New software smoothes the way for JBL
Published: WORSHIP
KOREA: A concert by Christian rock group Hillsong at Seoul’s Olympic Velodrome recently saw local sound company Live Miso showcase JBL’s new V5 VerTec tunings to the Korean tour sound and house of worship markets. Using VT4889 enclosures with 4880 subs, the event marked the first time that Live Miso used its VerTec rig since upgrading to the new tunings, with the company describing itself as ‘instantly overwhelmed by the sound’.
VerTec V5 is a software ‘plug-in’ upgrade for JBL’s VT4889, VT4880 and VT4880A enclosures, offering improvements in horizontal coverage, sound quality via phase linearization, system response to equalisation, far-field summation and throw, and stereo imaging. The new software also leverages the Omnidrive HD linear phase FIR processing capability of Crown I-Tech HD Series power amplifiers.
A total of 24 upgraded VT4889 line array elements were deployed, 12-per side, for the Hillsong concert, alongside four VRX932 boxes and 16 VT4880 subs, also using the V5 tunings. The rig was powered by 32 Crown ITech 12000HD amps. Meanwhile Live Miso system technicians used the most recent v1.1 release of JBL’s Line Array Calculator 2, not only predicting the response of the array, but also inserting parametric EQ filters into each circuit to optimise system response.
Assisting Live Miso at the event was Korean Harman distributor Sovico and Crown tour sound specialist Eric Friedlander, who after the performance reported a strong reaction to the V5 tunings. Among them was Hillsong’s FOH engineer describing the upgraded system as ‘the best VerTec rig I’ve ever heard’.
‘He really appreciated the linearity of the system, and the impact of the shelving filters we’d applied to smooth the system,’ Mr Friedlander explained. ‘All in all it was a great show. The high energy, very full sound of the band really put the rig through its paces, showing some of the best aspects of the V5 tunings.’
Live Miso was able to save time by entering the required EQ into System Architect offline in advance, meaning that after the amplifiers had powered up they simply went online to send the data to the devices. Once the system was flown, the crew had ample time to check circuits, use SMAART to confirm the accuracy of the prediction and walk the entire coverage of the PA.
‘I have to say I was pretty impressed with the sound,’ Mr Friedlander added. ‘It’s by far one of the smoothest sounding VerTec rigs I’ve ever heard and with the introduction of V5 tunings the rig was more linear both front to back and left to right. Everybody seemed to recognise that we had achieved a significant step up from the already notable success of VerTec V4.’