The Dutch jazz festival “Jazz in Duketown” in ’s-Hertogenbosch is one of the largest events of its kind in the Netherlands, with nine stages and drawing more than 175,000 visitors. This year, once again, the international stars who play the Main Stage in the city’s market square and draw the biggest crowds can count on excellent sound conditions with dBTechnologies VIO L212 line array systems.
Jazz in Duketown already used dB technology systems last year. Thanks to the good experience, dBTechnologies was the system of choice for the 2019 edition, in which the festival deployed the new full-size VIO L212 line array on the main stage.
The VIO L212 system is the most powerful line array system in the product portfolio of the Italian audio specialist dBTechnologies. In all, 10x L212 modules were used, plus 2x L210 as downfill for the main array on the left and right of the stage. For the front and upper fills, 8x L208, also from the VIO family, were installed.
Service provider RPSoundtechniek used 6x S218 and 12x S118R as subwoofers. The side fills were 2x VIO X15 and 2x VIO S118R. During the festival, the VIO L212 Line Array System was able to show its class in the sophisticated sound performance required at jazz concerts.
The first highlight of the festival was Marcus Miller’s performance on Friday on the Main Stage. Bassist and multi-instrumentalist Miller has collaborated with many great artists of the international jazz world, contributing his skills as a studio and session musician, producer or soloist, for example with Miles Davis, David Sanborn or Aretha Franklin.
“Jazz in Duketown is a typical festival situation where the schedule is very tight and the time for a soundcheck is very limited. I was able to tune the FOH mix very quickly, and the sound quality impressed me a lot. The even balance across the entire spectrum in all positions, far from the stage, close to the speakers and at the side, was really excellent: the result of dB technologies done right,” says Daniele Di Giovanni, FOH mixer for Marcus Miller during the concert at Jazz in Duketown. Di Giovanni is a renowned FOH professional who also works for greats like Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin.
8x TT + 25-CXA from RCF as front wedges provided the stage sound for Marcus Miller and his band. Drummer Alex Bailey used 1x VIO S118R and 1x VIO X12 as drum monitors.
The VIO L212 is dBTechnologies’ full-size line array for large-scale sound reinforcement applications. Despite its fully active design, the VIO L212 is one of the “most compact and lightweight of its class” 2x12 line array systems.
The VIO L212 is a 3-way line array system designed for the largest live applications, delivering 3200 W RMS and a maximum SPL of 142 dB. The L212 offers optimized dispersion and impressive headroom, as well as quick and easily configurable rigging solutions. All VIO modules are easy to combine and form a single line array system. RPSoundtechniek easily integrated the smaller VIO L210 into the main line array, built with VIO L212 modules.
Rob Pigmans, Sales Manager at dBTechnologies, on the use of the VIO system: “The dBTechnologies VIO system not only delivers perfect sound, a basic requirement for a jazz event of this kind, but also has many features that greatly simplify rigging and make using mixed systems child’s play. All the modules in the VIO family combine seamlessly with one another, which makes working with the VIO system so smooth.”
The VIO L212 also leaves nothing to be desired in terms of setup and calibration. The built-in RDNet interface allows the systems to be operated with dBTechnologies’ Aurora Net software and adjusted according to measurements, as of course was done by RPSoundtechniek.
