French Strictly Come Dancing utilises APG Uniline array

TV audio solutions provider Silence! used APG Uniline systems for the French versions of Strictly Come Dancing and The Voice.

Danse avec les Stars has proved almost as popular as its British counterpart and the live show is broadcast from the same TV studio in Paris that hosted the live shows of last season’s The Voice. On the other side of the English Channel, Plus 4 Audio also supplied a Uniline system for the special Children In Need edition of ‘Strictly’ from Wembley Arena in front of a live audience of 6,000 people last month.

“Based on our experience with Uniline for The Voice last season, we had no hesitation in specifying it again this year,” said Gilles Hugo, one of the co-founders of Silence! “The system has already earned its stripes in a TV studio environment, proving that it can deliver great sound even in a difficult environment where the constraints of working with lights and cameras mean that we can’t fly the system the way we’d like to.”

For Danse avec les Stars, where a live band is required for every show, Silence! had to work around a dance floor with a highly sophisticated lighting design. Much of the scenery and ambience is created via projection, which comes from high above the dance floor. As a result, Silence ! couldn’t fly any speakers in the ‘cube’ above the dance floor where the projectors were situated.

“We ended up way, way up in the roof,” Hugo recalled. “However, this is where Uniline really comes into its own. We can get decent sound out of the system even when circumstances are far from ideal and we can’t optimise the system to its best advantage.”

Daniel Dolle, the other co-founder of Silence! added: “The advantage of a line array system is that it is extremely precise, but only if you can put it where you want, and use as many cabinets as possible. The advantage of Uniline is that, thanks to its dispersion characteristics, you can still achieve the line array effect but with fewer boxes and therefore fewer amps.

"That means fewer problems with sight-lines, and of course a more economic solution overall. However, because it’s modular, you can create a long-throw system by combining UL210 with UL210D cabinets, so that makes it a very economic choice too – no need to have a separate system for long-throw applications, one system does all.”

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