The annual Belgrade Jazz Festival brings together some of the world’s best jazz musicians, and this year’s season kicked off in the Great Hall of Belgrade’s Sava Center, with a performance by legendary jazz guitarist Pat Metheny.
Once again with the 27th edition, sound and lighting specialists Studio Berar were entrusted with providing full technical support and they turned to JBL Professional VERTEC VT4888 midsize line array elements and a Soundcraft Vi6 digital console at front of house as the main sound reinforcement components.
The two VERTEC hangs (10 elements per side) also provided sound reinforcement for performances by other legends such as Charles Lloyd and Joachim Kühn, Bollanija Stefano, Marc Ribot, Cristina Branco and Elliot Sharp, as well as rising stars such as Tigran Hamasyan and Anat Fort.
Studio Berar, the Harman Pro distributors for Serbia, were contracted by production company and festival organizers Dom Omladine Beograda, a long-standing business partner, for whom they have provided Harman solutions on many occasions in the past.
With Momcilo Berar and Emil Berar managing for the supply company, the loudspeaker complement – complete with ground-stacked VT4880 full-size arrayable subwoofers and JBL VRX932LA Constant Curvature loudspeakers – was optimized for 3,700 seats. The loudspeakers were powered by a combination of Crown I-Tech IT4000 and IT8000 amplifiers.
With Studio Berar sound technician Ivan Paplacko at front-of-house, the Soundcraft Vi6, with Vistonics II interface, was set up with a generic ‘house patch’, which the individual technicians were able to personalize.
The company’s marketing manager, Lazar Josanov, explains, “Ivan was able to provide a very simple introduction to visiting sound engineers, although most were already familiar with the platform. The Vi6 was the perfect selection for a multi-act show—largely because of its simplicity of use, combined with the Vistonics interface. This allowed the technicians to have all the data right before their eyes [and at their fingertips], with simple logical shortcuts.”
