Eclipse tours with Xavier Rudd and Clair Brothers

September 2010

Australian surf/roots artist Xavier Rudd is currently in the middle of his “Koonyum Sun” world tour which spans the UK, North America, Australia and Europe. The European and US legs of the tour are being handled by Concert Sound Clair and Clair Brothers respectively. Concert Sound supplied an Innovason Eclipse digital mixing console for monitors for the first UK part of the tour and Clair Brothers has supplied one for the US leg. When the tour returns to Europe in November, they’ll be going out with a pair of Eclipses from Concert Sound supplied by Red Square Audio.

Production manager Simon Skeet, who started off using the Eclipse on monitors before handing over to engineer Lenny Goncharov, has thoroughly enjoyed using Eclipse. “The first thing to say about Eclipse is that it has proven to be both reliable and stable,” he noted. “From an operational point of view, the flexibility of the control surface and the ability to configure it however you like enables me to mix on a layout that I’m comfortable with, and the smooth encoders and faders are a pleasure to use. Sonically the board sounds very good indeed, and the on-board effects engines are truly impressive.”

Lenny Goncharov who took over from Skeet on monitors for the US leg agreed, and also added that the M.A.R.S. recording facility was a great feature. “It is such a timesaver, especially during – or rather prior to – sound checking,” he enthused. “With M.A.R.S. – which is really easy to use, by the way - I can get most of the sound check done before the guys even show up, and when they are here, it’s just a question of fine-tuning. It’s much quicker than a traditional sound check. That makes me happy, and the band even happier! I also love that once programmed, the Eclipse is incredibly fast access, especially for monitors.”

“I'm really looking forward to the new version NOVA 2.0 software,” added Skeet. “All the updates and new features it will bring will make the console even nicer to use, and more importantly, easy to set up. Hopefully by the time we get back to Europe we’ll get two consoles both running on NOVA 2.0 – then we’ll really be cooking on gas!”