Essence music festival backed by Harman equipment

Premier Sound Services of Baton Rouge, Louisiana acquired the services of a selection of Harmon audio equipment for the recent New Orleans Essence music festival.

Taking place at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, the festival was a celebration of African-American music and culture that featured a line up including Aretha Franklin, Mary J. Blige and the Stylistics. 

The Coca-Cola Superlounge at the venue featured four main speaker ground stacks of three Vertec VT4888 midsize line array elements mounted on a VT4888-SF frame on top of three SRC728S subwoofers.

The arrangement also included four Vertec VT4886 subcompact line array elements for front fill, four VT4886 and two VT4883 subcompact arrayable subwoofers for side and drum fill, along with 16 SRX712M floor monitors.

The main line arrays were powered by 13 Crown I-Tech 12000 HDamps with nine I-Tech 8000 amps for the monitors and front of house mixing was handled by a 96-channel Soundcraft Vi6 console.

“I have used JBL speakers since I got into the business in 1984. When we decided to purchase a line array system, we considered all the speakers on the market but decided that Vertec best met our needs from a price/performance standpoint,” said Russ Bryant, Director of Operations and Co-Owner of PSS.

“In fact, we may be the most impressed by the VT4886. We use them as front fills, side fills, drum fills and down fills under our VT4888’s and have even hung them 12 per side in smaller venues to do loud rock shows. It is the best sounding, smallest, loudest box I have ever used.”

The Verizon Superlounge stage employed four ground stacks of four Vertec VT4887A compact line array elements each, mounted on a VT4887-SF frame atop three SRX728S subwoofers.

Also included were four Vertec VT4886’s for front fill, two stacks of two SRX722 speakers and one SRX718S sub for side and drum fill, plus 12 SRX712M stage monitors. Primary amplification was catered for by eight Crown I-Tech 8000 amps, two I-Tech 4000 amps and one I-Tech 5000, with six I-Tech 4000’s driving the monitors.

Premier Sound Services also used Harman HiQnet System Architect and JBL HiQnet Performance Manager for setting up and controlling both stages.

“I also need to single out the Crown I-Tech HD Series amplifiers,” continued Bryant.

“No other amplifier is as accurate, we’ve scoped them and verified this against other amplifiers, and is as pleasing to my ear. They were a big part of the superior sound quality we achieved at the Essence music festival.”