Radio France goes digital with Sennheiser and Eclipse in Montpellier

September 2013

 

This year saw the 29th edition of the “Festival de Radio France et Montpellier Languedoc-Rousillon” held at several venues in and around Montpellier. The two-week event, held this year from 11-25 July, is an odyssey of opera, classical music and jazz. Whilst the city of Montpellier provides the venues and handles a lot of the marketing, it’s Radio France that steps in “en masse” to handle the technical side. They provide almost all of the PA equipment, all the microphones and all the broadcast equipment including OB vans plus the crew to set up and run the systems across all of the venues during the two-week festival run. This year and for the very first time, Radio France took a leap into the unknown and deployed a fully digital live/broadcast system at Montpellier’s Domaine d’O. The majestic 1800-seat open air amphitheatre played host to all of the jazz concerts throughout the festival. Using a selection of Neumann and Sennheiser digital microphones and three Innovason Eclipse consoles, Radio France was able to achieve fully digital sound capture and transmission. Radio France engineer Matthieu Leroy explained the set-up:

“We’re using three Innovason Eclipse consoles – one at FoH, one at monitors and the third is behind the stage in our “nerve centre” dedicated to sound capture and recording. All three consoles are on the EtherSound network, and we’ve designated the monitor desk as the master console, simply because it’s the one closest to the microphone sources. We’re using a combination of Neumann’s KM D digital microphone systems with a variety of capsules depending on the instruments we’re miking and the requirements of the band. We’ve also got 14 ambience mics placed here and there across the front of the stage and throughout the auditorium – don’t forget, our primary obligation is to our radio audiences, so ambient miking is a very important part of what we do.”

All of the digital microphone signals are fed into a series of Neumann DMI-8 interfaces which convert the AES-42 signal into AES/EBU which, in turn, is sent to the Innovason DioCore stageboxes and then out to the consoles on the EtherSound network. As the master console, the monitor desk has control of the digital microphone parameters directly from the control surface which is an important feature of the Eclipse. “We can handle up to 58 digital microphones via the control surface, which I think is pretty impressive,” noted Leroy. “Incidentally, I should also point out that all of the consoles, DioCores and DMI interfaces remained outside in the heat and dust for two whole weeks and worked perfectly throughout…”

Leroy confirmed that it was a bit of a learning curve using digital microphones for the first time. “You could say it’s a bit like going from your comfortable old 2CV to finding yourself behind the wheel of a Ferrari! At first you’re just not quite sure what to do with all that power – in the case of the digital microphones, it’s because the sound is so totally transparent from the source, it takes some getting used to. You can literally hear everything – whether you like it or not! However, it definitely makes life easier and quicker because it completely eliminates the initial stages of cleaning up the sound from the source, giving me more time to concentrate on the music and the art of mixing. Going back to the car analogy, I haven’t had to spend time tuning the engine before I drive the car – I can just get in and drive and it feels great!”

The other extremely noticeable difference was the difference in gain before feedback. “I’ve actually dropped my output levels on the desk by 6dB,” noted Leroy. “That’s just huge!! Again, that’s because what we’re getting from the source is so clean and transparent, we hardly have to work on it at all, so our output levels are much higher as a result. However, if, for any reason, it doesn’t sound good at the console, you quickly realise that the problem has to be coming either from the source itself or the microphone placement. When you’re working in the digital domain, you can identify almost instantly that the problem (if there is one) is in front the microphone.”

Speaking of desks, how do the Eclipses fit into this scenario? “Most of us at Radio France are big fans of the Eclipse,” confirmed Leroy. “We know them inside out, which is a great advantage when you’re working with other new technologies like the digital microphones. The fact that you can pilot the microphones from the control surface is a big help, although actually, as I’m at FoH this evening, I won’t have to worry about that at all – Benoit is our monitor man tonight, so that’s his job!”

“What I love about the Eclipse is the ability to configure it however you like,” he continued. “For me, that’s a huge bonus. M.A.R.S. (the onboard 64-track digital recorder) is also extremely useful - we use it for virtual soundchecking all the time as it cuts down actual soundcheck times, and of course the recording console uses M.A.R.S. to record the entirety of the show in real time, either for live broadcast or for broadcast at a later date. However, the recording is used just as it is – there is no remixing whatsoever. Also, the fact that all of the consoles are equipped with M.A.R.S. gives us double redundancy which is very reassuring.”

“We also use the “offline” functionality to great effect. Using just a PC equipped with Innovason’s NOVA software for the console and Auvitran’s ES-Monitor EtherSound network management software, we can configure the entire system offline and just load it up into the console when we arrive which is a huge time saver. Speaking of time saving, Eclipse is jammed full of handy features and short-cuts like the Smart and Fast Link functions, the Smart Panel, and a host of other things that all save time when you’re actually using the console.”

“I also like the new PANDORA function – I find it makes a real difference compared to traditional panning solutions. Using PANDORA I can give those seated at the extremes of the auditorium virtually the same stereo image as the people sat in the centre. It’s a really useful and quality enhancing tool in any live situation, but especially for jazz audiences who tend to be very finicky about the sound! Finally ”

So, bottom line? “It’s been a great experience and I’d have no hesitation in using digital microphones again,” concluded Leroy. “I think we’ve all been blown away by the sound quality, even though it forces us to work differently and takes us away from our ingrained habits, which can be a bit unsettling in a live environment. However, overall I’d say it’s been hugely positive. We’ve had excellent support from Sennheiser France, and the fact that we were all working on the Eclipse consoles that we know and love has of course been a great help. Roll on the next one – although preferably somewhere with a more temperate climate!”