Among the most revered names in French contemporary jazz, the Paris Jazz Quintet recently put in an unforgettable performance at Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. The concert also featured a collaboration with Chinese musician Jinlong Fang and pianist David Qu, who performed jazz renditions of well-known Chinese songs.
Chinese A/V solutions provider EZPro supplied the sound system for the event, choosing a 64-channel/42 bus Allen & Heath Avantis Solo mixer for simultaneous mixing of FOH and monitors simultaneously. Featuring Allen & Heath’s XCVI FPGA core in a compact form-factor, with a 15.6-inch Full HD touchscreen, 72 fader strips (12 faders over six layers), and 18 assignable SoftKeys providing extensive control options, the console was partnered onstage with a GX4816 remote audio expander providing 48 mic/line inputs and 16 line outputs.
Part of a series of programmes marking the 25th anniversary of the venue’s reopening, the set-up required 20 inputs, including piano, guitar, bass, accordion, drums, and traditional Chinese instruments like the pipa (Chinese lute), ruan, erhu and flute. These were assigned across fader Layers A and B of the Avantis Solo, placing each instrument easily within reach. Additionally, aux buses and intercom channels were configured on Layer C, while complex instrument signals were grouped into a DCA on Layer D.
The stage monitoring featured six individual monitors controlled via six aux buses, each dedicated to a specific instrument or musician: piano, bass, drums, electric guitar, accordion and Jinlong Fang himself.
‘The Avantis Solo may be compact, but it packs a punch with its outstanding sound quality and user-friendly design,’ the FOH enhineer reports. ‘The interface is intuitive, allowing me to quickly locate and adjust settings. I was particularly impressed with how easy it was to integrate the Dyn8 multiband processor — just a few clicks and I was ready to go. It made the entire process incredibly convenient.’
