Mexico. With a concert by the legendary Gino Vannelli and the Polanco Jazz Festival, AV equipment rental company Castelein Servicios Audiovisuales completed its first year as a user of Bose Profesional's ShowMatch DeltaQ linear array speaker system.
This pair of productions, held in Mexico City, just a week apart, can summarize the wide variety of applications, scenarios and conditions in which Castelein technicians put the ShowMatch system at the service of those responsible for the audio, speakers, musicians and audiences during the past 2019.
Between the end of November and the first weekend of December 2019, Castelein provided its services of rent and installation of the ShowMatch system for the production of the concert of the Canadian composer and singer Gino Vannelli, held inside the comfortable Blackberry Auditorium (Nov. 29), and for the most recent edition of the Polanco Jazz Festival, in its traditional headquarters on the free air of the Angela Peralta Theater (Dec 6-8).
A lightweight and compact system
Gino Vannelli's concert was produced by Said Macari, music promoter and producer with extensive experience in the world of Mexican jazz, who begins to venture into events of greater audience by presenting artists of international stature who have enough audience to fill an enclosure of more than 2,700 seats such as the Blackberry Auditorium.
"This was the first big gig of our new company, Tonight's Rolita, so we knew the importance of leaving an excellent first impression," explains Said Macari. "We needed a system that met the expectations of the production of Gino Vannelli, who places a very special emphasis on the sound quality of his presentations. The system available in the Blackberry Auditorium was not enough, so we had to decide between adding more boxes, or replacing it with a complete system like the ShowMatch suggested by the local Bose Professional team," adds Macari.
The proposal was well received by Ross Vannelli, producer and FOH engineer of the Gino Vannelli show, as one of his colleagues had already heard the performance of the ShowMatch system and gave them good references.
The assembly was carried out during the morning of the same day of the concert. Castelein's team installed the speakers, subwoofers and amplifiers in a few hours, as Gino Vannelli's production requested to start sound checks at noon, as they like to have as much time as possible to adjust the sound of the instruments and voices. The dimensions and weight of the ShowMatch modules were key for Castelein technicians to nimbly assemble the system and deliver it running in time for the musicians and singer to begin their sound check.
To cover the different areas of the two levels of the Blackberry Auditorium, the Configuration of the ShowMatch system included 13 modules hung on each side, divided as follows: 10 SM5 modules, two SM10 and one SM20. Below, just in front of the stage, 16 SMS118 subwoofers were installed while another six SM20 modules were placed above the stage to serve as a front fill. Amplification was performed with three PowerSoft X8 and four PowerSoft x4 connected via Dante, while system control was done using ArmoniaPlus software version 1.3.1.
Versatility to respond to external factors
The 11th edition of the Polanco Jazz Festival, produced by schwarz Marketing & Production, was held at the Angela Peralta Theater, an open-air venue with capacity for 2,500 people, located within Lincoln Park, in the elegant Polanco neighborhood of the Mexican capital. In the two days of the festival, a wide variety of bands performed jazz with different styles, from the solo piano of Dulce Resillas, the classical duet of Alex Mercado & Rob Duguay, the energy of Fat Mojo Band or the Jazz Dream Team Cuba & Mexico, to the innovative proposal of Iván Barrera Quartet.
Although it is an ideal space to listen to jazz, the Angela Peralta Theater, built in 1939, does not have the necessary infrastructure to hang a linear arrangement system from the ceiling of its stage, so generally the production uses a pair of tower elevators type "genies" installed on the sides of the stage. However, on this occasion, the model of available towers obstructed the passage of the public and did not offer the necessary security, so the Castelein team had to improvise on the fly and propose a new option for the assembly of the ShowMatch.
The solution was to mount the equipment in stack columns, using a pair of subwoofers as a base and to achieve greater height. Alex Noya, sound engineer and percussionist musician, who has been the FOH engineer of the ten recent editions of the Polanco Jazz Festival, comments: "When we had to modify the installation of the system, I could see how versatile the boxes and their mounting accessories are, it is flexible, light and very friendly because it does not require much personnel for its handling".
The system configuration featured two columns of eight stack-mounted SM5 modules, twelve SMS118 subwoofers, six on each side of the stage, and six SM20 modules in the front fill. Three PowerSoft X8 amplifiers and four PowerSoft x4 amplifiers, connected through Dante completed the system that was controlled through the ArmoniaPlus software.
After the assembly, Miguel Díaz, audio manager at Castelein and responsible for the system during the festival, highlighted the advantages of transportation, handling and installation offered by ShowMatch. According to Miguel, it is a team that facilitates their work and allows them to adapt to any venue and the multiple conditions they face.
During the days of the festival, the team was exposed to the capricious weather conditions of Mexico City. In the morning, during sound checks, the temperature was hot with a radiant sun; in the afternoon, the wind was blowing right at the beginning of the concert day; and at night, the last band played under a climate that forced the audience to wear scarves, gloves and hats to protect themselves from the intense cold.
At both shows, the local Bose Professional team was on hand to advise FOH engineers on their first experience with the system. The Colombian Carlos García Murcia, independent sound engineer, with great experience in the Latin American industry, was in charge of accompanying them to solve doubts and suggest options for the best performance of the ShowMatch system.
