Royal Wedding bells ring with Eclipse in Sweden

July 2010

Described as Europe’s biggest royal wedding since Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden married long-time partner Daniel Westling on 19 June 2010. The event was the occasion of huge celebrations throughout Stockholm, including a 3-hour TV special that was broadcast live from Stockholm’s famous park, Kungsträdgården. Pro audio distribution specialists, Electrosound, who also operate a thriving rental division, were contracted to handle all of the sound production for the main stage and sound distribution for the TV-4 OB truck.

The show was a big event that included live performances from a number of top Scandinavian artists including Eagle Eye Cherry, Linda Sundblad, Carpark North, Gentlemen, Jasmine Kara, Anna Maria Espinosa and many others. Part of the system provided by Electrosound was a full Innovason network system running over EtherSound which comprised an Innovason DioCore EtherSound-enabled 64-channel stagebox supplemented by a second digital multicore from Roland to provide a total of 104 inputs. An Innovason Sy80 operated by Greg Neville and Ajax Olsson acted as the main monitor console and primary network master, whilst an Innovason Eclipse handled the mix at FoH. The OB truck was located 200m away from the venue, so a key part of the network was Innovason’s DioMADI ES interface which converts EtherSound to MADI for signal distribution to the OB truck via optical fiber. The OB truck, supplied by HD Resource, was equipped with a Lawo mixing console operated by Micke Ahnlund.

According to Electrosound’s Brollan Söderström who, in addition to running Electrosound, also happens to be one of Sweden’s most prominent sound engineers, the event was a success from all points of view. Brollan himself mixed at FoH and had this to say about Eclipse: “It provides a huge mixing power when it comes to control of many inputs and mixes. In true Innovason tradition, it has a large routing capacity, enabling you to route signals in and out in millions of different ways, which is something I use a lot. Also, the sonic quality of Eclipse is as good as Innovason has always been – mixing headroom is the least of my worries, and the preamps sound great. However, the biggest innovation has got to be the M.A.R.S. multitrack recorder... it opens up a totally new way of working. I constantly have the M.A.R.S. running in recording mode during soundchecks and rehearsals. That way, I can easily go back and check things that were previously impossible. Now, if I notice something a little strange in the sound, I can easily scroll back in time and check it out. Not to mention the ability to fine-tune my mixes without having the band there waiting… Just imagine having a large orchestra playing the same thing over and over again whilst you tweak your reverbs – it will never happen! But with M.A.R.S it can…! It is simply a fantastic tool.”

Brollan also added that the combination of Sy80 – DioCore - Eclipse (or Sy48) - DioMADI ES converter for the OB truck was the ideal set-up for live TV broadcast applications. “We’ve used this set-up many times now for different TV and radio broadcasts. It always works perfectly with no hassle for anyone. The broadcasters love it because it speeds things up considerably for them and eliminates the need for big, heavy analogue splitters. We love it because it’s quick and easy to set up, and very reliable.”