Gingras is a veteran of Quebec’s pro audio
community. He cut his teeth working with
several of the province’s best-known sound
companies, mixing shows in some of Mon-
treal’s best-known venues, and touring with
many of the province’s best-known artists. He
also boasts an impressive resume of studio
work and now divides his time between live
sound, remote and studio recording, mixing
for broadcast, and just about every other odd
job that comes up in the business.
He began his stint with Reno back in 2008,
and in the decade since, has collaborated on
various tours and all kinds of special events.
“With Mrs. Reno, the production is rarely small,
often with more than 20 musicians on stage,”
he explains. In fact, the smallest production
he can recall was for her intentionally intimate
Chanter pour toi ce soir (Singing for You This
Evening) Tour in 2013/14, which featured 12
artists on stage for its 80-show run throughout
Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick – “and
more than 80 inputs on the patch!”
And so while he acknowledges that
Ginette Reno Symphonique was undoubtedly
a unique and special experience for those in
attendance, it wasn’t quite as novel for the
artist and her crew.
In the past 10 years alone, they’ve per-
formed with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra
at the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre
(captured for the DVD release Divine), with
the Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra at the
Montreal Symphony House to raise funds for
the Montreal Cancer Institute, and with the
Symphonic Orchestra of Longueuil for the City
of Boucherville’s 350 th birthday celebrations.
For much of his time with Reno, Gingras
was mixing on a Yamaha PM1D, and says they
were always satisfi ed with the audio quality
and feature set of the once-ubiquitous console;
however, considering its size and weight along
with the fact that many new technologies have
hit the market in the time since its release, Re-
no’s production recently purchased its own pair
of Yamaha CL5 digital audio consoles.
As Gingras explains, though, before
they even began planning for Ginette Reno
Symphonique, the FOH-designated CL5 was
tapped out in terms of inputs. “We had no
choice but to add the Dante MY16-AUD cards
to allow for the two consoles to get 80 inputs
directly on the network,” he explains. “They
were all patched in three [Yamaha] Rio3224-D
[digital stage boxes] that we’d also purchased.”
For previous shows, they’ve had to add a
sidecar console to handle things like talkback,
click tracks, programmed sequences, and
crowd mics; however, this time around, for the
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