NORTHRIDGE, California – The
House of Blues Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay hotel is one of Las Vegas’ premier
concert venues—and it just upped the ante with the installation of HARMAN’s JBL
VTX Series line array. The House of Blues hosts major touring acts and will be
home to a 2-year residency by Carlos Santana, performing his “Greatest Hits
Live: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” through 2014. Sound Image of Escondido,
California, designed and installed the JBL VTX system under the direction of
Jason Schmidlapp, with support from Dave Kaiser of Sound Marketing West, HARMAN
Professional’s regional sales rep firm.
The system includes
two 13-box hangs of 10 VTX 25 line arrays and three VerTec® VT4880A fullsize arrayable subwoofers on each side of the
stage, complemented by six ASB7128 subwoofers under the stage and six VerTec VT4886 subcompact line array elements for upper balcony
fill. In addition, a JBL AC18 compact 2-way loudspeaker and ASB6112 compact
12-inch subwoofer are installed in each of the VIP suites.
“The House of Blues Las
Vegas had gotten to the point where it really needed to upgrade its sound system,”
said Dan Schartoff, VP of Production for House of Blues Entertainment. “The VTX
boxes were a bit larger than the previous system so the suspension points had
to change, and we also had to work around the room’s upper balcony. We had to
move the array stacks slightly upstage and offstage to keep the sight lines to
the stage clear. As it turned out, this enabled us to give patrons a better
view of the stage since previously some of the speakers were stacked on the
stage underneath the flown speakers. The better, more focused coverage of the
VTX line arrays enabled us to eliminate the on-stage speakers while delivering
much better sound.”
The upper balcony was
a large hurdle to overcome, Schartoff noted. “The two array hangs are fairly
close to the balcony, so we decided to install the subwoofers in the middle of
both arrays. Six VTX V25 provide balcony coverage with three VT4880A flown in
the middle of the array and four V25 for floor coverage,” he said. “The 13-box
arrays were carefully designed to fit the available space and the bottom V25
enclosure of the balcony section is at the same elevation as the first row of
the balcony, providing excellent off-axis coverage. The subwoofers are in the
middle and close to the balcony surfaces, which helps to reduce reflections
while at the same time allowing for improved under-balcony penetration since
the lower V25 enclosures have line of sight coverage to the back of the room.”
The loudspeakers are
powered by Crown IT 12000HD and XTi Series amplifiers. Loudspeaker management
is performed via dbx DriveRack® 4800 speaker management systems. A
Soundcraft Vi1 digital live sound console handles some front-of-house mixing
duties. “We used HARMAN HiQnet System Architect™ software to do the setup and
installation,” said Schmidlapp, “which really streamlined the whole process.”
“We were eager to do
an installation with the new VTX line arrays as soon as we’d heard about them,
and we bid on the House of Blues job, which would give us a great setting as a
showcase room,” Schmidlapp noted. “If you’re going to go big, what better place
to go big than Las Vegas? At the same time we were contracted to do the install,
Carlos Santana was looking for someplace with a younger, hip clientele for his
upcoming residency and chose the House of Blues. The timing wound up being
perfect for us.”
The installation
makes Sound Image the first company to install a JBL VTX system. “What a
perfect deal—now, Santana is being showcased with the newest pro rig on the
market,” Schmidlapp said. “I think Santana’s pretty impressed with it. Wait
until you hear it!”
“Carlos
Santana performing through a VTX line array system at the House of Blues Las
Vegas is a match made in heaven,” said Paul
Bauman, Senior Manager, Tour Sound for JBL Professional, who was instrumental
in providing onsite support during the installation. “This project was truly a
team effort under the guidance of Dan Schartoff and his team at Live Nation,
coupled with Sound Image’s expert design and implementation and outstanding
support from Sound Marketing West.”
“I can
honestly say JBL hit the nail on the head with VTX—I can’t say enough about how
good this box sounds,” said Rob Mailman, Touring Operations Manager for Sound
Image and FOH engineer for Santana. “It is very transparent, solid throughout
all bands and does really well not leaving me fatigued at the end of a long and
loud show.”
For more
information on the House of Blues Las Vegas, please visit http://www.houseofblues.com/venues/clubvenues/lasvegas/
For more
information on Sound Image, please visit www.sound-image.com
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