The Thriving Latin Touring Market
By Dan Garcia

Colombia’s C. Vilar Amplificacion invests in a new rig to meet the challenges of large-scale concert sound

 


C.Vilar's new Adamson rig at a recent gig.

In Latin America, sound companies don’t get much bigger than Bogota, Colombia-based C. Vilar Amplificacion Professional. Most recently, the company has been heavily involved with events including the South American leg of Shakira’s “Tour of the Mongoose,” and two-time Latin Grammy winner Carlos Vives’ “Dejame Entrar” (“Let Me In”) tour.

President Cesar Vilar started his business in the early ‘80s and has seen both his company and his family evolve into a thriving sound and lighting entity in the South American market. After a brief career in business management and sales, Vilar, who played guitar and performed lead vocals for a band, realized that his work in the entertainment sector could be more profitable in the long run and used his networking skills to obtain more contracts for his band and its small sound system. He spent the next 12 years touring Columbia, renting his system when off the road before focusing full effort on building a full-fledged sound reinforcement company.

In the early stages, all of the company’s mixing boards, microphones, amplifiers, electronics and loudspeaker drivers were brought in from the U.S., but the cabinets for the loudspeakers were built and assembled by the company on site. This approach was not unusual - due to high transportation costs and the taxes on goods brought in from outside the country, virtually every other sound company in the region did the same thing.


Cesar with his company’s new line array system in the shop.

That changed in 1994, when C. Vilar became the first sound company in Columbia to bring in a full, professional PA system with structures and rigging capabilities, marking them as the first local company to own a name-brand system large enough to provide reinforcement for international touring acts visiting the country.

The system acquired at the time was comprised of EAW KF850s and SB850s, later complemented with KF853s for long throw, all driven by Crest 8001 and 7001 power amplifiers. Soon after, Meyer MSL-4s and UM-1 monitors were added, along with EAW SB650 subs.

FOLLOWING FOOTSTEPS

The company gained noted recognition in the following years, providing sound for all major government-sponsored music festivals, popular Latin artists like Vives, Alejandro Sanz and Shakira, as well as international acts like Santana and Metallica. And as C. Vilar Amplificacion was growing, so too were Cesar’s sons, who both decided to follow in their father’s footsteps.

Cesar’s eldest son, Leonardo, majored in acoustics and sound contracting at Columbia College in Chicago, studying under Doug Jones and Dominique Cheene. Before attending Columbia, says Leonardo, “I had worked with my father’s company for several years. I was out on tour before I even knew how a mic worked.”


The C. Vilar crew lining ‘em up prior to a Vives stadium concert.

By 1998, Leonardo had taken the role of FOH engineer for Aterciopelados, the most successful Colombian rock band of the time, touring Central and South America, Europe and the U.S. with the act until 2003. “I had the opportunity to get my hands on many different systems during these years,” he comments, adding that his experience has helped the company make better-informed choices when purchasing new gear.

Younger brother Mauricio studied at Full Sail in Orlando, earning an Associates degree before returning to play a role in his father’s company as well. He also has toured as monitor engineer for Aterciopelados and the band Bacilos, which recently won the 2003 Grammy Award for “Best Latin Pop Album.”

Last year, C. Vilar Amplificacion made the decision to update its “Aline” loudspeaker rig, and began investigating the merits of the various line array systems on the market, attending a number of product demos at the invitation of manufacturers.


Plenty of Lab Gruppen power joined by Klark-Teknik Helix processing.

“I had heard a particular system in Spain, and it was pretty nice,” says Leonardo, “and my father and I travelled to Mexico City for a demo of another product.”

This first round of evaluation didn’t really nudge the decision-making process. “The first line arrays that we listened to did not impress us,” explains Cesar. “To us, they performed better than a conventional system, but not enough to make us feel as though we needed it in our inventory.”

Progress was made at the 2002 AES Convention in Los Angeles, however, where months of research and discussion, followed by this first-hand “touch and feel” opportunity, led to selection of an Adamson Y-Axis system. “Every audio professional we spoke with - those without an interest in selling us anything - had nice things to say about this line array system,” comments Leonardo.


Cesar (left) and Leonardo talking it over at FOH.

“It was very curious to us how many people bought a particular system because it was the easiest to rig, or the lighter one, or the easiest to truck, or the one from the company they used before, or the one from the company with better credit options, or the one their favorite band just toured with. We just wanted to get the best-sounding system.”

“In the end, we decided to go with our instinct and chose the Y-Axis,” adds Cesar, who cited the physics involved with its design and high marks among touring engineers as key factors in the selection.

Less than two months later, the company took delivery of 20 Adamson Y-18 main line array loudspeakers, as well as four Y-10 downfill boxes, to be powered by a new amplification package including six Lab Gruppen fP 3400s for mids and highs and 18 Lab Gruppen fP 6400s for lows and subs. (Adamson specifies Lab Gruppen fP Series for use with Y-Axis.)

“I know this amplifier is very popular in Europe and it seems to be gaining momentum in the U.S., so we decided to go for it,” says Leonardo. “For any sound rental company, it’s paramount to have so much reliable power with excellent sonic quality, and as an added bonus, in a package of such small space and light weight.”

BIGGER RIG

“Two days after our Y-Axis system got here, we started touring around the country,” states Leonardo, with the new rig making its debut in mid- December of 2002 in Bogota, Colombia for 60,000 fans on hand for a show by Carlos Vives.


Perspective of coverage area for one of the Vives stadium shows.

A former TV actor, Vives has started to cross over to mainstream audiences, appealing to the younger generation by blending traditional Colombian “vallenato” music with a modern pop-rock feel. Vives’ backing band, La Provincia, is comprised of 11 musicians who play a variety of instruments ranging from electric guitars and drums to the more traditional sounds of the gaita, maracas, coros, guacharaca, and bombardino.

Vives’ production engineers, including FOH engineer Juan Carlos Yepes, chose to use a line array for the Vives tour of Columbia to attain even coverage in the largely stadium settings. Specifically, both the Y-18s and Y-10s offer 90 degrees of horizontal coverage, and a sliding hinge rigging system provides both fast setup and precise angling.

At the outset of the tour, 20 Y-18s and four Y-10s, split among two (left and right) arrays, were used, “but we realized later on that we were going to do more shows with artists such as Shakira, Juanes and Miguel Bose, so we decided to purchase more speakers,” says Mauricio. The count of Y-18’s increased to 32, with an additional 32 EAW SB850 subwoofers.

Leonardo handled tuning and timealignment of the system prior to each show, using a combination of Gold- Line TEF-20 and SIA SMAART4.6.2 systems. He notes that both systems were selected due to his experience with their accuracy.

REDUCED LOAD


The view from one of C. Vilar’s two new Innova SON digital boards.

Both Yepes and Monitor Engineer Gilberto Morejon deployed Innova SON Essential live digital mixing consoles for the Vives tour. The compact, durable consoles have worked out well for travel within South and Central America, where smaller aircraft tend to fly between cities and road conditions on major routes is poor.

Further, Yepes reports that the digital boards have reduced the amount of equipment needed for transport to each gig due to their built-in dynamics processing.

In fact, the only other outboard gear that made the journey was four effects units.

“We’re using all the compressors and gates in the Innova SON,” Yeppes says. “By adding the consoles to the band’s touring backline equipment, setup time has been greatly reduced. Soundcheck is down to 30 minutes or less since we have all the settings saved in the system.”

The stage is clean, with most musicians on Shure wireless in-ear monitoring systems, with Vives using an Ultimate ears system. Only four Meyer USM-1 wedges, with Crown Macro- Tech power, were deployed, primarily for accordion and coros player Egidio Cuadrado and keyboardist Carlos Ivan Medina.

As a result of its involvement with the Shakira tour, C. Vilar Amplificacion wound up selling a Y-Axis system (16 Y-18 and four 4 Y-10 loudspeakers) to Macro Sonido of Quito, Equador, according to the company’s president, Gonzalo Aguilar.

“For the first time in our history, local artists like Shakira, Vives and Juanes are doing concerts in big stadiums with 60,000 people, and selling out most shows,” concludes Leonardo. “Our country is experiencing a great moment for the music industry, and we are really glad to be a part of all that’s happening and to be providing great sound with our new rig.”

LSI caught up with Cubby Colby, click here to see what he's up to...



Dan Garcia is an independent audio veteran and parttime journalist covering the pro audio industry.

 

Email this story to a friend.