PA Plus Helps Make Nashville Songwriters The Stars At Avalon Theatre With JBL’s VERTEC® Line Arrays And New V4 DSP

Demonstrating the premium audio fidelity and rider-friendly characteristics of JBL VERTEC® line arrays, PA Plus Productions recently supplied the live sound reinforcement system for “Songwriters Night,” held at the Avalon Theatre at Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Canada. The shows featured six of Nashville’s most successful country songwriters performing hits they have written for Tim McGraw, Reba McEntire, Faith Hill, Vince Gill and many more. The event showcased the songwriting talents of Al Anderson, Bob DiPiero, Tim Nichols, Jeffrey Steele, Craig Wiseman and Tony Mullins, telling the stories that inspired their most popular songs, followed by all six performing each song together.

PA Plus deployed an “in-the-round” setup providing 360 degrees of coverage, with six line arrays each containing eight VERTEC VT4887 compact line array elements. PA Plus also used 16 JBL MS26 compact loudspeakers for front fills. Powered by Crown I-Tech amplifiers, the system was remotely controlled and monitored via the Harman HiQnet™ System Architect™ platform.

In addition to the temporary sound system deployed for the “Songwriters Night” event, PA Plus recently installed the permanent sound reinforcement system at the 1,500-seat Avalon Theatre, which includes a left-right configuration of 10 VT4888 midsize line array elements per side, along with six VT4880 arrayable subwoofers per side. Crown I-Tech amplifiers power the new house system, which also includes AKG microphones, BSS Audio DPR dynamics and dbx 162SL compressor/limiters.

With Reba McEntire loading in right after the final Songwriters Night performance, PA Plus left the existing VERTEC midsize house system in place and flew the standalone VERTEC compact system for the Songwriters Night in-the-round show. In order to expedite loadout after the Songwriters Night events, PA Plus took full advantage of the configuration functionality available in the venue’s Crown I-Tech amplifier installation. “Power and processing for the portable VT4887 system was achieved by simply tying into the existing speaker lines in the overhead production grid and loading the corresponding JBL V4 DSP presets into the Crown I-Tech amplifiers,” said Mark Radu, Systems Engineer for PA Plus. “A simple re-patch in the grid and preset recall was all that was required to ready the system for Reba McEntire.”

According to Radu, the acoustic music content of the show was a perfect match for the VT4887’s. “This was the first chance I had to work with JBL’s new V4 DSP presets for driving 4887’s with I-Tech,” he said. “I was much closer to the desired end result right out of the box with V4 presets, while the system as a whole sounded much more coherent from top to bottom. I was happy with the improvements [JBL’s Director of Tour Sound Product and Application Engineering] Paul Bauman and JBL Engineering have made with the rest of the VERTEC DSP presets, and his work on the VT4887’s proved just as impressive.”

For more information on PA Plus, please visit www.pa-plus.com

JBL is a unit of Harman International Industries, Incorporated (www.harman.com). Harman International designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment products for the automotive, consumer and professional markets, and maintains a strong presence in the Americas, Europe and Asia, employing more than 11,000 people worldwide. The Harman International family of brands includes AKG®, Audioaccess®, Becker®, BSS®, Crown®, dbx®, DigiTech®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, Mark Levinson®, Revel®, QNX®, Soundcraft® and Studer®. Harman International’s stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “NYSE: HAR.”

Harman HiQnet™ is the world's first connectivity and control protocol that integrates all product categories in the signal chain for professional audio systems of all types, size, and applications. Harman HiQnet no longer requires the user to manage multiple disparate operating systems or be responsible for programming individual signal processors, speaker controllers, wireless microphone systems, and mixing consoles. HiQnet was developed by engineers from across the Harman Pro Group and is coordinated by the System Development and Integration Group (SDIG), a team of dedicated systems specialists based in Salt Lake City, Utah.