KNOXVILLE, TN, August 31, 2015 —John Harris, Music Mixer for the Stravinsky Hall at the Montreux Jazz Festival and partner in Music Mix Mobile,along with HeadTechnician Jerome Blondel and Technician Rene Weis, use Waves SoundGrid® technology and Waves plugins for mixing the Montreux Jazz Festival 2015 in the “Le Voyager” Broadcast Truck.
Jerome Blondel says, “The configuration we used in Le Voyager for mixing the Montreux Jazz Festival’s broadcast for the Stravinsky Hall was a SSL C200 HD console, and in order to run Waves plugins we used the DiGiGrid I/O devices that handled the MADI/analog-to-SoundGrid conversion with a SoundGrid Server One that enabled us to run 32 inserts of plugins in low latency, all controlled via the Waves MultiRack plugin host that was running on an iMac.”
John Harris notes, about running Waves plugins, “We used the Waves CLA-76 Compressor/Limiter, Waves Renaissance Vox and Waves Renaissance DeEsser in some combination on pretty much everything: kick, snare, bass, guitars, keys and vocals. I used the Waves SSL G-Master Buss Compressor and the Waves L3-LL Ultramaximizeron the master output.”
Harris adds, “The Waves H-Reverb Hybrid Reverb is really fantastic. I was really taken with the 224 preset; I owned an analog 224 back then, and the H-Reverb is so like it it’s scary. I am a big fan of drum rooms, and the H-Reverb has a bunch. It is now a permanent part of my sessions.”
On the particulars of mixing for the festival, Harris states, “I needed a solution to getting Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga’s vocals to both ‘pop,’ separately of course, but it was more important to get them together for the Montreux Jazz Festival mix. They have different styles, volumes, microphones, monitoring, everything, but it had to sound like two halves of one whole. Combining the Renaissance DeEsser, Renaissance Vox and the CLA-76 Compressor/Limiter, with just a few tweaks, did the trick. I have the Waves SSL G-Master Buss Compressor at a ratio of 2:1 before it, just touching the signal, and the L3 set at -10, just tickling it. It’s how I know my TV broadcast will be spot-on -24 on the DialNorm.Great packing for the music!”
Harris concludes, “The SSL console, Waves MultiRack, and the Waves Mercury plugin bundle are a winning combination. My mixes are 98% Waves, and the ability to bring ‘my’ sound anywhere in the world on any mixer via Waves MultiRack is the key for me. It’s now the sound of the Montreux Jazz Festival, and I couldn’t be happier.”
