JBL VTX A-Series for Tina Arena’s 'Love Saves' Tour

With decades of experience in live sound, Danny Olesh is known as one of Australia’s most renowned Front of House (FOH) audio engineers. He has been taking care of FOH for acclaimed artist, Tina Arena, for several years, and has been touring Australia on her ‘Love Saves’ tour.

As a long-time supporter of JBL, Danny arranged for the JBL VTX A-Series to be utilised for Tina’s show at the spectacular performance venue, Home of the Arts (HOTA), on the Gold Coast. He collaborated with MadisonAV’s Peter Kubow to engineer the system design prior to arrival at the venue, meaning it was almost ready to go once System Engineer John Hall took control of the VTX system at the venue.

John Hall told us “The system really exceeded my expectations. The stereo image was just so clear, you heard every little detail in the mix, it was so present with full coverage up and down the hill and across the seated area. The thing that really surprised me was the voicing. It handled intricate and delicate audio extremely well.

Working with Peter Kubow on the venue design was easy – we designed the system, put the PA in place, sent the file to it, then had to do very little to tune it on site, maybe take four little lumps out of it in the obvious spots and that was kind of it. Peter and I just looked at each other and said “That’s great! Let’s go to lunch”. There wasn’t anything else to do. It was very impressive.

I think the great thing about that system is that I didn't have to do anything drastic to make it work for Danny, which I've had to do on some occasions. Its voicing was very musical!

I handed it over to Danny to do what he does, which was then more based on his mix rather than the PA.”

Danny was equally impressed, adding, “It sounded great – and Tina is the sort of performer who is so talented and powerful in her delivery, she’ll instantly reveal any shortcomings in any PA. It had beautiful top end, a nice spread, no issues at all. It was very, very good. It was raining (this is an outdoor venue), there was a bit of wind… all kinds of things that might have affected the sound, but it was still fantastic. The VTX can compete with any PA in its league.”