How to resolve AdBlock issue? HK Audio for Richie Owens
Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and luthier, Richie Owens, is a true product of his Smoky Mountain heritage. His deep roots and rich family history have shaped an extraordinary career which has seen him work with international stars across multiple genres (including his first cousin Dolly Parton), contribute to Grammy-winning recordings, and design signature guitars and mandolins. Owens is also renowned as the longtime proprietor of The Old Time Pickin’ Parlor, a combined music shop and performance space in Music City, Nashville.
This summer, Owens visited the UK with his bandmates Bob Ocker and Joe Sharp to present a series of intimate gigs described as the Smoky Mountain DNA Pub Crawl Tour, which acted as a vehicle for ‘Appalachia: Ballads, Bloodlines, and the Long Journey Home’, a live performance multi-media project exploring Appalachian heritage, folklore, and family history.
For this combination of eclectic music and spoken word performance, where clarity for the audience was of the essence, Owens’ team deployed 2 x HK Audio POLAR 10 MK2 Column PA systems. Powerful enough to comfortably cover every room on the tour with detailed sound, and small enough to take up minimal space in transit, the POLAR 10 offered the perfect plug and play solution for this small-venue tour. The loudspeaker columns also meant that sightlines between audience and musicians in such intimate venues were excellent.
The HK Audio Polar 10, distributed exclusively by POLAR in the UK, comprises an active 10” subwoofer with a mid/high column and spacer designed to slot together with no need for extra wiring. Its built-in four channel mixer accepts microphone, instruments, and line-level sources, along with Bluetooth 5 streaming. Each input channel has its own level control, and a dedicated knob for subwoofer volume helps users balance the low end to suit the room. Overall sound can be shaped by the unit’s three-band EQ and preset modes.
Tour Manager Paul Hought comments: “Our tour was a busy affair with a gig every day in rooms with contrasting configurations. Time and space were often at a premium, so we needed something that was flexible, quick and easy to set up, and would guarantee a crystal clear and full sound. That’s exactly what the HK Audio Polar 10 MK2 units delivered. We carried them with us throughout, safe in the knowledge that the units would easily cope with anything the road could have thrown at us. The musicians had confidence in the professional audio quality of the system, which meant they relaxed comfortably into a series of captivating performances which were thoroughly enjoyed by every audience.”