La Gaîté Lyrique
March 2012
Situated in the heart of Paris in the 3me arrondissement, La Gaîté Lyrique is a multimedia playground whose mission is to explore and promote all forms of digital culture and new media, from film-making and animation to the performing arts, visual arts, software art, computer programming, computer games, fashion and more. Occupying seven floors behind a really rather modest façade, La Gaîté Lyrique is stuffed to the gills with digital technology including no less than four Innovason Eclipse consoles and a full EtherSound network throughout.
La Gaîté Lyrique has a proud and turbulent history. Inaugurated in 1862 as a grand 1800-seat theatre, the venue has been through some exciting times, from celebrating Victor Hugo’s 70th birthday to hosting visiting Russian ballets in the 1920s. It was looted during the occupation, occupied ten times and reclaimed twenty times... In the 1970s, there was even a circus school which moved in and had the attic converted into stables for its elephants!
At the beginning of the 1980s, as the imposing dome of the hall threatened to collapse, part of the great hall had to be cemented. It was then completely destroyed by "Planète Magique" an ill-conceived open air amusement park that was built inside the venue and stayed open for just a few weeks in 1989. Following this fiasco, la Gaîté Lyrique lay dormant, accumulating dust and debts until 2002 when the Mairie de Paris stepped in and decided to give the iconic venue a new lease of life and create a brand new establishment to promote digital culture and contemporary music. The project was a huge undertaking and was finally inaugurated in September 2011.
The venue comprises seven floors, five of which are open to the public and two of which are private but include rehearsal spaces, a recording studio and the “technical” floor. There are a number of dedicated spaces, the largest of which is the 750-capacity “Grande Salle” which houses two of the four Innovason Eclipse digital consoles for FoH and monitoring duties. Dedicated to live music, this space has its own bespoke EtherSound network within the room as well as the possibility to send audio from the stage to anywhere else in the building.
The other spaces include the small hall (max capacity of 150), a 130-seat auditorium with a 5.1 digital theatre surround system, a video games space, several studios (one rehearsal/filming studio, one recording studio and three multimedia studios for video editing, sound and graphics), the resources centre and 1000m2 of modular exhibition space across two levels and a huge 20m x 4m projection wall.
In keeping with the ethos of digital culture and creation embodied by la Gaîté Lyrique, the audio system is fully digitally networked throughout the entire building including the halls and studios. All 360 ceiling speakers across all levels of the building are connected and individually addressable thanks to a total of 96 x Auvitran AVP4-ES100 digital EtherSound roof amplifiers. The ceiling speakers are complemented by 20 x ML12-ES Amadeus subs from Atelier 33 for some extra low-end when required. The jewel in the crown of this setup is, in fact, the third of the four Eclipse consoles. The fourth is kept on hand as a spare or for extra events when required.
“The Eclipse installed on our “technical” floor acts as a massive matrix,” explained head of sound, Jean-Marc Harel. “Used in conjunction with the ESMonitor software from Auvitran, it manages all 320 loudspeakers across the site. The speakers can be managed individually or in groups which can be defined at will. In short, we can send sound anywhere at any time from any source in the building. It’s yet another creative tool for artists in the palette of what we can offer at la Gaîté Lyrique.”
“We weren’t originally intending to use the Eclipse in this way,” admitted Jean-Marc. “It seemed a little extravagant at the time to say the least, but it was better that it sitting there doing nothing, which would have been the alternative. However, it’s turned out to be the best thing we could possibly have done.”
Jean-Marc went on to explain that as a control surface, the Eclipse is incredibly easy to manage and configure, and it has ultimately ended up saving them money because they have not had to invest in any other external equipment. “We use the M.A.R.S. multitrack recording function all the time to send out different audio streams across the building. We also use it to handle effects, and of course we can manage all of our grouping on it very quickly and easily. It’s a genuinely multi-tasking piece of equipment and it’s a massive time-saver for us when it comes to setting up different scenarios. In fact, none of us would want to go back to a traditional matrix solution now – it would be far too fiddly and time-consuming.”
Eclipse has been equally well-received in its more traditional setting of the main concert hall where two consoles have been deployed for FoH and monitoring purposes complemented by a DioCore (Innovason’s EtherSound-enabled stagebox) for extra I/O capacity when required. According to sound engineer Pierre Le Cardinal, Eclipse has definitely earned its stripes. “It sounds fantastic, and I love that it is so modular and you can configure it however you want,” he confirmed. “It’s very easy to manage for effects sends as well as for mixing. Even with new engineers who’ve never seen an Eclipse before, it works well once they’ve got over any initial reservations.”
“However, the best bit for me is M.A.R.S.” said Pierre. “It’s really, really useful! We can record all of our shows on high quality digital multitrack, which obviously the engineers and clients love, but we also use it for virtual soundchecking, playback and all sorts. The console itself is capable of handling several things at once, plus it’s very compact and doesn’t need any external equipment for recording.”
“Speaking of which, once we’ve recorded a show, we can send it on the network straight upstairs to our studio on the 6th floor for post-show mixing and editing. There we have a second DioCore equipped with a UM8 output card which converts the signal from EtherSound to AES/EBU and then straight into Pro Tools. In that way we have a completely digital chain from start to finish. It doesn’t get better than that!”
