Funktion-One Delivers Sound System to Glastonbury's Glade Stage

	At the heart of The Glade Stage's setup was Vero VX, Funktion-One's medium-format, vertically arrayable loudspeaker system.

For many years, Funktion-One founder Tony Andrews has used The Glade Stage at the Glastonbury Festival as the playground for the company's latest technological developments. Fifty-four years after the festival's debut, Andrews and Funktion-One, working in collaboration with Audio Plus, continued the practice this summer with a sound system that delivered what Andrews described as "probably the best sonic experience of my life."

At the heart of The Glade Stage's setup was Vero VX, Funktion-One's medium-format, vertically arrayable loudspeaker system, which the company says, delivers extraordinary clarity, midrange presence, and dynamic range for live bands, vocalists, or DJs. The stage featured Funktion-One's signature asymmetric bass configuration. On one side of the stage, a monoblock of F124s was dedicated to bass frequencies and a column of newly upgraded F132s for sub-bass. "We've sorted out the suspension, given it more control," Andrews says about the F132. "It's a different beast now."

Martin Harrison, front-of-house engineer for the electronic music group Leftfield, comments, "When I saw the Funktion-One spec for the Glade, I thought it must be a typo: 18 F124s on one side of the stage. I hadn't expected that, but I really like people who are doing things differently. I paced up and down that field to see if the theory worked and really liked what I heard. There's something beautiful about having a single source for the subs like that; the coverage and coherence. I found it really inspiring."

Luke Piper, Glade area organizer, says, "From my perspective, this was the best ever. I overheard artists, crew, and, most importantly, members of the crowd all saying The Glade Stage had the best sound on-site, and the café and bar staff, who are out there all day and night for four days, told me the same thing. Not only that, but the reduction in unwanted sound spill this year was massive. It meant happier audiences and minimal impact on neighbouring stages. That makes my life so much easier."

Alex Fienne, front-of-house engineer for the well-known music producers and DJ Goldie, says, "I had the pleasure of being invited to mix Goldie's live band in The Glade again this year. I was fortunate enough to have the time to spend a day or so listening to other bands and DJs through the system. I think that the overall impression that I came away with was just how unforced the whole thing was; it obviously goes silly loud when you ask it to, but it does so in a way that isn't aggressive, and the image remains totally consistent. The ability to present depth as well as width in the soundstage at concert volumes was beautiful."