Overview

 

In Paris the Fête de la Musique has long been associated with a free Ricard SA Live Music concert. This evening entertainment featuring several groups takes place at Place Denfert-Rochereau, in cooperation with Fonds d'Action and Initiative Rock. This year's event sees some major technical advances - two PM5D consoles, six AD8HR preamp/AD converters, and an EtherSound system!

Ricard Live Music is a long-established musical institution that is well known throughout France. Every year RLM organizes an eight-date French tour with two young artists who it selects and looks after. In 2007 Sandi Thom and Shy'm were thus featured at free concerts in Besançon, Saint-Étienne, Marseille, Montpellier, Bordeaux, Nantes, Amiens, and Le Havre between 24 May and 16 June. Ricard SA Live Music also has a presence at leading one-off events like the Fête de la Musique in Paris.

Place:

Place Denfert-Rochereau 

Interview date:

06/2007

Product List

Mixers:

PM5D-RH, PM5D

Interfaces:

AD8HR

Details

Owned Equipment Plus Partnership

For this tour, and for one-off events, Ricard SA Live Music combines its own resources, partnerships, and the services of providers/hirers. The company has its own portable stage and structures, as well as basic sound and lighting equipment. "As far as the rest is concerned, Ricard is not interested in acquiring costly equipment, as the payback period would be impractical given the infrequency with which it is used", explains Nicolas Laheurte, General Manager of RLM for the last 11 years. Nicolas supervises the technical side of Ricard events. "We therefore hire equipment from providers and also work in partnership with major sound and lighting brands. As a result we're always well abreast of the latest technical developments".
Of these brands, Yamaha is one of the most dependable. RLM has a long-standing relationship and close links with Yamaha Musique France, from which both parties benefit. For Ricard SA Live Music, offering groups excellent technical facilities is an undoubted plus. For Yamaha the RLM tour is a major event, and an opportunity to invite potential customers in large towns backstage to see and hear the company's equipment in use. The Yamaha logo is prominent front of house".

Thanks to Yamaha, Ricard Live Music had access to one of the first PM1D consoles in France: "As soon as the DM2000 came out I went to see Yamaha Musique France at a SIEL or SATIS show," says Nicolas. "I was thinking of asking them for a DM2000, but they immediately offered me a PM1D. There were only two in France at the time: one with us, one with Kassav'!" The Ricard SA Live Music tour was therefore equipped with a PM1D for a number of years prior to 2007, when Yamaha suggested it should be replaced with a more recent configuration and more sophisticated technology.

The Fête de la Musique

The Fête de la Musique, held at Place Denfert-Rochereau in Paris for several years, has long been a major event for RLM. The musical program for the free concert is developed by FAIR (Fonds d'Action et d'Initiative Rock, which is managed by the Ministry of Culture), unlike the French tour for which RLM chooses the performers. Four groups shared the stage this year: Kaolin, Stuck in the Sound, Katel, and Nadj. RLM provides technical services, the stage, and the infrastructure for this major free concert. Some lighting equipment is hired, as is the sound system (provided by Potar Hurlant).

Setup begins at 4 in the morning on the day of the concert. The stage is ready by 9 o'clock, the equipment is connected by 12, and sound checks continue until 7 in the evening. The concert goes on until about midnight. Everything is dismantled in one go, and Place Denfert Rochereau is returned to its normal appearance by about 3 in the morning. All this with just seven drivers/fitters, four lighting engineers, and four sound engineers!

Once again the event has provided an opportunity to strengthen the ties between RLM and Yamaha, which this year has provided two PM5D consoles – one front of house, one RH type for monitors – and six remote-controlled AD8HR preamplifiers for use as stage boxes connected to the front of house console via EtherSound using an AuviTran interface. Output is from an L-Acoustics V-DOSC system.

Assistance for Visiting Engineers

Very often individual groups appear with their own technical personnel – front of house sound engineer, monitor sound engineer, lighting engineer. To help them acclimatize to the special conditions of this concert for the Fête de la Musique, RLM always provides a sound engineer who knows the equipment inside out on site, and helps visiting sound engineers to get the best out of it. Emmanuel Humeau, himself a freelance sound engineer, has performed this role for several years. "It would be impossible for a sound engineer coming on site without knowing anything to get by himself; he has to know how the system is configured, what's at the end of it. It's too specific so some coaching is necessary. To help sound engineers find a few familiar landmarks, I suggest a few external peripherals: a Lexicon 300, t.c. electronic M5000, Eventide H3000, etc. Conversely, dynamics are dealt with in the console", explains Humeau.

AD8HR Units Plus Fiber-optic EtherSound

"Use of the AD8HRs as a stage box is a great opportunity offered to us by Yamaha." resumes Humeau. "We have six of them, which is quite enough for the number of lines we use in a concert. We use them with an Auvitran interface to carry the signals via fiber optics in EtherSound format. This is just as well, because all our multi-pair cables were getting close to the end of the road. Using fiber offers better sound and a more powerful system. This is a useful additional feature of the PM5D consoles that we discovered on the RLM 2007 tour, and which is absolutely right for this type of concert. We split analog on the stage itself: the outputs go to the PM5D-RH monitor on the one side and the Auvitran AVRed-ES EtherSound interface on the other. We only use a single fiber, running through a cable track passing right through the middle of the audience. We send the front of house mix in AES/EBU digital format towards the stage, and connect to the XTA processors of the V-DOSC. The front of house PM5D is controlled by Studio Manager on a portable PC at all times, which helps with last-minute changes".

Adamant Analog Users Easily Converted

Damien Bertrand, Kaolin's sound engineer and also engineer to Philippe Katerine, among others, is a pure analog fan. He would never have specified a PM5D of his own volition. RSML's sound engineers were requested to adapt to the equipment used on practical grounds, and he agreed to work on it. Coached by Emmanuel Humeau, he got the hang of it in record time, although he had never touched a PM5D before! When evening came several thousand people were able to appreciate the sound quality and impact of the V-DOSC system, which proved to be up to the job even though it hadn't been suspended on the sides of the stage in the best possible way. Will we see a PM5D at the Fête de la Musique next year ... perhaps with a DSP5D?

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