In late April the Paris Jazz Quintet, one of the most revered names in French contemporary jazz, delivered an unforgettable performance at Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. The group enchanted the audience with a rich blend of musette, classic chansons, traditional folk tunes, and original pieces that exuded the distinct charm of French culture. The concert also featured a special collaboration with Chinese musician Jinlong Fang and pianist David Qu, who performed jazz renditions of well-known Chinese songs, bridging cultures through the universal language of music.
Chinese AV solutions provider EZPro was tasked with supplying the sound system for the concert, and with sound quality, ease-of-use and reliability being the primary considerations, they chose Allen & Heath products for mixing duties.
To handle FOH and monitors simultaneously, EZPro deployed a 64 channel / 42 bus Avantis Solo mixer, featuring Allen & Heath’s XCVI FPGA core in a compact form-factor, with a 15.6” Full HD touchscreen, 72 fader strips (12 faders over 6 layers), and 18 assignable SoftKeys providing extensive control options. This was partnered onstage with a GX4816 remote audio expander providing 48 mic/line inputs and 16 line outs.
The concert, part of a series of programs to mark the 25th anniversary of the venue’s reopening, featured 20 input signals. These included piano, guitar, bass, accordion, drums, and traditional Chinese instruments like the pipa (Chinese lute), ruan, erhu, and flute. The sound engineer assigned these inputs across fader layers A and B of the Avantis Solo, ensuring that each instrument signal was 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.
Reflecting on the experience, the sound engineer praised the system: “The Avantis Solo may be compact, but it packs a punch with its outstanding sound quality and user-friendly design. 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.”
