BELL CENTRE AUDIO TECHNICIAN JESSE LEVEILLE
the smoother and more efficient the process.”
Solotech had four technicians handling
the week-and-a-half of advanced prep at
the shop, and then a team of six on the
ground at the Bell Centre for the actual
install – two lift operators and four people
handling the wiring and hanging.
Zooming out to address the arena-
wide technological overhaul, Leveille ex-
plains that the bowl PA system is phase one
of the project. The previous system lived on
a hybrid Soundweb/RockNet network back-
bone while the new one will be Dante/Q-
Sys. Currently, it’s a hybrid of them all, with
the EAW components on the Dante/Q-Sys
network but the legacy peripheral systems
in the public areas outside the bowl still on
Soundweb/RockNet.
Phase two will be the integration of a
new Yamaha Rivage console in the produc-
tion booth, at which point they’ll migrate
the entire system backbone over to Dante.
Then, the third and final phase will be the
replacement of those aforementioned pe-
ripheral systems. As of now, the target is to
have everything completed for early-to-mid
2021.
“I’m very, very pleased,” Leveille comments
about the performance of the new bowl
system thus far. “It’s such a big improve-
ment. There’s a lot more definition in the
sound, and a lot more control that we
didn’t have before. The fact that the Otto
subs are steerable makes all the difference
in an arena environment; the bass is in-
credibly clear and doesn’t swallow the rest
of the mix as it bounces all over the place.
It’s very tight and very controlled.”
He credits his collaborators at Solotech
with a job well done – as he has come to
AMP & NETWORKING RACKS
EAW MKD1096s COVERING THE UPPER BOWL FROM THE BACK OF THE PRESS GALLERY
expect through their years-long partner-
ship – before moving on to Bizzarro at SFM.
“He was the key to all of this. Paolo worked
so closely with us and was very supportive
considering this is cutting-edge technology;
there are a lot of old habits people can have,
and Paolo was key in getting everyone in
tune with this new technology.”
Lemay offers similar praise. “The sys-
tem sounds great and is doing what it was
supposed to do on paper. I was surprised
and impressed with the design and con-
sistency. We achieved that through a good
collaboration with EAW and SFM, who
helped us understand the product we were
working with and deploy it the right way.
The process was a challenge, especially
with the schedule we had, but we’re proud
to have found a way to make it work.”
Veronneau notes that everyone worked
together well to get it done, and says: “I wish
all of our projects could run this smoothly.”
“So far, people are loving the experience
here,” Leveille adds in closing. “Ownership is
very happy, and we couldn’t have asked for a
better collaboration from the start.”
Of course, if fans are happy, ownership
is happy, and a notable boost in clarity, cov-
erage, and impact makes a big difference
with this kind of experience in this kind of
environment – especially when the Habs
faithful are revved up and rowdy as the puck
drops for the opening faceoff.
Andrew King is the Editor-in-Chief of
Professional Sound.
PROFESSIONAL SOUND 29