Vue Audiotechnik Debuts the al-12 and hs-221 Sub Combo at Bottlerock in Napa

	Vue Audiotechnik's al-12 system

Bay area-based Delicate Productions provided full production including staging, lighting, video, and audio on all five stages of this year's Bottlerock. For the fourth year edition of the Napa, California-based food, wine, and music festival; Delicate Productions deployed the brand new VUE Audiotechnik al-12 system for its inaugural run on the Miner Family Winery Stage. This first public outing saw a 20-box main system supported by 16 brand new double 21", self-powered ACM subwoofers, supplying unmatched sound for the fans of such performers as the legendary Buddy Guy, the high energy world-beat-metal band Diego's Umbrella, New York's soulful Pimps of Joytime, and Australia's sharp edged indie rockers Atlas Genius.

The mains setup was surprisingly straightforward for the mostly covered outdoor stage. Twenty al-12 elements were flown in slightly curved 10-box stereo arrays resulting in an perfect coverage of the area as predicted by Easy Focus 3.0 and only minimal EQ points were added to balance the covered outdoor venue ceiling and reflections off the concrete building lining up the length of the audience area on one side.

Delicate Productions front-of-house engineer for the Miner Family Winery stage, Sebastien Poux's first impression of the al-12s was solid: "They pack a punch! There's plenty of power out of the box, which basically lead to a lot of headroom on my master fader." This should not be surprising as each of the al-12 drivers was designed from the ground up for higher efficiency increased power handling and reduced power compression.

Every individual component development project in the al-12 has carefully weighed the design trade-offs -- optimizing parameters for maximum output capability and heat dissipation, frequency response linearity, duty-cycle reliability, and minimum size and weight. Pimps of Joytime front-of-house engineer, Stephen Asafano was also pleased: "I was particularly impressed with low-mid response of the boxes, lots of warmth and punch, without feeling boxy or muddy. I never felt like I was fighting with the system to get a desired result."

16 hs-221 subs were placed in a cardioid pattern on the ground along the stage, bringing the low-end coverage down to 25Hz and providing powerful, dynamic low-end. The user-selectable low-pass filters for the hs-221 sub can be adjusted in the SystemVUE software for any venue setting, with the hs-221 default being set at 70Hz. It is remarkable that the hs-221 subs are only slightly larger than most dual 18" subwoofers, thanks to VUE's ACM technology, which combines both band-pass and vented alignments into a single, compact footprint providing more output and definition. These subs provide an impressive 143dB peak SPL in free field and 149db peak SPL in a half space environment.

Edwards has given his stamp of approval: "VUE's chief designer Michael Adams and VUE have outdone themselves with the al-12 system and the new 21" hs-221 sub. The system has all of the features that any touring engineer would expect." Edwards continues: "The fly hardware and dolly carts are self explanatory and easy to deploy, which is integral for a touring system. The audio quality is easily in the top five systems."

Additional front fill was provided by four single al-8s spread out on top of the hs-221 subs. Sound on-stage was also an all VUE offering with hm-112s and hm-212s stage monitors extending the VUE sound for the artists, and hs-28s with two hs-12s placed atop per side as side fills.

"The combo of the dual-21 subs with the al-12s was really nice -- the al-12 gives you all the range and power you need. Looking forward to hearing them again!" concludes Poux. "Thanks so much for building such a kick ass rig, I feel fortunate to have worked on it during its inaugural weekend in Napa" added Afasano.