QSC: A Chronicle of Quality – Quilter and MacKenzie

An mp3 of the Interview is available lower in this text and via ITunes.  Full text is below and selected portions are published in Mobile Beat Magazine – to subscribe go to https://members.mobilebeat.com.

Driving force Pat Quilter and marketing maestro Evan MacKenzie speak about the QSC tradition and new directions in powered loudspeakers.From one of those mythical-sounding-but-true beginnings in a small Southern California shop, to its current position as one of the leading amplifier manufacturers in the world, QSC has always maintained focus on high quality and truly serving the needs of working entertainers. The co-founder and current PR man discuss the company’s origins and continuing development.

Ryan Burger: Hi. This is Ryan Burger, the publisher of Mobile Beat magazine. We are here with the big guys at QSC, Mr. Pat Quilter — the “Q” in QSC — and Mr. Evan MacKenzie, director of marketing and communications. Tell me a little bit about what you guys do, the quick story about QSC if you could, please.

Pat Quilter: Well, this is our 40th anniversary, as your readers no doubt know, if Evan is doing his job — ha-ha. We started in a small 800 square foot garage-like unit 40 years ago originally to build rock and roll amplifiers. And that migrated within a few years to professional grade power amps and the rest is history, as they like to say. But we have been building better and better power amps for 30 years and the last 10 years we’ve been expanding into digital and speaker technology.

Ryan Burger: And there’s a lot more detail, for people that are interested, on the website if people do want to check it out, by the way.

Evan MacKenzie: One of the things that Pat didn’t mention is that there’s this history of amplifier technology then speaker technology and the DSP that’s come along in the last 10 years. But there’s also the core spirit of the QSC brand as to why the company has succeeded so well in my estimation — and Pat can back me up or tell me I’m crazy if he wants.

But very much like your audience, Ryan, this is an entrepreneurial organization, meaning that people here are free to envision, formulate and present products that the market is asking for. And that’s what we mean by an entrepreneurial spirit, QSC has always responded to the market and delivered what the market is asking for, as opposed to what we think, from behind these walls, the market is going to want. And that’s really at the core of the QSC value proposition.

Pat Quilter: I’ll reinforce that by saying I’ve always considered myself a technical artist. And we have a lot of artists in the company, both from music, and from the various specialties that go into designing our products. And as artists, we take the materials that are available to us — our palette, if you will — but we want to put together something no one’s ever seen before; get a result that’s nicer, more satisfying, more artistic than anyone’s ever been able to do before. We think the results speak for themselves — there is a lot of passion in this company for excellence. But at the same time, we’ve got to keep it down to earth, we’ve got to make products that people can understand and use so they can focus on their artistry while using QSC products.

Ryan: Got you completely. Evan, you came to QSC with some other history in other areas. Tell me why you wanted to go to QSC and a little bit about where you came from before you hit QSC.

Evan: Before I got here I spent a decade in the ad agency world. Interestingly, the very first agency I was at, almost 10 years ago, my job was new business development director. And the agency at the time was doing a rollout campaign to get more business in, believe it or not, the music industry, primarily musical instruments and pro audio.

We did score several big clients, mostly musical instruments and a small amplifier company. It was very rewarding and exciting to be working with a lot of the NAMM-type businesses, as well as a pro audio company.

And then along the way, as I progressed through the ad agency ranks, I always had a pro audio client for most of that time. There were a couple years where I didn’t and most of what I did was consumer marketing for the likes of Proctor & Gamble, Motorola and DirectTV.

Then one day, about a year and a half ago, I was rushing across a parking lot with Power points under my arm and a briefcase to get to downtown L.A. to do a pitch for, of all things, a meat packing company. And the cell phone rings in the middle of the parking and it’s my former client from another pro audio company, Gerry Tschetter, who is now the vice president of marketing here at QSC, and basically he said, “We’re looking for a director of marketing/account executive/client services director all rolled into one. Do you know anybody that might be interested or is that you?”

And right there in the middle of that hot parking lot in the San Fernando Valley I stopped and went, “Yes. I know exactly who you’re looking for. That’s me.”

And then about six weeks later-I was offered a job here and the main question that kept coming up in all the interviews was, “Why do you want to be inside a pro audio manufacturing company as opposed to being outside in that glamorous world of ad agencies?” And the answer is: I love music. Since I was a child I’ve loved music and that’s why I’m here. I love music, I love the music experience and I love the people that put it on, be they the engineers, the performers, the DJs, the recording people, the people that create these products. I love the whole thing.
Ryan: Wow. Pat, you obviously with an organization the size of what QSC is were involved in bringing this young marketing “punk” into the QSC culture. Why was he that much of a match? Why does he fit in so well?

Pat: You know, this may seem surprising, but our products are relatively hard to present and communicate effectively to the customer because one of our deep corporate values is balance and harmony. We’re deep believers in the idea that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. There are a lot of companies out there who base their appeal on being the best at one particular thing; and if you want that one attribute, then you know who to go to.

We want our products to be great at everything, but it makes the sales pitch complicated because you can’t just say, “Buy the QSC because it has the most power or the greatest bandwidth,” or any number of other individual things, because we strike a balance between all those factors in order to provide what we think is the best overall performance and value.

And it’s a hard story to tell quickly. Evan brings real professionalism to this — he’s definitely ramped up our ability to communicate subtle and intricate qualities in ways that cut through the clutter of our modern environment and register with our potential users.

Ryan: It’s nice because he does understand the musician and DJ. He’s not just putting together an advertisement.

Pat: Exactly.

Ryan: I know Evan makes regular appearances at our trade shows in Las Vegas. People can meet the people behind QSC and it’s absolutely fantastic.

I’m personally a user of your powered speakers. And that’s been a big push for mobile DJs, the whole powered speaker thing that’s been happening over the past 8 to 10 years. In that whole thing with you guys doing the HPRs or anything like that, how have traditional amplifiers and the regular speaker arena — I know you don’t make passive speakers, but the amplifiers that drive them, how has that grown or continued to evolve?

Pat: Well, QSC’s roots began in support of incremental system building. We made mostly power amplifiers for many years. And power amps are something people buy to upgrade their system. Users get a new amplifier and hook it up with their speaker and their mixer and their processing and they figure out what next to upgrade, one piece at a time.

So that’s still a very big part of our business. We don’t currently make non-powered club-type speakers, but we do have a wide range of speakers for buildings, installations, touring shows, cinemas — products that are somewhat related to what a DJ or a working club musician needs.

We do have ideas for addressing those remaining gaps, but the powered speaker is an opportunity for us to blend our amplifier technology and high-performance speaker technology in a way that allows us to get a better result from the combination than you would get from just assembling the pieces yourself.

We put a lot of special processing in the HPRs, under the umbrella of a term we’re going to be talking about a lot in coming years, “Intrinsic Correction.” [TRADEMARK??] This term describes the work we do in our large test facility, to correct the intrinsic characteristics of the speaker, so what comes out of the speaker is as clean, and flat, and full-range as we can possibly make it — so performers can focus on their show and not worry about just getting the speaker to sound halfway decent. The HPR Series embodies a first generation of this technology and that’s why you like them, because they are measurably flatter and cleaner than anything we know in their price range.

Ryan: So it’s a whole system that you’re controlling — the amplifier and the actual cone producing the sound. Those two pieces know who each other are and they’re able to work together to get the best quality sound hitting the ears.

Pat: And in order to package a modern speaker into a compact cabinet and keep the weight reasonable, various trade-offs are necessary. And when you do that with a passive speaker, there are certain things you end up requiring the user to correct for. In an active speaker, we can measure the trade-offs in a laboratory environment where we can really see what needs correcting, get it right, and give the customer good sound right out of the box.

Ryan: Fantastic.

Evan: One of the things, Ryan, that I just want to thank you for is that you’ve been a huge supporter and user of the HPRs. And I’m not trying to make a shameless plug here, although sometimes I can’t help myself because that’s my job, but you’re a classic example and I think a lot of your readership and listener-ship is a classic example of real world use of what Pat and his team put together. In other words, like I said at the beginning, responding to a need. And the response back from you folks has been, “Wow, they do everything they say and actually a little bit more.” And that’s really at the core value of QSC. We know you make a living off our products so we don’t want to get in the way of that. We just want to be here to serve your aspirations and your goals with your businesses. Period.

Ryan: Yes.

Pat: And that’s a point worth reinforcing. A lot of people who work here have had the experience of performing in public, whether professionally or for benefits or whatever. I mean, I play a little bit myself. And we all know the sinking feeling when something just dies on you and your show is suddenly dead. And we just do everything possible to prevent that from happening.

Ryan: Yeah. I mean, I got a call from another disc jockey in the market I’m from. I network with the other guys locally. And he had a set of speakers; one side went out at 9:00, the other side went out at 10:30. And he just said, “I’m sorry. I can’t do anything about it.” He was not using hardware that was made for what he was using it as. So understood completely on that.

Pat: And that is one of the big differences between pro audio and consumer. We’re the heavy haulers of the industry. We make products that are designed to carry a load day in and day out and do that for years at a time without wearing out. And once somebody has gone through their first round of equipment choices, they begin to understand that it’s worth paying the little extra to get the best quality you can afford, because it will stand by you and you can use it for many years.

Evan: Nobody else in the industry, unless it happened in the last week or so, gives you a free six-year warranty on pretty much everything we build. And by “pretty much” I mean anything a DJ — a Mobile Beat person — is going to need from us, there’s a six-year warranty. And that’s not because we’re paranoid or worried, that’s because we know they’re going to last and we’re here to take care of you nonetheless. I mean, there are countless examples of 36 hour turnarounds. Someone loses something on one of our products on a Saturday night and by Monday or Tuesday morning their product is back to them fixed.

Pat: And many of your readers have probably enjoyed reading the “Obsessed” feature on our website, which has hours of real-world war stories. Dunkings seem to be a persistent theme in these pieces, and it is amazing even to me. I mean, I do the very best I can to think about the possibilities and design to survive random accidents and yet I see some of the things our product has gone through and still survived and I just go, “Wow.” But that’s the result of decades of experience and our attitude of trying to give the customers something even if the worst happens; don’t leave them completely down.

Evan: Yeah. If your readers haven’t visited the Obsessed section of our website, it’s right there on the home page. There’s a banner for it called Obsessed. There was a contest we ran last year where people posted stories and then we chose the most calamitous, outrageous, insane accident that could possibly happen each month and gave them a big gift certificate for our gear. And then there was one grand prize winner that got a huge chunk of money.

There are about 130 stories posted there and you can actually communicate with those people. It’s a great way to network and talk to people about not just our gear, a lot of them are stories about gear they’ve owned before us. Like Pat was just talking about, you go through that first round of equipment purchase. But there are some extremely entertaining stories on this website, including the grand prize winner. Basically his amp sat in two feet of sewage for 36 hours and those amps are still working to this day and he actually never made a visit to our repair shop. He just hosed them out.

Pat: Hosed them down and dried them out thoroughly and, by golly, they came back on. Not that we recommend trying this at home (laughs)

Evan: Yeah. (laughing)

Ryan: Well, I was doing some research over the last couple days. I was reading through the history and everything. One thing that popped out at me on the second page of your history, the catch phrase of “imported from Southern California.” It kind of hit me; it’s like how does QSC compete in a market where so many other companies can, if they want to — they call an audio manufacturer and say, “Make me 1500 watt per side amplifiers,” where you guys are developing, designing and doing so much of the work here in the states, including building a ton of the hardware here. I mean, I guess that might be a Pat question or an Evan question. I don’t know.

Evan: That’s a Pat question.

Ryan: Okay.

Pat: Although progress marches on and all of the manufacturing areas in the world are wide awake and learning more every day, you really can’t just pick up the phone and say, “Design us a 500 watt professional amplifier and send it over,” and really expect it to work. There’s a lot more to it than that. We have a book-size qualification procedure that requires many months of arduous testing to prove a product is ready to go out, regardless of where it’s manufactured. And they’ve all got to get through this process before we consider them ready for prime time.

And I have to say, we don’t believe in slamming our competition; we’d rather focus on just improving our own product. But we’ve yet to have a competitor product make it all the way through this qualification without giving up at some point. And it’s usually not even the deliberate torture tests, but just trying to get it to really go the distance just on audio material.

So it is a very stringent process, one that embodies, again, decades of hard knocks that we’ve learned by putting stuff out there and seeing what happens to it. QSC has very highly developed quality control processes and many times we sort of curse ourselves because it seems to take us a while to get something done, because there’s so many t’s to cross, i’s to dot. But at the end of the day when you start making thousands of something, it really pays off because they all work. You don’t have unpredictable product delays. You know exactly what has to be done at each step.

Some of our high volume products are made by very carefully selected offshore manufacturing partners. But we still do a lot of stuff here in Costa Mesa, as you know, because many of our customers need a wide selection of products from our cinema and commercial catalogs and they’ll order two of these and three of those and five of the others and they need them next week. And you can’t just buy that stuff offshore and store it waiting for someone to buy it; it’s just not realistic.

So we have a very highly developed build-to-order capability here in Costa Mesa that, aside from being able to serve those customers effectively, keeps us very closely in touch with the manufacturing process. So when we design a product, no matter where we intend to build it, it’s designed to use good materials, go together easily, and hold up in the field. And those are core values that we’ve had all these years and plan to keep firmly in our playbook.

Ryan: I know I was thrilled with — a year and a half ago or so I came out and saw this build-to-order factory and how everything comes in, gets tested heavily after it’s put together by robots, put together by humans, doing all kinds of things. Then at the end, you guys are checking everything very heavily. It gets automated-boxed out and goes out that day if the orders come in a little bit before lunch, if I remember correctly. I was just really impressed.

Pat: It is rather breathtaking. When we started the company 40 years ago I had dreams and visions. I said, “Some day we’re going to be big. Some day our name will be in lights.” But I honestly never imagined anything this slick. I mean, my imagination sort of extended to more benches with more people hunched over soldering irons. And I have to say, our build-to-order factory is a modern miracle. We can go from raw material to a finished amp in about two hours, which means if someone phones in an emergency order they really, really need right now, we can build it and ship it before the day is over. And that really is amazing when you think about it. But that kind of attention to detail and flexibility is part of what lets us do what we do.

Ryan: Yeah. I’m looking through your site a little more as we’re talking and you’ve got a lot of videos and different stuff that people can check out. Maybe even having a video of the build-to-order, just so people know what’s happening with these amplifiers, might be something that would be interesting to have online some day. People are very interested in Dr. Q in the “Q” of QSC and the products and knowing who you all are. That’s why we’re doing this series of interviews. So it’s absolutely fantastic to get both of you on here. I really appreciate it.

Evan: Actually, if you go to our website there is a video to download called “Building Legends.” And that takes you through a complete tour of the whole place and you meet Pat and you meet Barry, his founding partner; and you meet John Andrews, Barry’s brother who came along about five years later.

Ryan: There it is.

Pat: I think you get a walk down the production line in the video.

Evan: You do. You get a walk down the whole amp line. And then of course you see the final test that Pat does to every single product. I’m lying (laughs). But you do get to see one of my favorite tests in that “Building Legends” video and it has to do with a roof about three stories above a parking lot. And I’ll let your viewers go and discover what that is.

Ryan: I heard about that. So, yes. I see the “Building Legends.” There’s even outtakes from the video, so it looks like you guys had fun with that.
Ryan: Well, I guess is there anything else that you want people to know about you guys specifically or about QSC to get the word out to everybody that’s listening and reading this in the magazine?

Pat: Well, we just want to thank you for letting us talk to our customers. And let everyone know we are enthusiasts. We do the very best job we can so you guys can do your job and put on the best show you can. And we enjoy being in the audio business; I think our passion for it shows and it’s just been great being here in California, a world center of show business, knowing that we have some part in this worldwide enterprise of entertaining people and making their leisure hours a little more pleasant.

Evan: You know, one of the things in closing — and then I’m going to throw it back to Pat for the benediction here — is when it comes to your readership and your listeners and the whole mobile DJ, mobile entertainer market. is we recognize you guys and you girls and we know who you are. We take the time to find out through various online voice-of-the-customer type surveys and listening to you at shows.

And what that goes to is that not only do we recognize you and know who you are, but we appreciate you. And I mean that in the most genuine way possible, which is one of the reasons I’m here and one of the reasons why a lot of audio professionals — be they on the engineering side, the marketing side or the sales side — have migrated to QSC in the last decade, is this is a company of recognition and appreciation for its customer base and service. And that’s why I’m here. I think that’s why a lot of people are here.

And we really just wanted to say thank you to you and to your readership and listener ship. We recognize you, we know who you are, and we really appreciate you.

Ryan: Time for the big finale. Pat?

Pat: Gee, how do you top that?

Ryan: Yeah, I know. You don’t have prepared –

Evan: I’m going to leave the room now.

Pat: I sort of gave you my thoughts a minute ago but I can only repeat. We like the idea of helping people connect to people and as an amateur musician, I love the feeling of joining in harmony that happens when you’re making music. Getting everyone out on the dance floor, rockin’ the joint, has got to be the same kind of thrill, and we’re just glad to have a part in it.