An Avid MediaCentral Platform was at the heart of a collaborative live sound workflow at the recent 2014 Gent Jazz Festival (Gent, Belgium) that featured noted artists such as Michael Kiwanuka, Melanie De Biasio, and Gabriel Rios.
Key to the decision to select Avid as the exclusive partner of the festival’s Garden Stage live sound workflow was the need to be able to capture and mix live performances as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible. Given the wide variety of acts appearing on the Garden Stage and its relatively small footprint, the festival’s organizers also required a proven, compact live sound set-up.
Ives Mergaerts, artist production manager at Gent Jazz Festival, explains, “Crucial for us was to achieve exceptional sound with as compact a footprint as possible. By choosing an Avid live sound workflow, we had the confidence and peace of mind of knowing that we were in safe hands. Importantly as it’s the industry’s live audio production technology of choice, we knew that it is well known and trusted by our front of house engineers.”
The festival utilized the portable Avid S3L system powered by the Avid MediaCentral Platform. Using the S3L for both front of house and monitors enabled the floor space in front of the stage to be maximized and all aspects of the live mixing and recording were speeded up through the integration with VENUE software. This allowed the mix engineers to run an expanded creative toolset of Avid and third-party plug-ins using the board’s Pro Tools HDX-powered processing engine.
An additional S3L System was used to record the output from all stages through Pro Tools, presenting monetization opportunities for the artists beyond the festival.
“The lifespan of a live performance carries on long after the curtain has closed and the audience has left the venue,” said Tim Carroll, vice president of worldwide audio programs at Avid. “Artists of the caliber that play at the Gent Jazz Festival need to make their performances available for future use in order to connect more powerfully with audiences even after the show is over—so the ability to replay, resell, and reproduce content through a variety of channels is critical. The Avid Everywhere vision guides the integrated and versatile nature of our live sound workflows, enabling future monetization and delivering massive benefits for both festival organizers and artists.”
