Pioneer dominate the DJ booth in the top clubs around the world.
It's a natural progression for us to bring a professional audio range to this market.
Seeing the reaction of people on a dance floor, when everyone in the room is having a great time.
The sound system is going and the DJ is playing a track. That, to me, is job done. That is the reward for me.
I'm an engineer, but we were looking for someone else who has prestige and a reputation in building speakers.
And that was one of my first challenges: to try and find a suitable person.
So one day I was sitting with Mark in the restaurant and Behrouz arrived. Itís a surprise because heís a guy who always come and goes.
I present him to Mark, and he sits down to have dinner with us.
Josh introduced me to Mark and everybody else at Pioneer. Mark and I were talking about Pioneer and everything else.
I mentioned to him, 'Mark, why is it that you guys haven't designed a sound system?' And he goes, 'Funny that you ask - we're looking for a sound designer'.
I say, 'Well I got a perfect guy, heís amazing but he's not a salesman. He's just a genius'.
I go, 'Well, let me introduce you to Gary', and Mark mentions that Alex also knows Gary. Later on he says, 'Well Alex said he knows Gary as well, this is perfect'.
Gary and I have been in contact via email for at least five years, but never had the opportunity to meet face to face.
I wanted to see what Gary had to offer. I know his sound systems and I wanted to have the conversation with him.
I went back to the office and then Mark Broker said, 'I've got a contact, you need to talk to Gary Stewart'.
Iíd just been delaying sending the email to Gary saying, 'I want to meet you and talk about a new business'.
So it came from three ways - Behrouz recommended Gary to Mark, Mark then recommended Gary to Pioneer, and I was already building up to that point to talk to Gary.
We all come to that same decision. So it felt comfortable as the next step to go and see Gary, and pitch to him the concept of what we're trying to achieve.
And to our delight he was very, very excited about the opportunity to build something with Pioneer, as itís a very important brand in the club market.
We were excited because now we had a chance to show the world what he can do.
The thing about Gary was he was so passionate about the sound. He was such a perfectionist and cared about it so much.
It wasn't just, 'Okay, let me sell something', it was about, 'Okay, this is my sound system, I want to make sure it's perfect'.
He's responsible for some of the most amazing sound systems around the world, and very well respected by many, many DJs.
Some of the systems I had an opportunity to hear were District in New York, Zouk in Singapore and Vertigo in Costa Rica. Incredible sound systems.
He invited me round many times, and each time he says, 'But look what I just did with this sound', and I was blown away because,
I'm telling you this, I'm getting goose bumps [chuckles]. When DJs play one of these sound systems they were amazed by it.
I had the opportunity to go and see Gary in his house in Las Vegas, and I can remember the evening so well.
Both of us were in there with this sound system in his garage, which was just a monster. We must have been in there for three, four hours, just continually changing, tweaking.
Gary was arguing with me because he wanted to do this EQ and Iíd say, 'No, dance music should be this'. It was incredible.
Gary had many, many designs of boxes he'd always wanted to bring out, different very unique designs which were incredible.
We did manage to fix and agree on developing a system based on a model.
We wanted to both work together to improve it.
I'm a modern sound engineer, where I'm using DSP, I'm using processing.
Gary's obviously in the analogue domain but he was starting to use digital.
In his last installation before we formed an alliance together, he started to use Powersoft.
He was blown away with how easy it is to set up the damping factor for the sub woofers et cetera. It was a very good start.
Powersoft was chosen for two key factors. One - its incredible power output.
And two ñ the special inbuilt feature, which we use for the sub woofers, particularly on the GS-Wave System.
It's called damping factor. Also, the DSP enables us to monitor the progress of the amplifiers during the night.
So if one of the amplifiers was overheating for a particular reason, or the resistance of a cable started to go high or low,
I would know that there's a fault with something in the speaker.
One very exciting feature of Powersoft is allowing you to load presets in very easily to the amplifiers.
So with the XY Series and the GS-Wave Series it's very easy for us to build presets, and you can download them from the website.
So itís all ready - the manufacturer's presets for delay settings and internal crossover settings.
TAD is the sister company of Pioneer. We had the luxury of using their engineering department
and channelling all that into our speaker business to find the best suitable driver for our system.
It came up that there was a new club in Ibiza, and it seemed like a great opportunity for us to make a big statement in the audio market.
I met Giuseppe in October last year through a friend. He was telling me about the club and asked me if I wanted to get involved with him,
and I said, 'Yes, okay. I like the idea of a challenge'.
I wanted to create something where people feel comfortable, and to try and provide them with great music and great sound.
Yes, sound is very important to me, very important. I think it's part of everybody's life,
music is part of your everyday life. It's an important part of everyday life.
You know sound can make you laugh and it can make you cry.
That's how important it is to you, it's the most important thing in a nightclub.
Mark Grotefeld and I had a meeting with Giuseppe.
We showed him the plans for the speakers and what we were looking to do.
And equally Giuseppe talked to us about the plans for the club.
After that meeting we arranged a demonstration in Japan.
They flew us out to Tokyo and within two minutes of listening to that sound system I just knew we'd got something very special.
We were blown away by the sound. So it really didn't take much of a decision, much of a process,
after you hear the sound. I think it was quite obvious that it was the best sound that I'd ever heard, at least.
Danny put his USB in and played his own music. He turned around with the biggest grin from ear to ear on his face.
Starting with the box closest to us here with the three vertical lines, this is the Wave Horn and behind the Wave Horn is the Wave Sub.
The next box up is the Wave Low and the next box above that is the Wave Low,
and then you have the Wave Lens.
The Wave Lens is a very unique part of our system and it's something Gary was very passionate about.
There are three key facts to the acoustic lens, 1) above 2 kilohertz we get 110 degree dispersion, horizontal,
2) it has very minimal tonal coloration, and
3) it greatly reduces fatigue for listeners over a longer period of time.
The acoustic lens has an angle array at the top, so you can angle the acoustic lens into three different areas
depending on the dispersion or coverage you want on the dance floor.
The GS-Wave Series is our flagship floor system. Every floor stack system needs in-fill boxes.
Our XY Series complements the GS-Wave System very well.
The XY Series range includes a 12-inch, and 8-inch,
a single 18 reflex loaded and a twin 15 Quasi-bandpass sub woofer.
X and Y stands for the axis. And the axis means 90 by 60 degree dispersion.
Both the XY-122 and the XY-81 feature a rotatable horn for horizontal and vertical applications.
The DJ console at Booom was a great challenge and the first thing I wanted to try and do was encase the DJ with the speakers.
So I installed four XY-122 speakers, and two XY-215 sub woofers.
We use the XY Series at Km5, we used the XY Series at Ushuaia, and we used the XY Series at Pikes.
The sound of the XY Series is very clean, tight and crisp and it complements the GS-Wave very well.
The complete GS-Wave system will deliver a warm, deep and clean sound at high SPL.
The trademark of Gary Stewart's sound system is warmth.
But the beauty of it is that you could play perfectly, hear all the details and mix perfectly.
And if you're on the dance floor you could stay there for a long time, you didn't want to leave.
Basically the sound enhanced what you did as a DJ.
You feel like you're in the sound, it's not like the sound's going past you.
Itís not like you're standing there and the thing's coming straight past you and leaving you.
You feel like you're part of it. It's very warm, it's very organic, and it's exactly how a good nightclub should sound.