that is exposed to the elements for more
than a month straight in June and July.
“We plan ahead and figure out what
inventory goes to what location,” Tardif
explains. “That changes every year, and
we also handle different tours occurring
at the same time as the festival.”
Support is provided by festival spon-
sor Meyer Sound as well as its Canadian
distributor GerrAudio. The company
also represents several other top brands,
with principals Bob Snelgrove and
Andrew Hope taking a hands-on role
in assisting Solotech. The relationship
kicked off a few years when the two
sampled the festival and were enthused
by what they experienced.
“The Montreal Jazz Festival is a true
opportunity to showcase what is possible
in terms of production sound – it’s always
been that way,” Snelgrove states. “We
wanted to see ‘our’ stuff up there, and
really felt it could make a difference.”
Meyer Sound principals John and
Helen Meyer have also formed a rap-
port with Andre Menard, the festival
co-founder. With Meyer Sound’s long-
standing relationship with the Montreux
Jazz Festival as an example, Menard
sought to bring the same level of audio
quality to Montreal. After several years
of discussion and collaboration, the rela-
tionship has come to full fruition.
The main stage house and monitor
systems were served by a pair of Yamaha
PM5D digital consoles. “We needed the
recall,” Tardif states. “We also put a rack
with preamps on stage so that both consoles can access their local preamps or
the distance preamps, giving users 96
inputs total - 48 at each location.”
System Mainstays
This year, Solotech supplied the festival’s
stages and venues with approximately
400 loudspeakers, 250 stage monitors,
50 mixing consoles, more than 1,000
microphones and DIs, and about 100
wireless mic systems, all backed by a tech
team of 25 employees.
As could be expected with Meyer
Sound’s involvement, a wide range of
the company’s self-powered line arrays
and loudspeakers were a mainstay of
the main house and monitor systems,
many of them fine-tuned with Galileo
616 digital signal processing.
Select acts preferred to utilize some
of their own consoles and effects gear,
such as Montreal band Beast, who per-
formed to a massive crowd via mixes on
Midas analog consoles at house (XL4)
and monitors (H3000). “They also had
a ton of outboard gear and effects,” Tar-
dif adds. “It’s rare that artists come with
their own equipment, because it’s usually
much easier to just show up with their
instruments and a sound engineer.”
The system for the main stage, he
notes, is usually an easier one to configure.
This year, Meyer MILO 4-way curvilin-
ear arrays flanked the stage, with more
flown MILO arrays on delay extending
coverage considerably further.
Different Approach
Another new location was created this
year for the Loto Quebec stage, which
was served by recently introduced Meyer
JM-1P full-range, arrayable point-source
loudspeakers rather than line arrays.
“This stage is located in a green
space, an open space, but it’s surrounded
by condominiums and businesses,” Tardif says. “We didn’t want a cabinet that
would throw too far, because we knew
that would become an issue at night
with people living and working nearby.
The throws of the horns would be too
much using a system any larger than
what was employed.
“We were able to cover the whole
area using just six boxes - three per side,”
