MONTREUX JAZZ FESTIVAL

If it’s July, it must be Montreux. We’ve been fortunate to have visited the Swiss town’s world-famous Jazz Festival many times over recent years, and it just keeps getting better and better.

    As ever, a wide range of international artists appeared this year and over the 16 days at the 41st edition of founder Claude Nobs’ Montreux Jazz Festival (MJF), the headliners were The Chemical Brothers, Heaven & Hell (featuring Ronnie James Dio and Tony Iommi), Motorhead, Faithless, the Beastie Boys, Tori Amos, Sly & The Family Stone, Jeff Beck, Norah Jones, Van Morrison, the Pet Shop Boys, the B-52s, George Benson & Al Jarreau, Placebo and Seal.

    Improvements in the general sound quality were evident, and the Meyer Sound PA systems combined with an increased presence of Digidesign’s Venue consoles have made a significant difference to the audience experience.

    It was a record year for Digidesign whose digital mixing systems were not only stationed at FOH and monitor positions throughout MJF’s primary concert venues, but also equipped two OB trucks for recording purposes. No fewer than nine Venue systems were deployed in Montreux — seven D-Show systems and two compact D-Show Profiles. These were supported by five Digidesign Pro Tools HD systems which were made available for recording and playback purposes.

    The increasing presence of Digidesign’s Venue  D-Show and D-Show Profile on tour riders has been largely responsible for the MJF production team raising the level of Digidesign’s participation. Under the sound co-ordination of Pierre-André Aebischer from Niveau 2 Mediasystems, the Festival emphasised the growing importance of being able to record, broadcast and archive live shows along with traditional sound reinforcement duties.

    Digidesign supplied the 4,000-capacity Auditorium Stravinski with a pair of 96-channel Venue systems featuring D-Show mixing surfaces, each fitted with two side cars providing 40 input faders to the mixing engineers. Each system offered a full 128 tracks of recording via Pro Tools HD systems interfaced to two HDx cards in the Venue FOH racks — 96 direct taps from the mic pre-amps and an additional 32 assignable tracks available for capture of any console signal path via D-Show’s digital patchbay.

    The Miles Davis Hall was similarly configured — this time offering 48-channel systems addressed by D-Show consoles outfitted with dual side cars. A 64-track Pro Tools HD system was employed at FOH enabling recording of 48 channels directly from the Stage Rack with an additional 16 tracks available as assignable record paths.

    In addition to their capture and Virtual Soundcheck duties at the positions in both auditoria, the recordings also effectively served as redundant audio captures for the purpose-configured OB trucks.

    All systems in both locations were installed with Digidesign’s new All Access Pack bundle which offers 25 of the most popular TDM plug-ins for Venue, including popular processing devices from URS, TC Electronic, Drawmer, Rane and Eventide.

    For many sound engineers, Montreux provided a whirlwind induction to Venue. Digidesign provided its front-line training team of Robb Allan, Robert Scovill, Mark O'Sullivan and Al McKinna. As engineers arrived in the picturesque Lake Geneva town to soundcheck they were directed to the demo room where, under supervision, they were able to prepare their shows, save them to a USB key and later load their session files on to the console they would be using that evening.

    July 12 was a typical day in the MJF calendar, with Al Jarreau and George Benson teaming up in the Stravinski while the flamboyant Rufus Wainwright providing a tour de force in the Miles Davis Hall.

    The experiences of respective FOH engineers Michael Briggs and Matt Manasse could scarcely have been more different. While the former had taken his first excursion on the D-Show at the event last year, concluding that “Venue truly is a wonderful piece of innovative technology; the Virtual Soundcheck feature is worth the price of admission alone”, the latter had been an early user.

    However, late arrival in Montreux followed by local transport difficulties ended any chance of a soundcheck for Manasse but Venue was easily up to the challenge. He said: “I was able to guess at a few gains and with considerable help from the very competent house tech, Benoit Saillet, I got to lay the channels out in a way that was easy to navigate. I just used the onboard compression and a couple of external effects — in a situation like this, simplicity rules.”

    Thanks to the neutral sounding Meyer MICA line array, any fears were immediately dispelled. “I found it very easy to pull the band together in the first song, a few high pass filters and gain tweaks… and, yes, I admit I'd forgotten how good the console actually sounds. I found myself using surprisingly little EQ and was able to concentrate on creating a little ‘space’ and let the performer’s natural dynamics shine through.

    “By the end of the show I was really impressed. D-Show sounds great and is very easy to use. And as a result of my experience at Montreux I'm going to take a serious look at the compact D-Show Profile control surface and would expect to have one on the road with me very soon.”

    Michael Briggs was equally glowing. In Italy, two weeks prior to Montreux, he had used the Profile and fallen in love with the compact design. “I loved the fact that it was so small and everything was right there in front of me. Here were all the features of the Venue but in a convenient package and I used 40 channels out of a possible 128 [plus six stereo effects] returns on two layers.

    “But the thing I am most impressed with is the sound of the pre-amps — they’re delicious. I was sitting in a 500 year old castle with a little d&b rig, and as I swept from 50Hz to 16kHz I was amazed how I could actually hear every tweak of the knob.

    “I used the gates and comps in the console because they sound great and are easy to use as well as view. All the effects I used were stock Digidesign plug-ins — reverbs, harmonizers, tap delays — that were easy to set up and great sounding, with a huge FX library to choose from.”

    Elsewhere in Montreux, sound engineers working in the smaller Montreux Jazz Café and the outdoor Parc Vernex stage were provided with 48-channel D-Show Profiles. In the Café, FWx Firewire to Pro Tools LE recording was provided (the 18-track capability in Pro Tools LE could also be used for sound-checking and demonstrating plug-ins). The final 48-channel D-Show system, incorporating Pro Tools HD playback, was located in the training room below the Miles Davis Hall.

    Digidesign’s second year of MJF sponsorship represented a massive technological leap forward and was an unqualified success with everyone who was exposed to their playback and recording systems.

    The company’s live sound market manager, Robert Scovill, told us: “Last year we had consoles at FOH and monitors in the Stravinski, Miles Davis Hall and Casino Barriere, and our goal was purely to get engineers exposed to Venue. Many of them hadn’t even heard of it but by the end of that run, a lot of people had their heads turned around and those seeds grew pretty good for us over the following 12 months. You know, for as much as we market a product, it’s really word of mouth that generates success.

    “That became evident this year when we noticed so many artists coming to Montreux who were already Venue users — probably well over 50%. Others at least knew of Venue this time and a large number were excited to have the chance to use one. It’s been a completely different mindset.

    “We’ve never put any effort into marketing Venue’s sound quality, because it would appear really fluffy. But the word out there is that it’s clearly the best-sounding digital console and that’s pretty cool to know.”

    For the last 21 years, Meyer Sound has been the Official Sound Provider for the festival, supplying sound systems for its many venues. For example, Auditorium Stravinski featured Meyer Sound's self-powered MILO high-power curvilinear array loudspeaker and 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofer, and the Miles Davis Hall had a system based on the MICA compact high-power curvilinear array loudspeaker and 700-HP.

    One of the many highlights of the 41st MJF was the powerful set by Beverley Knight in the Stravinski. Dennie Vidal, Knight’s FOH engineer, remarked: “The MILO rig just sounds amazing. I didn’t even need any EQ. When you start out with a room that sounds this good, the rest is easy.”

    Over the years, Meyer Sound has frequently taken the opportunity to try out prototypes, debut new products, and get feedback from artists and engineers in many genres. The MJF-212A high-power stage monitor, named in tribute to the festival, made its first appearance in prototype form at last year's festival, and has since been used on major tours, including those by Rod Stewart, Norah Jones, Dave Matthews Band and Steely Dan. This year, the artists again heard themselves loud and proud through the MJF-212A.

    Next year’s Montreux Jazz Festival will take place from July 5 to 20 2008.