NORTHRIDGE, California – Oslo-based production company Frontlite recently supplied HARMAN’s JBL VTX line arrays for main stage coverage at one of Norway’s predominant annual summer music events, the Hove Festival. The event took place on the island of TromA¸ya, outside Arendal, and was promoted by Festival Republic.
Having been caught up in the buzz surrounding the launch of JBL’s new high-directivity line array, Frontlite’s Per Marius Larsen met product specialist Espen Andersen of JBL’s Norwegian distributor, LydRommet, at the 2011 PLASA Show in London. By the following spring he was back in contact, realizing this major event was coming up in June, and taking the decision to try out the PA. “Although we had not considered JBL previously, we know Espen and LydRommet well and have always had a great relationship. After speaking with our client we were happy to go forward with this.”
This enabled Frontlite to reinforce the sound for an all-star cast, including Snoop Dogg, Skrillex, Lostprophets, Lana Del Rey, Emeli Sandé and Ed Sheeran, with Espen Andersen acting as system tech for the duration of the 4-day event.
Site measurements were taken to assess coverage requirements, with the VTX system optimized using a combination of EASE predictions and JBL Line Array Calculator acoustic modeling. As a result, 12 elements a side of JBL VTX V25 line array loudspeakers were flown from each side of the stage with four VERTECA® VT4886 subcompact line array loudspeakers suspended below the hangs to provide down fill.
Two further clusters of four VT4886’s, operating as front fills, and eight of the new VTX S28 arrayble subwoofers were ground-stacked on each side of the stage.
The system was powered by 12 Crown VRacks (six a side), with I-Tech HD 12000 amps running the system in High Power Mode. Two tops and two subs were assigned to each rack and the four remaining channels in the spare racks drove the VT4886 speakers.
Although this was Frontlite’s first encounter with JBL, LydRommet has been supplying the company with Soundcraft digital consoles over the years. The Vi platform was in evidence here, both in the marquee and on the main stage, where a Vi2 acted as a matrix, enabling visiting production engineers to plug in their desks and have AES-EBU signal distribution from the matrix. Explained Espen Andersen, “Sound engineers could choose how they wanted to assign their mix via AES-EBU, running analog as backup in parallel.”
Frontlite project manager, Per Marius Larsen, remarked that the VTX had left him and visiting sound engineers with a very favorable impression. “From our point of view the result was excellent and we are proud to have supplied our client with this level of sound production,” he said. “Espen was a great asset all week and made sure that the PA sounded fantastic, so that we received nothing but praise from the visiting artists.”
HARMAN (
) designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets — supported by 15 leading brands, including AKGA®, Harman KardonA®, InfinityA®, JBLA®, LexiconA® and Mark LevinsonA®. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 13,000 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported net sales of $4.3 billion for the twelve months ended March 31, 2012.
