Thunder Audio Gears Up For Summer Festival Season with Harman's JBL VTX Series Line Arrays

	The Thunder Audio team: Paul Owen, vice president; Tony Villarreal, president; and Greg Snyder, business development manager.

It's the start of the summer festival season, and tour sound provider Thunder Audio is thinking big, with an inventory that includes more than 50 Harman's JBL VTX Series V25 line array loudspeakers, dozens of S28 and G28 subwoofers, and enough Crown amplifiers to shake a stadium -- how about 98 Crown I-Tech HD Series I-Tech 12000 HD amplifiers for one gig alone? Thunder Audio will be providing the audio for the Movement Electronic Music Festival, the Faster Horses Festival, and the Electric Forest Music Festival and tours for Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bad Company and Marilyn Manson with Alice Cooper.

"This summer is shaping up to be an extremely busy one for us," noted Greg Snyder, business development manager for Thunder Audio. "We are using the JBL VTX Series on all of these festivals and tours because we feel that it is the best suited for a multitude of reasons."

The Movement Electronic Music Festival will take place in Hart Plaza in Detroit, Michigan on Memorial Day weekend and will feature more than 100 of the genre's biggest artists including Deadmau5, Carl Craig, Moby, and more. Thunder Audio will outfit the main Red Bull Music Academy stage with 18 V25 full-size line array elements per side and four hangs of nine S28 subwoofers on the left and right of the stage, along with six V25 loudspeakers per side for outfill. Sixteen G28 ground-stacked subs will be deployed in a cardioid configuration for front fill, and side fills will include two S28 subs with two V25 loudspeakers on top. The system will be driven by a total of 98 Crown I-Tech 12000 HD amplifiers and connected through dbx DriveRack 4800 loudspeaker management systems via JBL HiQnet Performance Manager software.

Rothbury, Michigan's Electric Forest outdoor music festival (June 27-30) will feature performers in the jam band and electronic music genres including The String Cheese Incident, Pretty Lights, Passion Pit, and nearly 100 other artists. For this diverse musical lineup, Thunder Audio will provide 16 V25 line array elements per side for the main left and right hangs and out-hangs of nine V25's per side, complemented by 12 S28 and six G28 subs per side, powered by 72 I-Tech 12000 HD amps with dbx DriveRack 4800.

The Faster Horses Festival is a three-day country music and camping festival to be held in Brooklyn, Michigan on July 19-21. The featured artists include ACM Entertainer of the Year Luke Bryan, Dierks Bentley, and Jason Aldean who will be joined by Kix Brooks, Florida Georgia Line, and many others. The main stage system will include 18 V25 loudspeakers per side, with 12 V25's flown per side for outfills and 12 JBL VerTec VT4888 midsize line array elements used for center and front fill. Twelve G28 ground-stacked subwoofers, 98 Crown I-Tech 12000 HD amps, and dbx 4800 processing complete the system lineup.

Marilyn Manson and Alice Cooper will be livening up the summer tour scene with dates from late May through the end of June with an all-VTX system featuring two hangs of 14 V25's per side and nine S28's per side on the ground, all driven by 22 Crown I-Tech 12000 HD amplifiers per side. Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bad Company will also be hitting the road this summer and they'll be packing a VTX system with two left and right main towers with 14 V25 loudspeakers each, along with two out-hangs of eight V25's each, eight ground-stacked S28 subs per side, and 22 Crown I-Tech 12000 HD powering each side.

"One of reasons we've used VTX for the past year is the sheer horsepower of the speakers and subs," Snyder noted. "The extended low-end response of the S28 and G28 is incredible and the clarity of the V25 both outdoors and indoors rises above any other line array out there." Snyder finds that the 15" woofers in the V25 make "a world of difference" and that the capability to change its crossover points from 80Hz to 60Hz enables Thunder Audio to optimize a VTX-based system for rock, electronic, country, jazz, or any other type of music.

"After more than a year in the trenches using JBL VTX at a diverse number of events, I feel that VTX is a system that has established itself as something that's going to set the standard for a long time," Snyder concluded.