NORTHRIDGE, California
– North York, Canada-based PA Plus recently provided HARMAN’s
JBL VERTEC®
line arrays for the Canadian Country Music Awards. Held at the Credit Union
Centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, highlights for this year’s Awards included
Dean Brody earning “Artist of the Year” honors and “Album of the Year” for DIRT, with Taylor Swift winning the CCMA
Generation Award.
With 19 live performances over two hours, Mark Radu, Systems
Engineer for PA Plus and FOH engineer for the awards show, was challenged with
accommodating a large number of artists in a short time span, while adjusting
for some other unusual conditions. “This setup was a little different because
there were two satellite stages in front of the main stage where presentations
and smaller performances took place, so it was a bit complex since we had two completely
different zero time reference points,” Radu said. “Independently delaying and
processing the main stage and satellite stage inputs provided a seamless,
real-time transition between the two.”
PA Plus deployed a system that featured 48 JBL VERTEC
VT4889 fullsize line array elements (12 per side for the main PA and 12 per
side for outfill), supplemented with 16 VT4880 fullsize arrayable subwoofers.
An additional eight SRX712M loudspeakers were used for front fill and a total
of 68 Crown I-Tech 5000 HD amplifiers powered the system.
The entire system was configured, tuned and controlled with
JBL HiQnet Performance Manager™. “We have used Performance Manager quite a bit
but I think this is the biggest event we’ve used it on, and we really stretched
the limits this time, using absolutely everything it has to offer,” Radu
commented. “Once again, it worked amazingly well for us.”
Prior to setting up the system for the awards, Radu worked
with his Performance Manager show file offline. “I was mostly maximizing what I
would call the ‘array-specific correction tools’—circuit level gain shading, tapering
EQ, etc.,” he said. “I did this in conjunction with the virtual test mics at my
disposal in Performance Manager and JBL Line Array Calculator II. I basically
tuned the system from my office a week out from the show. Once onsite, seven
live test mics confirmed the accuracy of the virtual tuning. It was so on the
money it was scary. The entire system was within +/- 1.5dB from the front row
to the last seat in the house.”
Radu continued to note three qualities that set Performance
Manager apart from the pack: “Firstly, from start to finish, the entire process
is all self-contained. Secondly, failure-wise, I’m not tied to a single FOH
processor. Worst-case scenario, f my computer dies, the system is still up and
running, because Performance Manager is a GUI at the end of the day. Lastly, because
everything is happening within the amps, having no more cable runs or
additional A/D D/A conversions between my system DSP and amps is a welcome
change. I don’t have the 300-foot snake anymore because everything is happening
in the amps. I couldn’t have asked for anything more out of the Performance
Manager platform and now I’d be hard-pressed to do a show any other way.”
In addition, Radu and PA Plus continue to rely on VERTEC
for the most critical and highest-profile events. “It doesn’t matter what genre
of music you’re mixing or what volume level the performance is, the VERTEC
boxes hit everything,” Radu noted. “It sounds great with country acts, it
sounds great with rock and roll acts, and everything in between. It’s the most
predictable line array loudspeaker I’ve worked with and, having worked with it
so much, I know exactly what to expect every time.”
For more information on PA Plus, please visit www.pa-plus.com
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