The Petit Journal Jazz bar/ restaurant near Montparnasse is rated as one of the best clubs in Paris to hear live jazz, and rhythm and blues. Conveniently located next to one of the biggest train stations in France, the Petit Journal has, over the years, garnered a reputation as being a vital stop for visiting national and international artists.

The venue underwent an expansion programme in 2008, extending its capacity to 300 people, but it soon became apparent that the club’s PA system wasn't providing adequate sound coverage for this larger audience. Guests at the back of the venue were not getting the full musical experience.

To manage this situation, the Petit Journal would regularly hire in systems to provide the necessary SPL and coverage for its customers. However, with the venue's continuing growth in popularity as well as the limited space even after the expansion, this became an unsubstainable method of operation.

The Petit Journal realised that one of the most efficient ways to solve the problem was to install a highly compact and powerful system that could provide equal sound coverage over the whole venue, and which could all be located at the stage area. The venue’s sound technician Guillaume Carogus insisted that he no longer wanted to work with a system that would require any outfills or delays. His preferred method of working would be to have a single-source system, and to eradicate the difficulties of setting up and tuning different rental rigs.

With these two main criteria, the venue auditioned a large range of compact systems and, after examining a numerous amount of acoustical and technical parameters, the venue decided that a NEXO GEO S8 solution, coupled with CD12s subs, all powered by NXAMP 4x1s, provided the most coherent solution.

With line-array technology making its debut in the venue, the Petit Journal's technical team worked very closely with installation company Dimmer and NEXO's Project Director Paul Massiani to configure the system so that it could provide optimum capability for the venue.

Working with NEXO's proprietary GEOsoft, accurate representations of the system’s performance in the venue were presented to the Petit Journal. Initially, the venue was concerned about how exact the GEOsoft calculations could be, predicting such even and powerful coverage from a limited system. However, further measurements and tests have confirmed the accuracy of GEOsoft’s representation.

Since the installation, Petit Journal has been amazed at how quickly the club has amortized the system. This is primarily because there is now no need to rent extra systems, even for full houses, which was previously being done 2-3 times per month. With the sound reinforcement capabilities of NEXO's most compact line array system, they find that on most nights they are only using 66% of their new system.

Chief sound engineer Guillaume Carogus added that, "with the CD12 subs being full cardioid, it has completely altered the way in which we work." He told us that previously, he sometimes had to compensate for low frequency leakage by changing microphone placement on stage. Today he can place microphones in their optimal position for all musicians and not worry about adding any type of EQ into his mix to reduce unwanted LF. "Now I can provide a musical experience that is much truer for the audience, and, with the even sound coverage that the GEO S8s provide, I am very confident that every single person in the venue is experiencing the music just as I am behind my console."


For more information:
Le Petit Journal
DIMMER