Oregon Jamboree Hosts Country Music’s Biggest Stars with JBL by HARMAN

Morgan Sound recently deployed a JBL by HARMAN VTX A Series live sound
reinforcement solution at Oregon Jamboree to deliver top tier concert audio quality for festival-goers.

Oregon Jamboree is an annual three-day country music and camping festival held every August in Sweet Home, Oregon. Established in 1992, Oregon Jamboree has hosted country music’s biggest stars, including Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Toby Keith.

The 2019 edition attracted 13,000 attendees each day and featured performances by Hank Williams Jr., Brothers Osborne, Chris Young and more.

In order to provide exceptional sound on both the main and secondary stages, festival
organizers hired pro sound AV experts Morgan Sound to provide a sound system capable of delivering premium sound quality and balanced, consistent coverage.

Morgan Sound selected a JBL VTX Series tour sound solution, including A12 and V20 line array speakers, for its unparalleled performance, sensitivity and coverage.

“The Oregon Jamboree is outdoors at a fairground, so we faced the typical festival challenges of aligning delay towers and dealing with wind and crowd noise,” said Charlie Morgan, President and Owner, Morgan Sound, Inc. “The challenge is always the same—you want the people in the back to be able to hear without killing the people down in the trenches.

“From a technical standpoint, the phase coherency of the VTX system sounded exactly the same from front to back, on- and off-axis.”

“I got a call from Dennis Freeman, the festival’s production manager, saying he’s very appreciative of the great job we did and that we’re definitely coming back next year—that’s the best endorsement we can get.”

On the main stage, Morgan Sound deployed 32 x JBL VTX A12 line array loudspeakers to deliver industry-leading sound quality and coverage. VTX A12 speakers combine a compact, lightweight design with a patented JBL rigging mechanism and redesigned suspension system for streamlined deployment and setup.

Morgan Sound used 16 x JBL VTX V20 as out fills to deliver clean and consistent sound to the outer fringes of the audience area. The Morgan Sound team included Crown I-Tech HD Series 4x3500HD and 12000HD tour- grade amplifiers to power the large VTX speaker system.

Morgan Sound’s new VTX system is the latest addition to a lifelong appreciation for JBL speaker systems. “We’re long-term JBL users,” continued Morgan. “We’ve owned almost every loudspeaker that JBL has manufactured in the last 50 years. The latest progression was to upgrade from the VerTec 4889 speakers to VTX V20, A12 and A8 speakers. The JBL team gave us a demonstration and we were very excited about
getting the new system into our inventory.”

“We were really impressed by the rigging, the transport carts, the whole package JBL put together. There was no custom engineering required on our part to make this system come out of the boxes and go into the air as quickly as possible.”

“As the business owner, I’m the guy that looks for the hidden costs of implementing these audio systems. JBL took care of everything that we would have wanted or needed before we ever bought it.”

In the short amount of time since acquiring their new VTX line array systems, Morgan Sound has utilized the A12 speakers to great success at a range of live sound concerts.

In addition to the Oregon Jamboree, Morgan Sound recently deployed the new system at the Tulalip Amphitheater for concerts by Sammy Hagar and REO Speedwagon, and plans to use it for many major events in the future.

“The VTX A12 speakers have a very smooth sound in the high frequencies—not as aggressive as some other tunings we’ve heard,” concluded Morgan. “This means it can play loud and still sound great. It’s going to be able to cover all of the kinds of acts that we do up here in the Pacific Northwest.”