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Jazzing it up Digital Style with InnovaSON
Every summer, musicians take to the road to bring their art and their passion to the people. InnovaSON digital mixing consoles have been at the heart of many of these events including two highly prestigious European Jazz festivals; namely Jazz à Vienne in France, and Umbria Jazz in Italy. A total of seven InnovaSON consoles - four Sy80s, two Sy48s and a Grand Live - were put to use at both FoH and monitor positions at the two festivals.
In Vienne in the Rhone Valley, the principal concert venue was the stunning Théâtre Antique, the largest Roman amphitheatre in Europe. Over the festival's 25-year history, the venue has played host to jazz legends such as Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, George Benson, Stan Getz, Stonny Rollins, Al Jarreau, Lionel Hampton, James Brown, Michel Petrucciani, Claude Nougaro and others. This year audiences were delighted to welcome the likes of Pat Metheny, BB King, George Clinton and Oscar Peterson. Handling it all in smooth and capable fashion were two InnovaSON Sy80 consoles at FoH and monitors, plus an InnovaSON Grand Live which was used for the audio recording of the DVD production, all provided by Lyon-based rental company, Boite à Sons. The entire system was run across an EtherSound network, which has the advantage of ultra-low latency, powerful functionality and minimal cable runs.
Jazz à Vienne was also the occasion of the very first deployment of the recently launched Dio-ES card from InnovaSON. Dio-ES is essentially an EtherSound interface offering 64 bi-directional audio channels. In this instance, the card was plugged into the DSP module of the InnovaSON console thus providing the link to the EtherSound network. From there, several EtherSound devices were connected in a daisychain to provide the necessary links between the consoles, PA, stage and OB vans.
Technical director for the festival, Dominique Bonvallet, was very pleased with his choice of InnovaSON for Jazz à Vienne. "Chief engineer for Boite à Sons, Jean Lyonnet, first persuaded me to try an InnovaSON desk on the festival four years ago. Digital consoles were still a pretty new concept back then, so we worked closely with InnovaSON who provided us with a second console for training purposes. We've been working together on this festival ever since, and it has proved a great success. For the first time this year we also opted for a digital console on monitors, and again, we've had a great reaction from all the visiting engineers who appreciated both the sonic qualities and its ease of use."
"The advantages offered by a digital desk for this type of event are numerous," continued Bonvallet. "The total recall function is a real boon, and the ability to run everything across an EtherSound network gives us enormous flexibility. Personally, I also like the fact that we are at the forefront of technology – we were one of the first festivals to adopt digital console technology, and we've not looked back since. We have a great relationship with InnovaSON who have provided us with excellent technical support, and they in turn feel confident enough to use us as a test site for new products, which I feel is both a privilege and a benefit for us. Long may it continue!"
Umbria Jazz in Perugia, Italy, is another huge milestone on the international jazz festival circuit, attracting many thousands of visitors from all over Europe and the US for the 10-day event. As at Jazz a Vienne, the two principal venues were both equipped with InnovaSON digital consoles at FoH and monitors, this time courtesy of Reference Laboratory, InnovaSON's distributor in Italy, who also handled all of the technical supervision for the event. The Arena Santa Guiliana, the bigger of the two venues, sported two Sy80s running the Adamson line array system, while the Jazz Village where many of the free concerts took place, hosted a pair of Sy48s. Once again, organisers professed themselves to be more than satisfied with the "excellent" sound quality and reported that the InnovaSON consoles were very well received by visiting engineers.
16th September 2005
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