Funktion-One founder Tony Andrews said: “We’re delighted to introduce Vero VX to the world. Since Vero’s launch in 2016 we’ve had a lot of interest in a smaller system that offers the same performance characteristics and ease of deployment. Through significant engineering innovation, we’ve managed to achieve that objective.”

The Vero VX system comprises VX90 full-range vertical array elements, V124 or V221 bass enclosures, amp racks, fly bars, transport dollies, ground stack hardware, cabling and Projection predictive software.

The VX90 is a 3-way vertical array element with four new Funktion-One designed Neodymium drivers in a horizontally symmetric configuration: two reflex loaded, high efficiency 12” mid bass drivers; one Axhead loaded wide bandwidth 8” cone midrange driver; and a single 1” compression driver on a proprietary isophase diffraction waveguide. The VX90 measures 1120mm wide and 340mm high, its usable bandwidth is 50Hz to 20kHz and horizontal dispersion is 90°.

The patented Lambda rigging system results from 40 years of development and refinement of Funktion-One rear tension rigging methods. This enables cabinets to be transported and flown as straight columns, then tensioned into pre-set angles once the complete array is suspended.

The Lambda system’s optimised rotation axis ensures perfect alignment at vertical angles between 0-12.5° for coherent summation. There is a choice of fixed or movable point flying beams. The movable point beam incorporates motorised adjustment, enabling the inclination and declination of the entire array to be remotely set while flown from a single motor.

Funktion-One’s unique driver and waveguide technology enable a single transducer to cover more than four octaves of the audio spectrum, from 300Hz – 5kHz. This approach ensures vocals and musical harmonics are coherent in both time and space, providing benefits in clarity, intelligibility and stereo imaging.

The high crossover point to the compression driver provides additional performance advantages including increased headroom, and reduced harmonic and modulation distortion. Psychoacoustically informed use of FIR filters and microsecond time alignment provide wide, consistent horizontal coverage whilst preserving transient response.

The very high electroacoustic efficiency of the horn-loaded mid/high section is supplemented by a new bass driver technology, which significantly increases true power efficiency. Unlike a conventional line array element, the VX’s huge LF resource ensures spectral balance and dynamic impact whether used as a single box or in a 24-box array.

Vero VX’s extraordinary energy efficiency means up to eight cabinets can be powered from a single amplifier. A 32-box system plus additional subwoofers can be powered by just six amplifiers.

Andrews explains: “While Vero VX has been in development for around three years, we were building from the technological breakthroughs we made with Vero and the Evolution Series. That said, applying our acoustic principles to this footprint was challenging. It has pushed us to the next level and we’re extremely pleased with the result.”

Visit us at Hall 8 Stand D40 and experience Vero VX for the first time during demos in Outdoor Area F10.0.

Daily demo times:
11.10 – 11.20
13.10 – 13.20
15.10 – 15.20
17.10 – 17.20

Download the Vero VX brochure here.

Malasimbo Festival 2019, which was held on 1-2 March, welcomed around 5,000 visitors to Puerto Galera in the Philippines. Its organiser Miro Grgic takes a purist approach to sound, leading him to Funktion-One several years ago.

After eight years at Malasimbo Ampitheater, the festival relocated to the private nature reserve park of White Beach, only 4km from the original site. The new site includes a jungle and a virgin beach, more nature, new terrain stages, and more roaming space.

Grgic is, in fact, more than just the organiser. “It’s a bit of passion project,” he said. “I organise and own the event, whilst booking all the acts, being technical director, systems and sound engineer, lighting director and other things I have to do to tie the event over, since sponsorship is extremely scarce.

“I load the sound system at home, unload at the festival grounds, set it up and operate it for the entire event. After the event I bring it back home, unpack and clean. I’m very hands on and I love my speakers, so I take care of them personally.”

Grgic created a new amphitheatre in the new location, with sound from Funktion-One Resoution 4 3-way speakers and F218 double-18” bass enclosures.

“Funktion-One is great for live music,” highlights Grgic. “We have jazz, soul, funk, blues, electronic and world music, some nice indie pop lately as well. This year we had Robert Glasper, Anomalie, Laneous and Ruby Ibarra headlined.

“The DJ Stage is mostly funk, disco, house, drum and bass – a bit of everything depending on the day. This year, it was headlined by Danny Krivit.”

Discussing his preference for Funktion-One, Grgic says: “It’s an efficient sound system, so I don’t need much power to drive it and I get a much higher output compared to any other speaker I’ve used. Also, I don’t use much signal processing, I keep a lot of things at zero – seldom do I touch EQs or compression.

“I spend more time getting the right positioning and coverage and I don’t really go over 100db. I like the average of 95-97db, this is what I call ear friendly. A lot of people fail to be considerate in this area, but I don’t like to beat up my audience’s ears.”

Funktion-One’s Sales Director David Bruml and Design Engineer Mike Igglesden made the trip across the Atlantic for the show. Bruml says: “With the new focus on pro audio announced for NAMM Show 2018, Funktion-One supported this expansion with a large booth in the new ACC North Hall. Following a successful first show last year we decided to return for 2019. It was remarkable to see the development year on year.

“NAMM 2019 was, undoubtedly, amongst the most positive tradeshows in all my many years of exhibition experience. Such a remarkably diverse mix of people from all sectors of the music industry and beyond – from major musicians, through to top level entertainment venues, tour and event production companies, sound rental users and system integrators.”

Igglesden agrees: “The varied crowd made it lively – it felt like it was full of people who are very passionate about music. The facilities are great, and it’s well laid out – even without a map, you could work out where companies were likely to be.”

Sound Investment’s Todd Konecny noticed a more relevant audience this year. He explains: “It definitely seemed more positive this year than last and there were more industry people coming through the booth as well. We made some great connections.”

Bruml concludes: “All trade shows are melting pots of potential connections, but NAMM excelled in this regard – the organisers clearly have a highly developed sense for how to choreograph and stage a great convention. I was impressed by all aspects of the show and there’s no doubt Funktion-One and Sound Investment both look forward to returning to NAMM in 2020. We couldn’t be happier with our participation.”

Funktion-One now looks forward to exhibiting at Prolight + Sound 2019 in Frankfurt, where it will present a significant new product launch.

Joseph’s recent project, Fly Paper, started out at New Museum in New York, and over the course of the last 12-months has reached audiences in Berlin, London and LA. It has taken him on a journey into sound – exploring dimension, fidelity and a new layer of emotional impact.

Fly Paper features a special Funktion-One sound system in a 16.3 configuration from Sound Investment. Read the full article in the January 2019 issue of PSN Europe.

B3 is the brainchild of Daniel Teuma, director of promoter Novel Tours & Events. In the lead up to its launch, Teuma explained the rationale behind the pop-up nightclub: “One aspect sorely lacking in Melbourne’s nightlife is an inner-city location suitable for largescale, indoor events,” he said. “To ensure each occasion is truly special, B3 will only host three events per year and feature artists who have transcended their respective niches to become full-blown scene icons.”

The first of those events featured DJ Koze, Charlotte De Witte and Gerd Janson, as well as a Funktion-One Vero sound system from Full Throttle Entertainment.

Read the full article in the January 2019 issue of TPi

The company’s founder, Remco van der Werff, comments: “It’s been a very good year for Think! AV. We’ve had lots of successful events with Vero and have received some really nice feedback from our clients.”

Think! AV provided sound for the following events:
DGTL – two stages of Vero
Dekmantel – Vero system on UFO Stage
Mysteryland – Cocoon Stage, stacked Vero system
Mystic Garden – stacked Vero system on main stage
By the Creek – flown Vero system
STRAF_WERK – main stage large Vero system plus Evo outfill
Electrobeach – large Vero system on main stage
ZeeZout – stacked Vero system
Welcome to the Future – large Vero system on main stage plus stacked Vero system in another area
Into the Woods – stacked Vero system main stage
NDSM: Elrow Town Festival Amsterdam – flown Vero system with Evo delays
Amsterdam Dance Event: STRAF_WERK / Elrow Festival Kromhouthal – flown vero
Amsterdam Dance Event: Dockyard Festival / Mystic Garden Festival – stacked Vero in Cocoon area

Tania Davidson is one of the owners of Mystic Garden and Dockyard, explained why good sound is important to events like these, and what it’s like working with Think! AV and Funktion-One.

She said: “With any dance event, if there’s no music there’s no dancing and the quality of the sound vastly affects the experience of the artists and the audience. These guys are experienced party goers – they go to parties all around the world. At ADE, if it’s not world class they won’t come back – we’ll lose people.

“We work exclusively with Think! AV. Not only do they really know their stuff, they get the maximum out of the equipment and the most out of the license – pushing the sound to the maximum it can be within the limits set for outdoor events. With Funktion-One sound you get all the layers, it’s pristine. The music is represented properly and does justice to the artists, you don’t miss any layers across the frequency range.”

How would you sum up the musical genres that you would play?
I’m usually all over the place. I mean I started from house music – that was my starting point – this was around 12 years ago. I think 80% of my sets were house music until about six years ago, then I started opening up a bit more, listening to other DJs that were playing different music and basically now it’s anything. In the last year I’d say it’s mostly African music, disco, Italo and I’ve reconnected with Belgian music a little bit – as well with New Beat from the 80s and a bit more towards boogie and slower stuff.

Would you say that’s the natural evolution of your tastes or is it more to do with the variation in the types of places you’re playing?
I’d say a bit of both. It has a little to do with the DJs I’m booked together with, or that I’m linked with. So, obviously, I’m listening to everyone and taking inspiration from everywhere. And also, it is, a bit of personal interest. For example, I’ve been digging deep into Belgian sound over the last few months.

Do you think of yourself as a producer first then a DJ or vice versa?
It’s a fair question. I feel like a DJ foremost. That’s also the profession or the skill that I’ve been busy with the most. I love producing – I’m in the studio often but only for short sessions and I don’t really have the time and the patience to stick to an arrangement and work on it for very long time – so mostly I’m jamming in the studio and I really love it but I see it as my second thing. That kind of sustains the DJ thing as well. I probably wouldn’t have had the chances to DJ as much if I hadn’t produced my own tracks, but it’s not a secret that I’m not the biggest fan of my own productions. The thing I enjoy most is the jamming and then I’m in a different planet – I love sitting in the studio and just jamming and playing the keys or whatever, but I’m not one for finishing songs. I would definitely say producing is my second thing.

What can you do to ensure the audience is getting the best from the performance?
When I started I wasn’t very knowledgeable about what I was doing. In the beginning you’re mostly imitating what you see from other DJs and seeing what happens when you touch something or seeing what the result is and going by learning. Then, over the years, I think the way I learnt the most was just by experience and seeing when things went wrong and finding out why they were going wrong and then not doing that in the future – learning from it.  And automatically, by looking at those kinds of problems – like needle skipping, rumble, your sound getting really limited, things like that – automatically you dig a bit deeper and you try to understand. There are big parallels with what happens in the studio – working with limiters and compressors and all that kind of…. there are a lot of similarities. You remember ‘when I was on the computer in the studio and I did this, this was happening so when I do this with a big audio system, the same thing’s going to happen’, so obviously for me there’s a big parallel.

Now it’s at a point sometimes I arrive at a gig and I’m busy for half an hour trying to change things or trying to work together with the sound engineer to get things better. This is something I wouldn’t have done 10 years ago, because I didn’t have the experience – I didn’t really know what I was doing. Now I’m feeling super comfortable. I’ll speak to the sound guy before the set and talk to him about exactly what happens with the signal when it comes out of my mixer. Because it’s the whole chain, so whatever happens from you putting the needle on the record until the sound reaches the ear of the audience. It’s a whole process and if one thing in that whole process goes wrong or you impact something in the whole process that you’re not aware of, then you can change the whole experience for the dancer and in the end that’s the only thing you’re there to do – to play the music and have the people experience it.

After doing it for all these years, it seems logical that you would be involved in the whole chain from start to finish. Not just the start where you’re putting on the music, but to the very finish, when the people are actually listening to the music.

Can you talk me through that audio chain?
I used to play more vinyl – mostly vinyl, like 90% – and gradually over the years I’ve been digitising a lot of my records. These days it’s probably 50/50 and I’m shifting towards going fully digital. This has been years of me thinking about what to do and seeing how things feel. I don’t DJ as practically with digital files as I did with the record, so there’s a lot of considerations to take into account. But where I am now is that I’m digitising a lot of records and I take a lot of care in that – I just bought a whole new set up. I’m really trying to make sure the source material is as good as it gets. I guess that’s the first step of really taking care of what happens before you put something into the DJ mixer.

When you talk about digitising your music, are you talking about taking vinyl records and digitising them?
Yeah – I really try to take care of it. It wasn’t the point, but it’s also a nice way to process music. I have way too many records – like 15,000 – so, I’m constantly trying to see what I can sell or I go through a stack and decide whether each record is worth digitising or not. It’s also a really nice way to listen to it and be busy with it and then you can put the record in the shelf and you have the nice clean file that you know you can use for a long time – it’s a nice way to be busy with music.

©Katja Rupp

Is Funktion-One one of your favourite systems?
Funktion-One is definitely always a plus, especially when it’s set up right. Unfortunately, sometimes, I also notice that if there is some mistake in the signal going from the record to the speaker, then it can really go wrong sometimes, but that’s obviously not the problem with the system, it’s a problem with something in between. So you’ve got to be careful with a system like that that because it will be even more accentuated or even more clear something is going wrong. My favourite thing with Funktion-One is that people can choose where they want to be in the music, if that makes sense. I think it’s relatively neutral – it’s a transparent honest representation of the sound. People are flexible in that if they want to be a bit more in the centre – to be a bit more inside the bubble of the music – they can do that. If they want to be a little further away, talking with their friends, listening to it from an angle, that’s also something you can do. With some other systems, it’s on or off.

So I think that’s what I like about Funktion-One, as well as the fact that it’s very defined and it makes it easier to express your music – especially the music that I play, which often has vocals, a lot of variation in rhythm and things happening. And especially with a good isolator like the DJR-400 has – it’s really nice to accentuate the arc of the music. It’s easier to do that with a Funktion-One than with a different sound system. I like to to isolate the mids for half a minute and really have people let those mids power through and make the contrast again by turning it away and accentuating the highs. It’s really nice to specify different regions of the music frequency-wise but also just the bass part or just the vocal, or maybe just the high hats- so it’s a very good system to play around with in that way.

How does the quality of the sound affect the audience?
People always underestimate how sensitive humans are – even unconsciously. The experience of someone listening to a sound system and a DJ doing something is so intricate – literally 1dB of level somewhere being wrong or one frequency being not right… even unconsciously you can have an incredible effect. That’s why it’s important, as a DJ, to go and listen in front of the system, to really know what’s going on – and it helps you so much more. So many times, in the beginning, when I wasn’t doing it. I’d play a set for three-hours and when I’d finished I’d go into the room and be like ‘fuck – have I been playing like this?’ Small things that are wrong can have a huge impact on a person’s experience in front of the system. The quality of the sound system is very very important. And you need to know what’s going on there and how people are experiencing the music for you to take them on a journey and really tell a story.

What have you got coming up?
I’ve been quite quiet over the last few years production-wise – I haven’t released in about three years, but I’ve done a few one-off remixes and smaller things under a different moniker. I’ve been DJing nonstop every weekend. I plan to release a bit more – hopefully at the end of this year / the beginning of next year. Actually, I’m working hard on a blog – that’s my main project right now. It’s called ‘Music Take Me Up’. It’s going to be podcasts with music from different parts of the world. So, for example, the first podcast will only be music from Israel, second one will only be music from Indonesia – adding pictures and info on where people can go and dig for records, things like this. This will go along with a label – I’ve already done two EPs with edits – with music I found in the Philippines and Malaysia – but I’m going to take it a bit more seriously now and there’s going to be full on reissues as well. I’m very excited about the first one coming out this month, an Arab disco track called Badala Zamana by Zohra. Coming up for 2019 we have U.X.B. – Sting Me, a few releases with Belgian music and one of my favourite Gospel songs.

Listen to… San Soda on Soundcloud

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Promoted by Zepeda Bros – the team responsible for a string of successful rock events, including Knot Fest Mexico – the show delivered over four hours of live rock music to an enthusiastic crowd at the open-air gardens of the Arena Ciudad de Mexico. The two international acts were supported by three of Mexico’s finest  – Lack of Remorse, Matherya and QBO.

To ensure the audience received the full power and impact of the performances, Loto Audo supplied a complete Funktion-One Vero sound system.

The system garnered praise from all the acts’ FOH engineers – providing proof positive of Vero’s abilities across all genres of music. For the opening act, Lack of Remorse, FOH duties fell to Hugo Garzon – one of the most sought-after sound engineers for metal rock bands in Mexico.

Garzon said: “I was impressed when they gave me the audio and we started the soundcheck. It was crazy to hear the power and clarity with which it was counted at that moment, I left very satisfied to work with such powerful audio.” A sentiment echoed by both Papa Roach’s FOH engineer Bobbo and Good Charlotte’s mix-man Chris McMillan.

The system comprised hangs of three V60, two V315 and two V90 per side, plus an asymmetric configuration of eight V221 bass enclosures and four V132 sub-bass enclosures. Two F1201 speakers were used as front fill. The stage front monitor setup featured eight PSM12 wedges, with another two combining with a BR221 bass reflex speaker for drum fill and three Resolution 5s and F221s per side for side fill.

Vero system tech, Alexander Danielewicz, used Lake processing on flat EQ and only applied the corresponding delays to match time on speakers on subs with the Vero, front fills and infra subs.

Danielewicz has recently worked with the Loto Audio team on a number of installations and festivals, using a variety of other sound systems. He was able to verify that the Vero was the best he had heard. He commented: “Working with Vero has been a bliss up to now. It is unlike any PA system I had ever heard, with the Funktion-One signature clarity and punch. What I most like about the Vero is its huge stereo image, transient response and dynamic range. From the system tech point of view, I only had to time align and change speaker levels. And no EQ needed!”

Throughout the event, Vero wowed a crowd not normally accustomed to all-enveloping depth and clarity provided by the system. For promoter too, Vero really hit the spot, proclaiming that it sounded “brutal” and requesting its presence at the following weekend’s Cypress Hill show.