Lyric soprano, Jane Zoo, has recently finished recording her second album in the idyllic setting of a French country manor.
The beautiful Manoir La Chaussée in Port de Roche near Langon, Brittany, became home to Jane Zoo, her musicians and recording team headed up by Innovason‘s Hervé de Caro who also co-produced the album. The entire album was recorded on an Innovason Eclipse digital mixing console using digital microphones from Sennheiser.
“It was a fabulous project,” said de Caro, who was the lynchpin in making it all happen.
Using his considerable network of contacts in the French live music and recording industry, de Caro sourced the venue, brought together all the musicians, arranged for a grand piano to be brought to the manor house and oversaw all the set up. He also handled the mix and recording of the entire album.
“It helped that I had great people working with me,” he confirmed. “The cellist, Mathilde Chevrel, who is one of the most accomplished and talented musicians I have had the pleasure of working with, arranged all the music for the album in just six weeks and did the most amazing job.”
De Caro and his team had the full studio set up and working in less than a day.
“We had several different rooms for the various instruments; one for the piano, another for the strings (four violins, a cello and a double bass), one for Jane, another area for the drums and of course a control room containing the Eclipse and a PC equipped with a Digigram LX6464ES EtherSound soundcard running Cubase,” explained de Caro. “All of the instruments and of course Jane herself were mic’d up with a variety of Solution-D digital microphones from Neumann (we had 20 mics in total), all routed back to the Eclipse using Neumann DMI interfaces.
“I controlled all of the digital microphone parameters from the Eclipse control surface and then sent the mix to the PC where it was recorded by the LX6464ES. This was then routed back to the M.A.R.S. system in the Eclipse for back-up recording. I also used the console to supply all the headphone feeds to the musicians. Control room monitoring was courtesy of a pair of Neumann 0 300 D active studio monitors (connected to the network via AES) and a KH 810 sub.”
“The whole process went off without a hitch – it really couldn’t have been easier,” said de Caro. “The set up was completed in under a day, and because all our equipment worked exactly as it was supposed to, everything ran to schedule with no undue pressure.
“The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly throughout. On a personal note, I’m delighted that we had yet another opportunity to showcase the synergy between the Eclipse and Neumann digital microphones, this time in a recording context. On a project like this where the highest possible quality and fidelity were the top priority, once again, the combination proved unbeatable. I’m proud of what we all achieved and I’m looking forward the album coming out very soon!”
