A short interview with Dave Neal @ BSS...

>> How long has BSS been putting product on the market?

BSS has been in existence for 16 years, now, as a fully incorporated company, but was making product for 4 years previously.

>>What is the basic philosophy behind BSS and the design of their products?

First and foremost is audio quality, which is what signal processing is about. We also try and be innovative, and give people features that make the job easier. Virtually every product BSS makes has some special feature to set it apart from the rest.

>> Seems like every BSS product available is so usable compared to other manufacturers... Is there a lot of beta testing that is involved before a product is on the market?

We do extensive research both in-house and with Customers to ensure a great user interface. All of our Sales force have themselves been sound engineers, and so have a real appreciation of how useable a product should be. We do conduct in-depth beta testing as well before we finally release product.

>> BSS has become very respected for their quality and high performance dynamic controllers. What is it about the DPR series that makes them so musical and so friendly with regards to tone and control? I believe the term might be better stated and "very musical sounding processors". Does this go back to the experience of the designers or testing on the market by professionals?

Again, we research what makes good sound. In the DPR compressors, for example, we use a technique called 'subtractive compression', which makes a tremendous difference to how the signal is processed. This technique puts the VCA in the side chain, and means we can do very effective frequency-selective compression for de-esseing etc.

>> What can you tell us about the designers involved with the DPR series? Very clever people....

>>Who developed the idea of the DPR 901? Can you tell us anything about the philosophy in building that processor?

From my knowledge of the history of the DPR-901, it was a concept worked out by Dave Haydon, our Sales Manager, and Pip Wilson, now our QC Manager. People were using the DPR-402 for de-essing, but wanted more control over other signals like bass and vocals, strong or weak, so basically the 901 was born from that.

>> How much of the Opel Series is really the guts of the standard DPR's?

The Opals are very much designed around the original DPR's - why change a winner? We took the opportunity to revisit and enhance the original designs slightly as well. Of course, some of the DPR features were omitted to keep the costs down, but there is a great deal of heritage in the Opal Series.

>> Is there a giving up of quality with the Opel series in regards to components?

Absolutely not. The audio performance of the Opal Series is as good as (if not better in some areas) the regular DPR range. The cost-savings have come in manufacturing techniques.

>> The Omni Drive and Vari-Curve were two of the biggest things to hit the live sound industry. Was this expected or just a matter of timing with the markets demands?

More planned and expected than timing. As I've mentioned before, we try very hard to track what's going on, and speak to our users very often indeed, so we get the ideas and work from there. We were not the first to do a loudspeaker control system, but I think it's fair to say we set a standard.

>> Where does the Onmi Drive and Vari-Curve take BSS next? Will there be updates or product advances do to their success or is Sound Web the next level?

Effectively Soundweb is very much the future, but we are also thinking about where OMNIDRIVE and VARICURVE fit into the market for the future as well - we haven't finished yet! We continue to update software for the existing products, for example we've added new limiter designs to the OMNIDRIVE recently.

>> In keeping with the high standards BSS has created, where do you think BSS will be going in the future? .... new product ideas? We have a number of ideas, none of which we can divulge at present, but expect the unexpected, as usual. Technology use is very high at BSS, and we keep very much up to date with components and software.

>> Can we expect anything new from BSS at AES?

Yes. The new Opal FCS-966 Graphic EQ, and new software upgrades for Soundbench, the OMNIDRIVE COMPACT and OMNIDRIVE itself. Of course, Soundweb will feature prominently.

Dave Neal @ BSS Audio