Eclipse records at Royal Opera House

August 2010

The Paul Hamlyn Hall in London’s iconic Royal Opera House is just the latest in a line of prestigious venues to be graced by an Innovason Eclipse digital mixing console with onboard multitrack recording. The occasion was a special one-off concert by Hungarian folk legend, Marta Sebestyen. Best known for her Oscar-winning soundtrack for the multi-award-winning film, The English Patient, Sebestyen’s latest album, “I can see the Gates of Heaven” is a collaboration with a couple of young Hungarian folk artists, Balázs Szokolay Dongó and Mátyás Bolya, who joined her on stage for this unique and intimate event. Paul Nicholson of Red Square Audio was called upon to specify all the PA and FoH equipment for the event, which included an Innovason Eclipse.

The Paul Hamlyn Hall is a notoriously difficult venue from an acoustic point of view. Still commonly known as the “floral hall”, the Hamlyn Hall is a large iron and glass structure that essentially looks and feels like a huge conservatory. As Nicholson puts it, “Beautiful, but every sound engineer’s nightmare! However, the crucial thing about Eclipse, in addition to all of the fabulous features, of course, is how good the console sounds. For my money, there is simply nothing better on the market today. Marta and her band really appreciated how good the show sounded, despite the challenging acoustics.”

Nicholson engineered the whole show from the Eclipse console, including monitors, and he also recorded it using the onboard M.A,R.S. system. “With the Eclipse I feel really comfortable having simultaneous control of FoH, monitors and multitrack recording as all the functions are at your fingertips and displayed on the surface and the screen,” he noted. “I also like the fact that as the surface is fully user configurable and very analogue to the touch with no layers to get caught up in, I can watch the stage rather than menus and multiple screens which is the norm with other digital consoles. I have even been known to fold the Eclipse screen down while mixing!”

“With Marta’s band it was really easy to ride some of their on-stage mixes with the usual nod and a wink,” continued Nicholson. “Being able to select a channel or an aux and see at a glance what is routed to either is a really neat way of managing the stage mixes.”

Concerning the use of the M.A.R.S. onboard multitrack recording, Nicholson had this to say: “The beauty of M.A.R.S. is that you can record anything at the touch of a button and the VSC (Virtual Sound Check) mode really does give the engineer the ability to check out a room or the monitor system without having the musicians get in the way! Broadway mode is another great addition allowing individual musicians to rehearse with their virtual band mates. I remember Liza Minnelli rehearsing acapella at the Royal Albert Hall many years ago and I always think how handy the Eclipse would have been back then. She arrived before any of the band and the only choice was a solo rehearsal. How technology has changed! Speaking of which, I’m really looking forward to the imminent release of NOVA 2 and all the new functionality that this will bring to Eclipse.”