Innovason Eclipse in An American Rhapsody, Concert in Jakarta

The Grand Ballroom at the newly renovated five-star Hotel Indonesia Kempinski in Jakarta recently played host to a gala concert entitled An American Rhapsody. The 40-piece Jakarta Concert Orchestra and Batavia Madrigal Singers, led by Indonesia's most accomplished conductor of western classical music, Avip Priatna, treated the audience to an evening of Gershwin, Frank Sinatra, and other American legends. Indonesian rental company Megaswara handled the sound requirements for the evening which included an Innovason Eclipse digital mixing console on monitors, with support from Innovason's Indonesian distributor, LaMesa.

LaMesa's Didi Kartanegara explained that the Eclipse was selected for monitors on this event -- along with LaMesa's engineer, Ahmad Rapii --- as it was by far the most hectic situation for a live set up with an orchestra, and Megaswara didn't want to take any risks on this highly prestigious event. "We were managing a 40-piece orchestra with an additional choir and several soloists. That gave us a total input count of 80 channels," says Kartanegara. "We routed the 56 microphone inputs via the remote DioCore stagebox, and the remaining 24 channels were connected locally at the back of the Eclipse. We used 16 line in/outs located directly on the DSP card itself and a further eight mic inputs via an SI-8D3 mic input module. There were 12 outputs used to feed in-ears, stage fill, and floor monitors to the pianist, conductor, choir, and soloists. As the stage was so wide, the monitor engineer couldn't actually see the whole stage himself, so we had the stage manager stationed next to him, who in turn received a signal from the crew communicator on stage if there were any levels that needed to be adjusted! However, even with this somewhat less than ideal set up, we didn't have any problems at all since the console was very well laid out with instant access to all the faders. We set it up so that we had the 12 aux sends on the Smart Panel and kept the rest of the faders for the instruments."

Kartanegara also notes that the M.A.R.S. onboard digital multi-track recorder was put to good use. "We recorded the whole show using M.A.R.S. and got fantastic 64-track professional quality audio with virtually just a click of the mouse. We had a separate 17" LCD to monitor the M.A.R.S. screen, which worked very well. The whole system was rock solid from every point of view, and the rental company was extremely impressed. This was the first time they'd really seen Eclipse in action, so the guys were able to see firsthand the fast and easy operation with 48 configurable faders. The large symphony set up was easily handled by the Eclipse, and as a result it was an enjoyable experience for the engineer and musicians alike."