Wedding bells ring with Eclipse in Sweden

5 July 2010

Sweden - 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 three-hour TV special that was broadcast live from Stockholm's 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 comments, "The Eclipse 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."

(Jim Evans)