Eclipse's DSP engine enables you to mix up to 104 inputs simultaneously into 48 mix busses with the capacity to manage up to 320 inputs on the console using up to five remote audio racks. The control surface is furnished with 48 faders and 48 fully configurable rotary knobs (spread over four layers). The concept is called SmartPanel and effectively gives you 96 "faders", taking InnovaSON's original SmartFAD concept to the next level.
According to InnovaSON's product manager and designer of Eclipse, Hervé de Caro, "The console is a tool that must adapt to the engineers' needs, not the other way round." Thus, a rotary knob above each fader handles pan, gain and trim adjustment, or indeed any other function assigned to it by the user.
A further user-defined section on the control surface offers six assignable VU meters, four assignable rotary knobs and four assignable switches, each with their own label. To keep things simple, an ID LED per channel strip enables you to see at a glance what bus or function has been assigned to that channel.
The MARS (Multitrack Audio Recording System) option is a built-in digital 64-track recorder that records directly onto a hard disk plugged into the back of the console. A navigation bar and time code module are available on the control surface for rapid access to recording and playback functions.
Eclipse is fully networkable, supporting EtherSound, Muxipaire, A-Net from Aviom and MADI (via an optional DioMadiES converter). The console is also compatible with all existing I/O and effects modules and audio racks and is supplied with a dual redundant power supply as standard. All Eclipse consoles come complete with the new software, NOVA, which offers "a modern and highly user-friendly graphic interface".
(Jim Evans)
