PHOTO : BRUNO DESTOMBES
CMD & Melesul3 performing at SAT during MUTEK 21
Lina ’ s compact footprint and weight also spoke to specific challenges in the space , Bouffard notes . “ We don ’ t have the facility to hang a heavy PA system without overloading our capacity and Cinquième Salle isn ’ t a typical theatre space with standard rigging points . It ’ s not pipes . It ’ s a grid with a ‘ trampoline ’ that we walk on to hang lights and loudspeakers on . The Lina line array was perfect because it ’ s light enough to hang without overloading our weight capacity and , honestly , the coverage was amazing .” It ’ s also a multifunctional room , he explains : “ We do theatre , dance , and opera , and we have an existing Meyer PA we can adapt for those applications , but this was the first time we ’ ve had MUTEK shows here and for electronic music we needed a more powerful system to deliver enough SPL .”
Only 105 people were allowed to take in the show live , but regardless of audience size , the primary challenge in the hall , Bouffard explains , is the geometry of the room . “ It ’ s quite a big space to cover and it really opens up wide from the stage , so you ’ re not just projecting straight in front of the stage . You ’ ve got a lot of people to the sides . But using this system the coverage was perfectly matched for the hall ; no dead spots and the whole room sounded exactly the same .”
Bouffard was mixing for the recording and livestreaming of the shows and used two Ultra-X40s as his monitors . “ That box has a lot of depth ,” he says , adding that he had a fair amount of time to get familiar with the various performers ’ music . “ And , actually , there were some parts of the music – songs that I knew really well – that I never heard that way before . The precision and definition in the mid / high is amazing . I can imagine mixing a show with just a pair of X40s and a sub .”
Marcin Bunar handled FOH and monitors at Cinquième Salle and has worked with MUTEK and at this venue in the past , noting that it can be a challenging space to mix in . “ Not because of the acoustics – they ’ re quite good and there are acoustic panels in the walls . It ’ s actually the configuration . As soon as you cross the proscenium the audience is almost 180 degrees , so it requires a lot to cover the whole space . The more speakers you put in , the more phasing problems you can have . I had the two stacks – stereo left and right – and the front fills , but 90 percent of the audience was getting only the stereo PA , so there were no phasing issues and the system was tuned very well .”
It ’ s approximately a 350-person venue and even though it was only a third full , he adds : “ It didn ’ t make a drastic change in the acoustics . And most of the time there weren ’ t many live microphones on stage , so what we had during sound check was pretty close to what we had during the show .”
Bunar describes his work in sound as “ doing a bit of everything ” ranging from sound design to mixing , notably with the Ex Machina theatre company and for various events in many different Montreal venues . “ At MUTEK , often the DJs and performers are sound guys as well ,” Bunar says , “ so they know exactly what they want , and ,” he adds chuckling , “ when they came out to listen , a lot of the times they were like , ‘ Well , I ’ m not going to touch this .’ They were really pleased with the sound .”
At Cinquième Salle , a Digico SD11 was used to run FOH and monitors and an SD12 was deployed for Bouffard to mix the livestream . Again , the console ’ s footprint and capabilities were important . The performances in both spaces varied widely , from Patrick Watson ’ s set with a live band , through a feedback-focused performance featuring roughly 15 separate guitar amps on stage , to a heavily effected solo harp performance . Oftentimes , performers sent a stereo mix to FOH from small , onstage consoles used as sub mixers . But , because the channels for FOH and monitors were locked out for each artist , as every performer had highly specific monitoring needs and widely varying output counts that ranged from three to 40 per act .
For monitors , six MGF 210s ( also supplied by OneWave ) were deployed . “ But we also had a pair of stacks with two Lina boxes on top of an LFC 900 as monitoring . The monitors and FOH were run from the SD11 , so that was pretty straightforward . And we had a pair of Galaxy processors to run the PA and Spacemap GO , but we weren ’ t using it . I normally rely on an old Galileo 616 processor , but Spacemap is definitely something I ’ d be happy to play with ,” Bouffard adds .
For MUTEK , OneWave worked closely with Brockville , ON-based distributor , GerrAudio , who represent Meyer , Digico , and other audio manufacturers in Canada . “ One of the great things about Meyer for electronic music is the transient response of their loudspeakers ,” says Dany Legendre , GerrAudio ’ s Quebec and East Coast sales representative . “ Electronic music requires that , so both the Leopard and Lina rigs were a good fit for this application .”
Although MUTEK 21 was admittedly different from past iterations of the festival , the organizers and providers involved certainly didn ’ t let the pandemic push them around . That ’ s not surprising , as MUTEK ’ s core mandate is driving forward and embracing the future . As in the past , with the help of One- Wave they simply adapted and continued to push the envelope in every direction open to them . And , as so many have discovered during this difficult time , those adaptations and efforts will only better inform ongoing innovations and offer previously unseen opportunities and inspiration in terms of how to present events in the future .
Kevin Young is a Toronto-based musician and freelance writer .
PROFESSIONAL SOUND 29