Montreal Jazz Festival Front Loaded With Yamaha Consoles

	Stephane Grimm

From June 26 - July 5 at venues across Montreal, the annual Montreal Jazz Festival featured a boat load of musical guests from Earth, Wind & Fire, B.B. King, Tony Bennett, and Diana Krall, to Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Terence Blanchard, and Nikki Yanofsky to name a few.

Solotech of Montreal provided the majority of the audio production for the 30 stages and stacked them with YamahaYamaha Commercial Audio Systems pitched in for five of the stages: Scene TD, the main outdoor stage, was outfitted with two Yamaha CL5 digital consoles and three Rio-3224D input/output boxes. Two CL5s and two Rio-3224Ds were in position at Theatre Maisonneuve, Lounge Heineken used a QL5 and one Rio-3224D, and Club Soda and Savoy both had new Yamaha QL5 digital audio consoles. The Savoy also used a Rio-3224D.

Front-of-house engineer, Guy Vincent, has been mixing sound for over 30 years and says he has worked with a lot of digital boards but his favorite is the Yamaha CL5. "The feature I like the most Is the premium rack. It is amazing how warm the sound is by activating any of the plug-ins. I also like the custom faders." Vincent used a CL5 at the Maisonneuve Theater during the Festival mixing Terence Blanchard and others. He is currently on tour with Florence K using a CL5.

Front-of-house engineer, Richie Forte, used his own personal Yamaha LS9-32 console at the Metropolis during the Festival for artist Nikki Yanofsky. "According to my dear friends at Yamaha, my LS9 was one of the very first in eastern Canada, a fact I'm very proud of," states Forte. "I've taken this little workhouse and pushed it beyond its limits. With the use of a fiber optic snake capable of transporting 32X8 of the LS9's 32X16 i/o, plus one channel of bi-directional high speed EtherSound transport built in, I am able to use the two MY card slots on the LS9 to connect to my two Yamaha SB168-ES stage boxes for a total on stage analog i/o of 64X24."

Forte said that his current console as well as the two Yamaha digital consoles he previously owned, have preformed flawlessly and reliably. "It's this ease of use, size, weight, flexibility, and 'bang for buck' price point that has kept me a loyal Yamaha user and owner since 1997." He's now in Europe and using a Yamaha CL5 and says he's "truly blown away by the sound of the console" and equally happy that its flexibility and workflow has been greatly refined and fulfills everything on his wish list. "I'm looking forward to upgrading to a QL5, my fourth Yamaha console very soon!"

Stephane Grimm, who mixed The Jordan Officer Trio and Betty Bonifassi Chants on a new Yamaha QL console at both Club Soda and Club Savoy, said he's really into the new QL and has used a Yamaha CL a number of times. "I was really impressed by the QL, and having the touch screen makes it totally easy to use," Grimm says. "The four user layers is a wonderful feature especially now that you are able to color identify the faders, making it impossible to miss the channel you're looking for. I also like the fact that it is fully compatible with the CL series, without even having to convert the file. WOW!" Grimm also said the new plug-ins is a great feature. "The two-band dynamic EQ, works very well especially on vocals and other instruments that change tones."