New Speakers Wow Crowds at Montreux Jazz

New Speakers Wow Crowds at Montreux Jazz
The Meyer Sound File - Fall 1995

Lucky Peterson at Stravinsky Hall

In July, Meyer Sound returned to the Montreux Jazz Festival at the Convention Center in Montreux, Switzerland, providing sound systems for all four of the festival's venues and impressing audiences and bands alike with the MTS-4 and the MSL-4, Meyer Sound's newest loudspeakers. Meyer Sound's Swiss dealer, Hyperson, installed all four systems. Assistance and alignment work was provided by Mark Johnson and Jamie Anderson of Meyer Sound headquarters, Jim Cousins of Jim Cousins Associates, and Portugese sound engineer Miguel Lourtie.

Stravinski Auditorium, the festival's main venue, featured the rig of MSL-5s, DS-2s, and 650-R2s that proved so successful in last year's festival. (The festival recently purchased this system and will make it available to the Montreux Congress Center during the year). For side fills, bands were offered the choice of MTS-4s or MSL-4s.

Performers in Stravinski Auditorium included George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars, Gal Costa, Marianne Faithful, Van Morrison, Chaka Khan, Jimmy Smith, Joe Henderson, and the Neville Brothers.

In Miles Davis Hall, where the music ranged from folk to rap, festival organizers had asked that the stage be free from stacks of speakers to improve the sight lines for videotaping. Accordingly, Jim Cousins designed a system that removed all sub-woofers from the stage. The system comprised two flown clusters, each with three MTS-4s, and two MSL-2As as front fill.

Miguel Lourtie, a free-lance sound engineer who acted as SIM operator for Miles Davis Hall throughout the festival, said the primarily-MTS-4 system there performed "fantastically." The system was versatile enough to handle acts ranging from Tuck & Patti to Ice T and Body Count. "When some of the bands walked in," Lourtie says, "they were wondering where we had hidden the subs. Then they heard the system. We had a tremendous amount of bass. It really wowed the bands and their engineers. The MTS-4 provide very punchy sound. People were thrilled."

Festival Off, the festival's outdoor venue for local bands and college bands, featured a main sound system composed mainly of Meyer Sound's new MSL-4 loudspeakers, which, with their tight coverage pattern, suited the narrow terrace with seating to the side of the stage. Once the system was installed and aligned with SIM® System II, the venue's sound engineer decided that no further adjustments to the system were necessary. "There was plenty of power and headroom," says Johnson. "Lyrics were intelligible a quarter-mile away; I know that, because I could hear them in my hotel room."

The Montreux Jazz Cafe, a multipurpose venue in the basement of the Montreux Convention Center, required a sound system that would carry sound from videos, reinforce live bands, and fit discreetly into the cafe's tropical d�cor. Four MTS-4s, two per side, were installed on the cafe's stage, and UPL-1s and MPS-305s were distributed throughout the labyrinthine cafe as fills.

SIM System II was used to align the sound systems at all four venues. In Stravinksi Auditorium and Miles Davis Hall, SIM mics were set up for the duration of the festival, and SIM operators worked with sound engineers to make any adjustments requested by bands.

"Overall, the festival was a great success," says Cousins. "We proved again that our systems will work in all sorts of venues, large and small, indoor and outdoor, for all sorts of bands. One of the great things about this festival is its diversity. We're glad that we've got sound systems flexible enough for a solo folk artist, a jazz trio, and a rap band, all whom just happen to be on the same stage on the same day."