designs in a themselves, and then I make the electronics getting on with it.” refreshingly humble and direct way. that link these components together as simply THE QUESTED PHILOSOPHY as possible, whether they’re active crossovers or Roger Quested: I never try to sell speakers. I just passive. When you look at the passive crossover say to people; ‘listen to them, compare them with of the VS2108 for example, you’ll notice that it other brands and decide what you want’. But only has about five components, whereas some unfortunately not many people do that. It’s the speaker crossovers have 10 or 12. If you make minority of customers that actually go and listen the crossover simple it’s going to have a more to different things and say, ‘I like the sound of effortless, open sound to it. The same applies to those speakers best, I think I’ll buy those’. the active ones, with the EQ. To keep the box size down you have to introduce a very shallow 6dB I’ve never looked into the physics of speaker per octave – even less – low frequency lift in it. design much either. I tend to design with my You can get the same result without it of course, ears mainly. The fact is, I became a speaker but you’d have to have a box three times as big! designer by accident in many ways – my background is in audio engineering. The very Once you’ve worked on high quality first speakers I built were simply designed to components you then add a decent amplifier. replace a blown pair of soffit-mounted speakers One thing I often notice with other people’s at a studio I was managing, so I didn’t even two-way active designs is that they tend to feed think about the design as such, only the quality too little power to the tweeters. For the high- NAME BEHIND of the components. I just built something to fit end driver you’re not using a lot of RMS power, into the space the previous speakers occupied. but that’s no reason to afford them less – you still need the headroom. In the VS2108A, we’re Andy Stewart: You’re one of very few people, feeding 120 Watts to the bass driver, but we’re THE NAME it seems, who still designs and builds specialist also sending 100 Watts to the tweeter. I learnt soffit-mounted speakers [speakers that are this technique at the very beginning of my Tw o w ay s t o mounted in a wall], and perhaps the only one design career while working on the prototypes b u i l d n e a r f i e l d s who would profess to rely so heavily on his ears. of my big three-way active systems. We had Can you tell me what defines a soffit-mounted three Yamaha amps at the time: a PC5002 speaker, in your opinion? on the low end, two PC2002s at 450W on the RQ: Basically, if you take any of the speakers mids, and a PC1002 at 100W per channel on that I’ve designed to go into soffits – I’m talking the tweeter. Initially what was happening was about the Quested 212s and 412s, for example that we were blowing up tweeters (rated at – and put them on stands, they’ll start rolling 25W) all the time, but as soon as we put double off at about 200Hz; way too high to sound any that amount (200W) on the tweeter… no good. Conversely, if they’re soffit-mounted in a problems at all! t h e H 1 0 8 . well-constructed room, they’ll be flat to 20Hz. AS: I imagine the instinct must have initially Frankly, I’ve never been all that interested in been to back off the power supplied to the RQ: A two-way speaker the nicest balance overall, why they work. I guess it has something to do tweeter rather than increase it. – as with all speaker design but by the time you go up with the surface area of the baffle because the – is full of compromises, to the eight-inch driver, 210s, which have a big surface area compared RQ: That’s right. and the main problem with the S8, the extra bass out a two-way design is that of the driver causes the to the size of the drivers, work very well free- AS: So it was the levels of distortion then that the smaller you make it, midrange to suffer a bit. standing. But when you get something like the was blowing them up, rather than sheer power? the less bass it naturally AS: Suffer how? 415, where around 80% of the baffle is covered generates. A three-way RQ: RQ: Well it doesn’t have in driver units and ports, it doesn’t work so well Yes, it’s square waves that kill tweeters speaker, on the other hand – transient square waves off the amplifier. It’s is going to be physically quite the clarity of the S7. unless it’s soffited. For other speakers, like the I mean we’re talking very obviously a law of diminishing returns once you bigger and more expensive. nearfield VS2108 for example, you wouldn’t (We’re just making the subtle changes here, but gain anything by putting that in a soffit. reach a certain degree of amplification, but in finishing touches to of course, if you were to principle the more power and headroom you’ve the smallest three-way go up to a 10-inch two-way AS: The VS2108 has quite an extended bottom got, the better a speaker’s going to sound. speaker we’ve ever offered system, I’d find that end. Presumably if you put that speaker in a right now, actually; a single balance unacceptable. ‘half space’, you’d just end up with too much NECESSITY – MOTHER OF ALL INVENTION 10-inch bass driver, with AS: So the 10-inch driver is bass. Is that what you’re driving at? Like so many of the early speaker designers in a soft-dome midrange the tipping point at which the pro audio industry, Roger Quested found and tweeter.) With the you’d say you have to have RQ: Exactly. S-series Questeds, the a dedicated midrange himself at the forefront of speaker development two-way nearfield with driver, hence the new AS: You must have seen countless ‘free- out of sheer frustration with the studio monitors the six-inch driver (the three-way? standing’ nearfield monitors incorrectly placed he’d been forced to work with for so long... S6) is marginally better RQ: Well, in my mind, if in soffits over the years… for vocals and accurate you have a 10-inch driver RQ: I started building speakers because I simply speech representation. The you need a midrange RQ: I have, and what I advise people to do if couldn’t find any I liked. At the time (around next size up, the S7, has component, yes. they’re really determined to have that soffit- 1982) I was managing a studio in London called mounted ‘look’, is to build a simple framework, Dick James music, and I’d worked there as then cover it in fabric so that it looks like a soffit a freelance engineer in the past. They’d had but doesn’t behave like one. Eastlake monitors originally, which had two bass drivers and a compression driver that were AS: Your soffit-mounted speakers are certainly – when you worked all day – a bit tiring, to say well known, but it’s the nearfields that are

AT 43 Roger Quested: I only saw photo, right next to me were switching between goes at it he eventually this Pink Floyd photo for at the console. I’d been Bass 1 and Bass 2 – the said: “I think that one was the first time six months trying to mix the two new bass and the old bass, alright”. So I said, “I’m not ago. It was taken when bass tracks together or whatever it was – but sure, I’d better check it” we were mixing the film – manually of course – on he never got it right. In the and needless to say it was soundtrack Obscured his cue commands but it end everyone was getting alright, and that was that. by Clouds in Studio 3 at wasn’t working out. He a bit pissed off because The console we’re mixing MIX WITH Morgan. I remember that kept saying to me: “Okay there was a bit of tension in on in this photo is a Cadac session quite well actually change it over… now… oh the band by this time, and and the tape machine was because it involved a you’ve missed it!” So in the everyone just wanted to a 3M. Morgan had a long notorious drama with end I said, “well this is just get it done. So, eventually, association with Cadac. ‘two’ bass tracks. I hadn’t impossible, you keep giving while the band members We had the first console recorded the soundtrack me the cues after they’ve were making a cup of tea, they ever made, which was Mixing Pink Floyd’s Obscured By Clouds – I only mixed it – so I gone! So I tell you what, I’ll I went around the back of an eight-bus console. We THE BEST. wasn’t familiar with the put the bass parts on two the console and plugged beta tested for them and music before the session. faders and you can do it one of the bass tracks from memory that was the The band came in with yourself.” – which had nothing wrong first in-line console they the tapes, and on one So Roger [Waters] sat with it at all – into both made. The person standing of the songs there were there while we tried to faders so in the end Roger on Roger’s left is Richard ADAM A7 two tracks of bass, which mix the song to ¼-inch, was just switching between Wright from Pink Floyd. is why Roger Waters is and he just kept getting it two faders of the same And I still have that shirt. sitting where he is in the wrong, over and over. We thing. After a few more Available at Soundcorp for only $1695* a pair Come in to Soundcorp to experience for yourself “ I guess Abbey Road would the least. Somewhat bizarrely, between the time RE-QUESTED NEARFIELDS I agreed to become the studio manager and my AS: When did you build your first Quested the sonic wonder that is the ADAM A7. have been the most famous first day on the job, they changed the monitors nearfield monitor? studio around the world, but to UREI 815s, which sounded much nicer than RQ: I guess in about ’85 or ’86. All the initial Mix with the best at Soundcorp – Best Products, the two most prolific studios the compression drivers in the Eastlakes, but sales were of big soffits, of course, but at one the problem was they used to break all the time Best Service and Best Price. in London at that time were point a couple of producers asked me if I could because all the low bass was going through the make something like an NS10, only a bit more Morgan and Trident.” dual-concentric cone. powerful and a bit more accurate. This request We had English producer, Gus Dudgeon, in the eventually gave rise to the H108, which was The ADAM A.R.T. Tweeter: Accelerated Ribbon Technology studio remixing Elton John at one point and he designed to be as small as possible and still broke one twice a week. This was a crazy state work. Funnily enough, we’re selling more of ADAM’s unique folded ribbon diaphragm of affairs so as soon as he’d finished the project I those now then we ever have. moves air four times faster than any started looking around to see what else was out AS: And then you designed the larger passive there. I was originally intending to use a 10-inch VS2108, is that correct? driver in any other professional monitor, Tannoy dual-concentric for the mid and tops, providing incredible clarity, breathtaking and get a couple of 15-inch bass drivers to fill RQ: No, actually the next nearfield I developed the room, but before that happened I stumbled was intended to be an ‘active’ [powered] version detail and imaging like you’ve never heard across this ProAc hi-fi system which I thought of the H108. before. You’ll work faster, better, and more sounded excellent. I spoke to the guy who AS: I always thought the VS2108A started life as confidently than ever. owned the company and he said the midrange a passive speaker… *price available until 31 October 2007, or until sold out. Soundcorp was made by ATC, so I got a couple of those RQ: reserves the right remove special price at any time prior to end date. and four Gauss bass drivers… but do you think No, it started out as an H108, and then (I E&OE. Price includes GST. I could find a decent tweeter? I mean, there can’t remember why, I think it was because of weren’t any! Genelec), I decided to make a powered version of it. But since there wasn’t enough room at So what I eventually used as a tweeter was an the back of the 108’s cabinet to dissipate the Audax driver, which the company actually sold heat from the amplifier, I had to make the box as a high/mid hi-fi component. This was okay up bigger. So that became the VS2108A. to 16kHz – and in the studio you didn’t want or need anything flat to 20kHz anyway – so I tried Soon after it was released I got a call from a that and it worked out very well. I set them up guy from a studio in New York – a very big in the studio and eventually one of the freelance facility with something like 20 rooms at the engineers approached me and asked if I would time – who said: ‘We’ve tried everything and make a similar pair for a friend of his who was we’re going to go with your H108 because it’s rebuilding a studio nearby. I agreed and pretty the best sounding nearfield we can find… we just wish it had a bit more bass’. This call soon the word got around. Before I knew it, I Find The Sweet Spot: Come in to our new Melbourne showroom and compare ADAM A7 with a wide range of monitors, side-by-side in The Sweet Spot – Soundcorp’s purpose-built studio monitor listening room was building speakers for Trident, Sarm West, came on a Friday afternoon, so I said: ‘I’ll call Abbey Road, Westside, and Townhouse.

J o h n B o n h a m ’s d r u m a n d t h e s n a r e m i c k i t o n Le d Ze p p e l i n 1 w a s a r i b b o n, t h e w a s r e c o r d e d w i t h o n l y b e y e r d y n a m i c M1 6 0 f o u r m i c s, tw o o f t h e m (fa r r i g h t). T h e r e s t t h e L e g e n d a y N e u m a n n o f t h e d r u m s o u n d U 6 7 (f l o o r t o m a n d o n t h i s c l a s s i c a l b u m New showroom & The Sweet Spot located: Sydney Branch Office: a s i n g l e o v e r h e a d ). i s c o m p r i s e d m a i n l y 570 City Road South Melbourne 3205 phone. 02 8596 5855 fax. 02 8596 5850 www.soundcorp.com.au T h e b a s s d r u m w a s o f s p i l l! c a p t u r e d w i t h a n A KG phone. 03 9694 2600 fax. 03 9694 2626 D20 ( p i ct u r e d m i d d l e ) email: [email protected]

AT 44 you back on Monday’. Over the course of that RQ: It was. We were in Olympic’s main room, weekend I experimented with putting the Studio 1, which was big enough to record H108 crossover in the active VS2108 cabinet orchestral music, so there was plenty of room to without the amplifier, because in a bigger box fit the band in there with all their instruments. you’ve naturally got more bass. I quickly re- It was a great sounding room. Most of the tuned the cabinet and sent a pair over to New vocals were recorded live with Robert Plant in York the following week, and when they heard MIX WITH there with the rest of the band, with everyone them they ordered 40! Personally, I think I still performing at once. A couple of vocal bits were prefer the H108. In fact, it’s still what I listen changed here and there, but most of it was live. to at home. AS: Is that what created the ‘sound’ of that ROGER QUESTED: THE ENGINEER album more than anything else, would you say? AS: Can we go back further to when you first THE BEST. RQ: It was just the sound of energy, pure energy started engineering in the ’60s. What do you in the room. Led Zeppelin 1’s sound is mainly remember of your first session as an assistant? the sound of very competent people in there RQ: My first session as an assistant engineer getting on with it. I mean, there was no time to Pro Tools LE systems offer everything you need to create music affordably with came at the beginning of ’68 at Olympic Studios waste, they just got in there and did it. I only recently got the album on CD actually, and it A soft spot for soffits? in London, recording the Rolling Stones’ professional results. Soundcorp can help you choose a system just right for you. sounds twice as loud as modern recordings even A lot of people these days seem to think a soffited Jumping Jack Flash for Top of the Pops. It was though there’s no more level on it, it just sounds speaker is merely one that has a piece of cloth quite an interesting first job actually because Mix with the best at Soundcorp – Best Products, Best Service and Best Price. surrounding its front edge, although I’d wager most the film editor had cut the footage up without louder because of the energy levels in the room. facilities with these types of walls are simply trying to listening to the soundtrack, so you can imagine AS: What board was Led Zeppelin 1 recorded get away with looking professional. In many respects what it sounded like. And yet somehow Charlie the last decade has witnessed a great ‘unlearning’ of through, do you recall? Watts, who some people argue isn’t the most how soffit-mounted speakers function and for people RQ: I don’t think it had a name back then. like Roger Quested, who designs speakers specifically flamboyant drummer in the world, managed to work in this way, the frustrations of commissioning to play along to the picture, and then the band The tech guy there was Dick Swettenham; a speakers for rooms must be unbearable at times. When overdubbed the other bits afterwards onto the very clever guy, who later started the company, this idea was put to Roger he nodded agreeably for some eight-track recorder. Helios. So although the console didn’t have a time, and then spoke… name I guess it was – to all intents and purposes RQ: There are people who don’t have a clue what’s AS: So they recorded the track to the film? – a Helios, given that Dick made it. It started involved in soffit-mounting speakers, that’s for sure! That’s bizarre! For instance, I was once asked to visit a studio that off as a four-bus console. Then when the studio apparently had a ‘problem’ with its monitoring, and when RQ: It was quite bizarre andit was the only time I took delivery of the eight-track 3M recorder, I got there I quickly ascertained that the ‘design’ had in ever saw that happen. And of course, Mick Jagger Dick added four knobs for the extra four groups fact been simply copied from another studio – from a was there at the Olympic session, cursing the – there were no chassis expansion packs back photograph no less! And incredibly the owners didn’t then! It was a good-sounding board. actually realise that there was supposed to be anything editor all the while, not realising he was standing solid behind the fabric of the soffit wall. The studio right behind him! Olympic was a great studio to AS: And after your time at Olympic you moved looked like the photo it had copied, but it certainly didn’t train in, we used to do jingles from eight o’clock to Morgan Studios, is that right? sound like it… and they couldn’t understand why! in the morning and feature films at night. AS: And the sound of a badly designed room is usually RQ: Yep, I moved to Morgan [in Northwest then blamed on the monitors most of the time! That must AS: What was the first album you worked on at London], where I stayed for a long time. drive you insane, does it? Olympic? Originally Morgan consisted of just one eight- RQ: Well, the quality of studio design is worse now than RQ: The first album I worked on there was Led track room and the place was working 24-hours it was 10 years ago. You couldn’t make a living out of a day, with two engineers. It was booked designing studios these days, so more often than not it’s Zeppelin 1 – as an assistant to Glyn Johns. That now left to architects whose expertise is in designing was an amazing week in the studio, that’s for solid all the time, so much so that we had two sports centres and shopping malls. Consequently, there’s sure. The whole album was finished in a week. builders permanently on staff there for a few a huge amount of glass in a lot of studios now. Some From the start of the session to the end of the years building extra rooms. We ended up with people have glass floor to ceiling, and although it looks four rooms, and eventually the original studio spectacular – clients (and architects) love it – it doesn’t last mix took seven days to complete, mainly was made into a bar and restaurant. sound too good. The reaction is nearly always then to because of budgetary constraints obviously. Pro Tools LE: 003 Family find out what the speakers are and blame them for the None of the band members were wealthy guys AS: What albums of note did you record there? poor sound! back then. I mean, John Paul Jones and Jimmy If you’re looking to attain the same high audio production quality as commercial facilities in your AS: So are you still enjoying designing speakers after all Page were session musicians, so they did earn RQ: We used to do loads of stuff. I mean, at own personal or project studio, the Digidesign® 003™ family enables you to do just that with truly these years, given this climate? some money, and I’d met John a few times one point we had – and I don’t think it would RQ: Sometimes I get fed up with it, although it’s not before because he used to do a lot of sessions at happen nowadays – four albums that we’d professional results. With an extensive range of audio and MIDI I/O, high-definition audio resolution, usually designing speakers that frustrates me, it’s more recorded in the American Top 20 at one time: industry-standard Pro Tools® software, FireWire connectivity, and an unprecedented bundle of powerful the difficulties of running a business worldwide that Olympic on bass and keyboards. But the other Cat Stevens, Jethro Tull, John Denver, and The software, the 003 family provides everything you need to compose, perform, record, sequence, edit, can be trying sometimes. On those days I’d sooner be two members of Led Zeppelin were penniless. in the garden tending the tomatoes and the beans! But John Bonham, for instance, was so broke he Kinks. I guess Abbey Road would have been the mix, master, and promote your creations. Let the team at Soundcorp help choose a configuration that is then every so often I’ll get a call from one of my existing used to come down to the studio on the train most famous studio around the world, but the right for you. customers, people like Trevor Horn or Hans Zimmer, to and jump off before it got into the station so he two most prolific studios in London at that time tell me; ‘your speakers have improved the way I work’. didn’t have to pay the fare! were Morgan and Trident. Trident recorded And that makes it all worthwhile again. It happened to David Bowie and Elton John but in terms of me again this week actually. There’s a young guy with a One thing I vividly remember was the mic setup studio here in Sydney, in Surry Hills, a very realistic guy, sales we would have been the most prolific. around his kit during that session. There was who doesn’t think he’s going to make a fortune in the But my memory is not as good as it used to studio, but he wants to set up things properly. It was an AKG D20 on the bass drum, a Neumann quite uplifting to be reminded that there’s still someone U67 on the floor tom and another one placed as be. I remember recording The Kinks’ Muswell in the business who wants to do it properly, not just as an overhead, with a Beyerdynamic M160 on the Hillbillies there in 1971, mainly because I used cheaply as possible. It’s always nice to be reminded of snare. And to this day I still get people saying to live in Muswell Hill, just down the road. that sort of thing. Showroom location: Sydney Branch Office: to me things like, ‘I put those mics up and it Actually The Kinks were one of my very first doesn’t sound anything like that’. customers when I started Quested. They built 570 City Road South Melbourne 3205 phone. 02 8596 5855 fax. 02 8596 5850 www.soundcorp.com.au their own studio in ’86 and bought two pairs of AS: Was the whole band set up in the room monitors off me back then! phone. 03 9694 2600 fax. 03 9694 2626 together? email: [email protected]

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