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Listening as a key to success

Port Coquitlam audio products manufacturer counts music industry’s top acts
among customers

By Jenny Lee, Vancouver Sun June 18, 2015

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Photos ( 1 )

Peter Janis, president of Radial Engineering, in the
company’s sound studio in Port Coquitlam.

Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider ,
SUN

When bluesman Buddy Guy plays the Vancouver International Jazz Festival
tonight, he will be using Peter Janis’s products.

They may not look like much — 20-25 small metal boxes that clutter the dark
corners of a stage — but for professional musicians, the Port Coquitlam
entrepreneur’s gear is essential equipment.

Paul McCartney? Check. Bruce Springsteen? Check. The Rolling Stones, Cirque
du Soleil, Tony Bennett, U2, Andrea Bocelli and Taylor Swift? Check.

Janis’ Radial Engineering is the global market leader for equipment that
connects musical instruments to amplifiers.

Radial shipped 90,000 “direct boxes” and similar electronic interfaces last
year, and is on track for 100,000 this year. The company has 70 employees and
annual sales of more than $10 million.

Direct boxes eliminate buzz and hum in a PA system, and convert an
instrument’s sound output into a signal that can be read by a mixing consul as
far as 400 feet away. The boxes are generally used with acoustic guitars, bass
guitars and keyboards.

Paul McCartney, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen don’t put a mic in front of
their acoustic guitars, Janis said, but use a direct box to prevent feedback. On
the other hand, electric guitarists usually avoid direct boxes because they want
and use sound distortions.

“We found a crack in the marketplace,” Janis said.

Giant multinationals were offering just one or two basic boxes when Janis got
his idea to produce 100 different products at different price points.

“We’ve had competition, but they’ve pretty much gone away.”

One product is a splitter that allows musicians such as Buddy Guy, Carlos
Santana or AC/DC to switch between different guitar amplifiers during a set
without any noise, buzz or hum — and without having to plug and unplug their
instruments.

“When you take a small amplifier and play it louder, it sounds a certain way
versus a big amp that’s played softer. It’s how the sound distorts,” said Janis,
56, who grew up taking radios apart and graduated to building speakers and
“getting electrical shocks on stage.”

His Radial J48 has become the industry standard for connecting low-output
instruments to PA systems without using batteries. And the Radial JDI became a
bestseller simply because it was the first commercially available direct box to
use the famous Jensen audio transformer.

“Before we came along, everyone was building them by hand,” Janis said.
“There was nothing innovative at all.”

Janis is careful with his money.

“We don’t own any new furniture to this day. It’s all used,” he said of his
23-year-old company.

“Retained earnings is the magic. I think being a musician you realize the
value of things because you have no money.”

Retained earnings were what allowed Janis to continue advertising and growing
through the 2008 recession. It helped that artists were shifting their financial
model from selling CDs to live touring.

Another key has been focusing on professional needs, not luxuries.

“You can buy a direct box for $30 or $40 from China or one of ours for $200,”
but for crews mounting $2-million productions, reliability is what counts. So
Janis has his printed circuit boards soldered on both sides, uses metal switches
rather than plastic, and builds sturdy boxes designed to withstand being kicked
on a dark stage.

“Ultimately, when you’re selling a product, eliminating all the negatives is
the best way to win. If someone says, ‘Why didn’t you do that?’ you say, ‘This
is why we did this,’” Janis said. “When you make a product that has no excuses,
guess what, people buy.”

Janis started out as a young Montreal musician who talked his way into an
Edmonton job selling synthesizers and PA systems. At 24, Fender hired him as
Canadian product director after noticing that only one store in Canada was
selling their high-tech synthesizers.

“They said, ‘What’s going on in Edmonton? Who’s the guy who is selling these
stupid expensive synthesizers?’ And that’s how they noticed me. Next thing I
know, I’m at Oscar Peterson’s house showing him how to use it.”

Top lessons learned along the way?

Janis started out pitching to the biggest equipment rental companies who told
him they didn’t care. It wasn’t until Janis created demand by directly
approaching the artists and show technicians that things really turned
around.

Janis started out in distribution, but moved to manufacturing. The Internet
and cross-border shopping made distribution a tough gig, and he discovered
developing his own products gave him greater control. He orders in components
and assembles product in Port Coquitlam.

In 2000, he started an acoustic panel division that has grown to 20 per cent
of his business and is used in everything from conference rooms to police
stations and dog kennels. In the last five years, Radial has bought three audio
companies: Jensen, Hafler and Reamp.

But the real key to success, for Janis, is sticking close to his end users
and listening hard.

When musicians such as Buddy Guy or Tony Bennett come to town, Janis is
always in the venue during sound check.

“We talk about the setups, the problems and what solutions we can bring to
the market.”

For him, it feels like “playing a game of chess or tennis.”

“You get an idea, you put a strategy in place, bring it to market and score a
point.”

[email-masked]

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Peter Janis, president of Radial Engineering, in the
company’s sound studio in Port Coquitlam.

Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider,
SUN

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