The Palais des Congres de Paris chooses SSL technology to renew its sound system

After two years of research, The Palais des Congrès de Paris has installed the Live L500 audio console of Solid State Logic in its main auditorium to optimize the 150 Productions that are held every year in this venue.

Located at the western end of the district 17, near the Arc de Triomphe, the Palacio de Congresos (Palais des Congrès) of Paris has two television studios, 20 conference rooms, 85 Meeting rooms and three smaller auditoriums. The main auditorium, which has 3.723 locations and is managed by Viparis Group, has offered an average of 150 Events every year, including internationally renowned ballets, operas, Symphonies and pop concerts.

After two years of research, The technical team decided to renew the audio console for one that could adequately handle the important productions and rapid changes that are often necessary in an environment like this.. The option chosen was the Live L500 model of Solid State Logic, whose products it distributes Lexon.

"The challenge was to have a sound system that met the size and functionality needed by our customers.. We need to be sure that we have products of the highest quality, able to satisfy everyone, both now and in the future. At last, After two years of research, we have chosen the Live L500 SSL console", explain the members of the sound team of the Palais des Congrès in Paris, Laurent Maury, Sylvain Demay and Thomas Guardenti.

Used for all concerts and conferences held in the main auditorium, including those that require connections to external equipment, as television productions and links to corporate events, the Live L500 console has been installed to integrate the existing audio infrastructure in the enclosure.

The fan-shaped stalls of the main auditorium do not have an amphitheater and the mixing area is located at 27 meters from the stage, behind a central corridor. The speakers cover the audience by means of two arrays on the left and right, down fills, A central cluster, floor fills, Front fills and various subwoofers.

Backstage, Two stage boxes of 32×32, 5Or, SSL, with a total of 96 canals (including 32 Console Inputs) are redundantly connected via a coaxial Madi connection to an SSL Madi Blacklight II hub that connects everything to the FOH mix via a single fiber cable per side.

"Even though we're always in the same theater., working at the Palais des Congrès is like touring, due to constant exposure to different engineers and ways of mixing. That's why, It was also important for us to acquire a console that was known all over the world.. The SSL Off Line Setup Application (Solsa) of the console has been revealed as an especially important element for us. It ensures that guest engineers can familiarize themselves with the console and can organize their session before they arrive.", clarifies Demay.

The team points to the wide variety of software features of the console as one of the main reasons that have led to its selection. "Layer Manager is a fantastic tool, that is very easy to use and that is really useful to organize the console the way we want. Visiting engineers are immediately comfortable organizing inputs and outputs in their layers of faders and benches., so they can approach production the way they want.", adds Maury.

Guardenti points out that it is fantastic to have the AutoMix and Dynamic-EQ insertion tools incorporated and that flexibility in the workflow is important. "Each of us has our own preferences and way of working., So the combination of touch screens and encoders allows everyone to work as they wish.".

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