Sebastien Arribas, head of AV at the Opera Comique explained that the time had come to move on from their old analogue console as it was simply too limiting in terms of the number of outputs and flexibility of configuration. "It still sounded good, but we had got to the stage where we were asking more of the console than it was capable of giving, so it was time to move on, and a digital console was the obvious choice."
After researching a number of different options, the Eclipse from Innovason was the console that attracted Arribas and his team the most. "For one thing, it came highly recommended from Radio France. We do a lot of work in collaboration with Radio France, and I hold their technical team in the highest regard, so that was an important recommendation," observed Arribas. "After that, once we started to look in detail at what the console had to offer in terms of features and functionality, we were very impressed. The M.A.R.S. recording function was of particular interest. Also, it's a French console - perhaps only a minor point, but important to us as a French company nevertheless."
The M.A.R.S. onboard 64-track recording system was a very important feature for Arribas and his team. "It's a major advantage for us," he confirmed. "We really are using it to its full capacity for recording shows either for archiving or for broadcast purposes. It's also very useful for soundchecking - in fact, once you get used to having the record function at your fingertips, you wonder how you ever did without it."
M.A.R.S. aside, Arribas explained that the main requirement was for a truly multipurpose console that was capable of handling many different things at once. "We needed a flexible console with a lot of outputs, because we have to send audio to many different places."
(Jim Evans)
