The largest jazz festival in East Asia fielded Amadeus’ loudspeakers ahead of their release in 2020, with SSL Live L500 consoles providing a ‘superb sonic partner’.
Seoul’s Jarasum Jazz Festival has attracted more than 2m attendees since its inception in 2004, and featured performers from 55 countries. Upwards of 200,000 spectators attended the recent 16th festival, when South Korea-based production company Elan Tech handled charge of both sound equipment and technical production for the annual event.
The festival site is an island near mountains on the bank of the Bukhan River. The three-day event covered a diversity of jazz, with Black String, López-Nussa La Familia, 4-Wheel Drive, Omar Sosa Quarteto Afro Cubano, Jon Cleary & The Absolute Monster Gentlemen, and The Danish Radio Big Band & Marilyn Mazur, among many other musicians and groups.
‘Because a recent typhoon had hit Korea, we started setting up the sound systems on-site only three days before the festival began,’ says Elan Tech CEO/Technical Director, Yongwoon Jeong. ‘The main speakers and subwoofers used were all made by Amadeus – a total of 30 of Diva M², 12 Diva M² Sub, and 12 Maestro II,’ says Jeong.
‘We have also worked with Amadeus to develop new speakers – stage monitors – that will be officially released in 2020. A total of 50 of these were used for the first time at the festival’.
The audio set-up also called on 11 Powersoft X8 DSP+Dante amplifiers, as well as L500 Live consoles from Solid State Logic.
‘We are used to seeing our consoles used in conjunction with Amadeus systems in world-renowned venues, including Théâtre National de Chaillot, Philharmonie de Paris, Opéra National de Lyon and La Gaîté Lyrique, as well as here, at the Jarasum Festival, where we had an SSL Live L500 on FOH,’ says SSL Director of International Sales, Philippe Guerinet. ‘It is wonderful to highlight that we are also seeing some large-format Studio SSL Consoles in use together with Amadeus studio monitors – and whatever the application, we always have great feedback about the overall sound performance and the stunning transparency.’
The new C12R and C15R Amadeus speakers are an expansion of the company’s C Series, designed for the world-renowned Paris-based Théâtre National de Chaillot, in France.
‘We were all fans at Elan Tech of the newly-released Amadeus C12 and C15 point-source speakers,’ says Yongwoon Jeong. ‘We asked Amadeus to think about a stage-orientated version to be used as stage monitors, optimised for the live field, and featuring the same transducers and waveguides. We worked closely with the R&D teams as consultants, to perfectly optimise the new models considering our technical constraints, as well as the market demands.’
‘A few specifications for the stage monitors were very important to us to optimise them for the performers, as well as the enclosure strength and product longevity. Being able to adjust the vertical beam by 2.5° increments, which was possible thanks to a bespoke and built-in rigging system as one of these requirements, was important and helpful. This all, among a lot of other acoustical, technical, and physical details, makes this new Amadeus Series very distinguished in the market in our opinion.’
A few C15R enclosures were also set up for front fill, while others were used as wedge monitors. ‘The new C15R – as well as the original C15 – use the same MHF compression driver unit as the main Diva M² line array speakers, so it has the same impulse characteristics and was much easier to match the sound for the different uses,’ explains Yongwoon Jeong.
‘Amadeus offers customization to its users and customers,’ he adds. ‘One of the great customizations on this project was the special finish. We requested a high-resistance finish for all the speakers, to increase their durability.’
‘Amadeus invested in a new painting area at its factory, with new painting machines able to produce a high-resistance resin-based finish – making the new speakers highly resistant to scratches, shocks and water projections,’ says Amadeus Production Manager, Jean-Noël Batisse. ‘This new optional finish is now available for all the other speakers and will be proposed on-demand.’
‘The SSL Live console is a superb partner for Amadeus products,’ Yongwoon Jeong adds. ‘It has natural feeling dynamic processors, EQs that offer minimal phase shift, transparent high-frequencies, and dense and solid low-frequencies. With this combination, Amadeus speakers sound very natural and detailed, they sound outstanding, especially the equal sound pressure and timbre presented to the audience anywhere in the listening area.’
More: http://amadeuslab.com
