Tannoy
VQ Live a massive hit with ‘Who’s Bad’ MJ tribute
show
(3rd December 2010
– Coatbridge, Scotland) Tannoy’s VQ Live high performance,
self-powered portable PA system has been winning new fans across the
live touring sound sector over the past 18 months since its launch,
thanks mainly to its exceptional acoustic performance in such a compact
format. Ted Pierce, FOH engineer for the Michael Jackson tribute show
“Who’s Bad”, counts himself as one of the most fervent
of recent converts, having had the opportunity to try out the system
on the UK leg of their current tour.
Described as ‘the closest you will get now to seeing Michael Jackson
Live’, this infectious production comes direct from the US and
brings the King of Pop’s music back to the stage. Formed in 2004
by Vamsi Tadepalli, the band have been playing Michael Jackson’s
hits, including everything from ABC to You Rock My World, right across
America. And now the show is on the road on this side of the pond, with
over 30 dates in the UK from Glasgow to the IndigO2 in London.
Experienced system tech Pierce previously specified conventional line
array systems on earlier Who’s Bad tours but after reading about
VQ Live, and presented with the opportunity to demo it via the UK sub-distributors
of the system, JHS & Co. Ltd., he decided to check it out ahead
of the first UK gig. His immediate impressions were very positive, as
he explained:
“Very first impressions, first day – plugged it in, networked
everything together and hit play – I was blown away. The fidelity
in the high end is amazing. Honestly, it absolutely blew me away within
15 seconds.”
The nature of the show, where the focus is on live band performance,
meant that the demands were suited to a high performance system akin
to the requirements of a touring rock band and had to be scalable to
deal with varying sizes of venue. Just a pair of VQNET 60 Live tops
per side and paired stack of VNET 218DR Live and VNET 215HL Live subwoofers
each side were more than adequate to handle just about every venue,
with the smaller gigs using just a single top box per side, giving comparable
SPL performance as a 4-box flown line array system. Given that VQ Live
is fully integrated with onboard amplification, DSP and network control
(via Tannoy’s proprietary VNET system), there’s no need
for additional outboard power and processing and setting the system
up and tuning to each venue is quick and easy.
Pierce was keen to emphasise the instant familiarisation and simplicity
of operation, commenting “I’m not trying to sugar coat this
at all, but after just two gigs with the system, I’m completely
comfortable working with the DSP to tune the room out – its super
easy thanks to Tannoy’s VNET software working straight out the
box, to locate each device and EQ each individual box in minutes. Last
night for example, I ended up taking the inside boxes and dropping them
3dB on the fly, just to give me a little more headroom with the vocal
mics – crucial with a ground-stacked system – it’s
just so user friendly.”
Judging by his early experiences with the Tannoy system, Pierce is convinced
of its merits of having that level of performance self-contained in
such a compact box. “In this system I definitely see an advantage
in point source systems with the smaller amount of boxes.” He
continues “Compared with running line array systems in the same
venue last year, one VQNET 60 Live is definitely giving us better performance.”
As well as the VQ
Live components, the tour’s system also features a number of Tannoy’s
VNET 12HP handling side-fill and monitoring duties, configured and controlled
on the same network as the VQ Live boxes, thanks to full VNET integration.
All
products contained within the JHS website are available throughout the
United Kingdom and Eire from all good music stores.
Please note, as trade only distributors we do not sell direct to the
general public.
Specifications,
colours and pricing are subject to change without prior notice.
