Journey Holds Onto That Feeling with HARMAN’s JBL VTX Line Arrays

NORTHRIDGE, California – Legendary rock band Journey recently completed a series of concerts with HARMAN’s JBL VTX line arrays, powered by Crown I-Tech HD 12000 amplifiers. The VTX system was deployed for five performances, including two with Rascal Flatts (with a system provided by Sound Image) and other dates in Lake Tahoe, Aspen and San Francisco.

According to Jim Yakabuski, Journey’s front of house engineer, the band has few stipulations when it comes to its sound. “Journey is pretty hands-off for the most part,” Yakabuski said, “although they do ask me to keep the low end off the stage, so I try to keep the subwoofers from folding back onto the stage and keep the stage nice and clean.”

Journey’s latest tour started in June 2012, touring with Clair Global and their I5 loudspeaker system. This summer, Journey didn’t carry PA as there were many festivals and “one-off” shows, enabling Yakabuski to listen to the latest and greatest line array technology on the market. “I have to say that loudspeaker technology has really come a long way the past few years,” he said. “The VTX system was definitely one of the best we used this summer and we had five great shows with it. It wasn’t a problem at all keeping the low end off the stage with VTX.”

“The VTX system has a very nice clean and crisp high end,” Yakabuski added. “The whole midrange to high-end seemed really coherent and held together. There was also plenty of power, so we had no problems there.”

According to Yakabuski, a major advantage of VTX is how good it sounds right out of the box. “We used the JBL HiQnet Performance Manager™ software as well, which allowed us to take the low-end frequency response all the way down in the main V25 loudspeakers,” he said.

All in all, the five shows with the VTX system were a tremendous success. “[Clair System Engineer] David Quigley and I would like to thank [Plus 4 Marketing members] Keith Erickson and Jim Mathews, Alchemy Concert Systems [who provided the audio system in Aspen], as well as [Technical Support Lead, Tour Sound, JBL Professional] George Georgallis. They all put a lot of effort and time into making sure the system was set up properly. It makes it so much easier.”

Photo Credit: Matt Becker

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HARMAN (www.HARMAN.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. 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 14,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.3 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013.

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HARMAN’s Crown Now Offers Online Certification Program for I-Tech HD Series Amps

ELKHART, Indiana — HARMAN’s Crown Audio today announced that it now offers an online certification program for its I-Tech HD Series amplifiers. The program is free of charge and provides two levels of certification: Basic, which trains users on basic features of the amplifiers, and Advanced, which enables power users to get the most out of their I-Tech HD purchase.

The course is available online at: http://www.crownaudio.com/usa/amplifiers/i-tech-hd-series.html. Simply click on the blue “Test Your Knowledge” icon at the right of the screen to register for the Basic or Advanced test. Once registered, users may take the tests in one sitting or save their progress and resume the test at a later date.

“Crown I-Tech HD Series amplifiers are the most technologically advanced amplifiers on the market today, and offer highly flexible configuration and control options,” noted Brian Pickowitz, Business Segment Manager, Crown Audio. “Our Online Certification Program gives users the knowledge they need to ‘dig deep’ into the amplifiers’ extensive capabilities and optimize the performance of I-Tech HD Series amplifiers for any live sound system application.

Once logged on, participants will be asked a series of questions about the I-Tech HD Series amplifiers. The questions encompass a variety of topics including: types of features and connectivity options, DSP and preset memory capabilities, interfacing with other system components and software and many other areas.

Participants must receive an 80 percent or better correct score to successfully complete the tests. There are no time limits and users can take the tests as many times as they’d like. Once they pass the tests, they will receive a downloadable Certificate of Completion.

HARMAN (www.HARMAN.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. 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 14,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.3 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2013.

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Rock Star University Delivers the Decibels With HARMAN’s JBL, Crown, Soundcraft and AKG

SANTA ROSA, California – Santa Rosa’s Rock Star University (www.rockstaruniversity.com) teaches students how to play like the pros. The “House of Rock” offers instruction in guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and vocals and stage performance. Located in an 8,000-square-foot music and media production building, the school is equipped with a 1,000-square-foot stage complete with stacks of amplifiers, drums, audio and video recording facilities and a complete pro audio system including HARMAN’s JBL VERTEC® line array loudspeakers, Crown I-Tech HD Series amps, a Soundcraft Vi1 mixing console and AKG microphones.

Rock Star University was built from the ground up – the owners purchased a warehouse, gutted it and converted it into a combination performance venue, music teaching school and rehearsal studio. The 350-seat performance area features a full stage with concert-quality lighting, video backline and sound. The audio and video system was installed by systems integrator Sound Expressions of Santa Rosa (www.soundexpressions.com) under the direction of Greg Adams.

Sound Expressions was one of the first systems contractors to ever install the VERTEC VT4886 line arrays in the US and chose the VT4886 subcompact line array element for Rock Star University, having outstanding results with the speaker in various sizes and shapes of venues. “For this space it was a home run out of the box,” said Adams. “We needed a low-profile line array system because of the low ceilings in the performance space and I knew the VT4886 would be perfect for it.” Adams and his team hung five JBL VT4886 loudspeakers on each side of the stage, with low-frequency reinforcement provided by one JBL SRX728 subwoofer per side. The system also features four JBL SRX712M stage monitors.

PA system amplification is courtesy of Crown I-Tech 12000HD power amps. “The I-Tech HD’s have tons of power and tons of headroom,” Adams noted. They’re really clean even when pushed hard and the sound tailoring and system tuning capabilities offered by their onboard DSP is unparalleled.” A Soundcraft Vi1 digital live sound console was chosen for its combination of small footprint yet large channel count, ease of use and flexibility. Rock Star University puts a big emphasis on recording its students’ performances so the students can listen to and learn from them, and the Vi1 is equipped with a MADI card that outputs multitrack digital audio from the console into a ProTools rig.

Rounding out the system is a complement of AKG vocal and instrument microphones. The drum kit is miked using D40 dynamic mics on the snare and tom toms, a C214 large-diaphragm condenser overhead mic and a C451 B condenser on the hi-hat. Several D5 handheld vocal mics are on hand and the guitar amps are miked with Perception 120 condensers. CM311 and 520L headworn mics are available for drummers who sing and WMS 470 wireless systems are used with electric guitars. In addition, three IVM4500 wireless in-ear monitoring systems are available for vocalists.

“Students who attend Rock Star University aren’t just going to some glorified rehearsal studio—thanks to the HARMAN Professional audio system and the same staging and lighting you’d find in a real music venue, the students are getting a complete learning experience that’ll have them ready to rock wherever they play,” Adams concluded.

HARMAN (www.HARMAN.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of audio, lighting and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson®, and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. 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 14,300 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.4 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012.

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