Eclipse shines with Natasha St. Pier

May 2012

Renowned Canadian singer, Natasha St Pier, much beloved of Francophone audiences for the strength and purity of her voice, is currently touring Europe with her new album, "La Bonne Nouvelle". The young singer, acclaimed as one of the most beautiful voices of the "Chanson Francaise" genre has sold over 2M albums in France alone. She has performed duets with some of the biggest heavyweights of the French music scene including Johnny Hallyday and Florent Pagny (who recently starred as one of the coaches for the French version of the international reality TV hit, The Voice), and debuted her international singing career as Fleur de Lys in the London version of the hit musical, Notre Dame de Paris. She has decided to make her current tour an intimate affair - just her and the talented pianist, Michel Amsellem in venues of a maximum of 800 people. St Pier recently performed at the concert hall in Arques in north-eastern France using an Eclipse GT digital mixing console from Innovason.

“Given the intimate nature of this tour, we decided not to bring all of our PA equipment with us, but to use either whatever the venue had to offer or to work with local rental companies,” confirmed Natasha St Pier’s long-term sound engineer, Vincent Voyron. “On my rider I simply specified a good quality digital console with high quality preamps. In Arques I got to use an Eclipse for the first time and I wasn’t disappointed.”

“I know Natasha’s voice extremely well, and I always use the same microphone for her (a Neumann KMS 105),” continued Voyron. “That way, I know as soon as we put the signal through the console whether the preamps are any good or not. In the case of the Eclipse, they were excellent. I was able to get my bearings straight away and I appreciated their transparency. So, with a good source, a good mic and good preamps, I hardly had to use the EQs at all, although they appeared to be extremely accurate and efficient. Running monitors from FoH, I also used the graphic EQs for the aux sends, and once again, I appreciated the quality of the graphic EQs.”

“For me, the Eclipse is a really good console – the internal multitrack recorder is a real plus,” concluded Voyron. “All I’m waiting for now is a bit of software to enable me to control the console remotely from my iPad, but I’m told it’s on the way! I’d be happy to mix on an Eclipse any time.”