Over the last few months, Justice has been exporting French EDM to multiple continents. In concerts and at festivals, this emblematic duo puts on an impressive show of creativity and technical mastery. The musical style is quite an original experience, since there are no microphones on stage, just the two artists at the controls of their tracks. Intelligence Audio was commissioned to implement this special creative approach on tour, providing the technical environment needed to produce unique, dynamic concerts.
But pre-produced source tracks don’t necessarily translate into simplicity – quite the opposite, in fact they require an enormous amount of preparation, under the guidance of Romain Berguin and Nicolas Fradet at their Playback Solutions. When the show begins, the musical power of their tracks is immediately apparent. Our ears flirt with extremes. The infra-bass is almost frightening. The soundscape seems to push back the walls of the Accor Arena and the frequency spectrum expands wildly. Sébastien Roblin mans the faders for a unique, impressive and lively concert, even without a single microphone.
SLU : What’s the role of Intelligence Audio?
Sébastien Roblin : I founded Intelligence Audio with Patrick Passerel and Philippe Gloaguen in 2007. Our concept is to support artists by designing a tailor-made live sound, not with the equipment available but with the equipment needed, with a constant focus on optimisation. This support can involve all aspects, as in this case for Justice, optimising the sources of the studio album for live use.
Patrick takes care of all the engineering for the sound system, and we find him here today working on set-up. Philippe and William Duvet oversee FoH and mixing, as well as optimising the audio material. It’s together with them that I discuss the artistic aspects to determine the direction of the project and the equipment they’re going to use. For my part, I manage the overall project and I’m in charge of the front-of-house mixing. I talk to the artists to understand their needs, and then to all my colleagues to finalise the framework for the project.
SLU : And all this while fitting into a stage design?
Sébastien Roblin : Custom integration is one of our trademarks. For example, for the 2022 PNL tour, we had to design a FoH system that adapted to the presence of a lift in the middle of the arena floor. We often have to be inventive to find solutions that produce ultra-high quality sound.
SLU : Are you the primary audio liaison on this tour?
Sébastien Roblin : Yes, that’s right. From the very beginning of our collaboration with Justice, I tried to understand what their music was and what they wanted their audience to feel. I implemented a whole series of processes to ensure that the sound was very good, both for the audience and for the artists. Then, once the directions have been established, a second phase of analysis consists of determining which tools or technical solutions to employ.
SLU : Are all the consoles on the show AVID S6L?
Sébastien Roblin : We’re used to working with AVID consoles. They have the distinctive feature of being very neutral and of simply doing what they are asked to do, without adding any coloration. In my opinion, this is essential for electronic music where I don’t have all the demands of an acoustic source.
These electronic sources come either from a synthesiser played live or from audio tracks with their processing. Unlike an acoustic source, where the quality depends on the instruments, the musicians and the venue, I must maintain the quality of reproduction of the music in the PA and in the ears of the audience.
SLU : Who takes care of the production and distribution of audio sources and sequences?
Sébastien Roblin : Producing the tracks and the procedures for dealing with them is a completely musical process. We don’t handle this ourselves, but Playback Solutions works directly with the artist to produce the audio source material. These sequences are run here by Nicolas Fradet, the playback operator on the show.
SLU : You might think that this would simplify the technical work involved, but it doesn’t really, does it?
Sébastien Roblin : Acoustic sources require flexible settings from one day to the next. For electronic music, the source is always the same, the artist having thought about it for many years before making his album, and its reproduction in concert must be perfect. Fans of this type of music are very sophisticated.
They know the artist’s productions inside out and want to hear much of what they hear on the recordings live. That’s why this Justice tour is so interesting. That’s the genius of Gaspard and Xavier, who add elements and mix the tracks together in an extremely refined and intelligent way, to continually surprise their audience. And every concert is different.
SLU : How do the artists use these sources live?
Sébastien Roblin : They play live using keyboards that control virtual instruments in Ableton sessions. They also have many controllers to act on the tracks by controlling filters or effects in real time.
With Playback Solutions, they have developed control systems that offer an almost infinite range of possibilities. They want to have fun. During the show, they have access to an enormous creative potential that they can use at will, depending on what they want to do that evening. And for me at the FoH desk, it’s also extremely exciting, because each show is unique.
SLU : Couldn’t this type of performance be boring to mix?
Sébastien Roblin : You could be forgiven for thinking, just because everything comes out of a computer, that the whole show will run automatically. That would be a big mistake. Just like the lighting director Vincent Lerisson (Lewis), who works without time code, I mix in real time. It’s a way of keeping the mix fresh and ensuring that we experience a unique moment on each date. Of course, I have a pipeline to allow me to add different manipulations or effects, but I don’t use any snapshots. The mix is guided by my own sensibility and the feeling of the venue and its audience every night.
SLU : The PA system also needs to be particularly suited to this type of music?
Sébastien Roblin : Patrick and I thought long and hard about a system that would meet our requirements, because electronic music is characterised by its tendency to fill the entire frequency spectrum. The idea is to be able to exploit the full bandwidth without ever reaching the limits of the amplification.
I need as much dynamic range as possible to avoid compression and produce a very spacious sound. When DJs play over-compressed mp3s very loudly, it’s very tiresome and not at all pleasant.
Gaspard and Xavier’s aim was to make a difference with truly energetic music that bites a bit at times, because they have that rock’n’roll feel, but at the same time is still enjoyable to listen to. This music is my passion and it’s sort of my calling card. I love to listen to it extremely loud, as long as it’s enjoyable;-).
I was lucky enough to be able to use a lot of different sound systems at the festivals on the tour, so I was able to determine which one best met my requirements in terms of dynamics and bandwidth. We chose an L-Acoustics K1 system, which also has a very good ratio of weight to power.
The front-of-house main system consists of an array on each side made up of four K1-SUBs, twelve K1s and four K2s at the bottom. These mains are accompanied by two out-fill arrays of fourteen K2s each. The bass and infra are crucial here, so an array of twelve K1-SUBs is flown behind each main array of K1, and next to it, another flown array of nine KS28s in a cardioid configuration. Finally, there are 24 KS28s on the floor in front of the stage, arranged in eight stacks of three subs each in a cardioid configuration, playing with the ground effect.
Eight stand-mounted X12s are used as front-fills, while two clusters of six KARA IIs each are used as additional down-fills, plus two other identical clusters on stage as side-fills. Two lines of left/right delays – each using a pair of arrays with six K2s each – restore spaciousness and precision in the distance.
SLU : I suppose the subwoofers play a decisive role in this kind of music, no?
Sébastien Roblin : The tracks include a lot of sound at frequencies below 60 Hz, which the artists process in real time using filters. The PA has to be able to cope with their dynamics and to help it, I use special routings. These infras are treated a bit like the special effect layers in a film mix.
SLU : How many sources are you mixing?
Sébastien Roblin : I mix around forty channels between the sources coming from the stage and my additional production. The S6L is not overloaded, especially since I have two HDX cards. In 2024, we can be playing in rooms that are heavily acoustically treated and therefore have a very dead sound.
A production like this, with sources very similar to the record and played at a high level, will remain very dull in this type of venue, without even considering the absorption of the audience. For live performance I need a lot of spaciousness, and to get that I add effects.
The console is perfect because, instead of colouring the sound with internal processing, I can create the live colour I want for Justice using plug-ins. I’m partial to the Sonnox plug-ins, whose EQ I use a lot, and the Oxford Studio reverb, which is perfect.
SLU : Have you considered going with a spatialised system?
Sébastien Roblin : It’s something I mentioned straight away when we started working with the artists. I’m a fan of this technology and more and more venues are starting to equip themselves with it. Unfortunately, the tour alternates with festivals where the immersive technique isn’t used.
Electronic music has been my passion for 30 years and I’ve been imagining it in 360° immersive sound for 20 years. Today’s technologies allow us to live this dream. I hope to do it soon with them, especially since we have our 18.2.5 immersive studio. I’d like to invite all the artists to come and see it in Bayonne.
SLU : Since you can’t do an object-based mix, how do you approach mixing these stereo sources?
Sébastien Roblin : When I listened to Justice’s last album, and of course I was familiar with their entire discography, I noticed that they opened and brought sounds to life in their own way in stereo. That got me thinking. I said to myself that I could use this creative approach to bring the live show to life, so that the audience wasn’t stuck with a static sound image all the time.
To do this, we developed tools for working in Mid/Side. I break down the processing into a mono part and a side part. In this way I can easily process the sources and centre them or move them to the sides at will in the system. This method allows me to follow the intentions of the artists on stage in real time and enhance the sonic experience.
SLU : Is everything done inside the S6L?
Yes. I don’t use any outboard units. Sometimes the artists will filter the rhythm section, or the bass, or both at the same time, and this requires a configuration for each track that allows for this. It was out of the question to put limits on them. So, there’s a bit of gymnastics involved, but I’m comfortable with it.
I set up a system that allows me to follow the patching of sequences for each song. Another important point is that I don’t use the console’s automatic latency compensation. This is mainly because I do a lot of specific configurations in the mix, so I prefer to measure latencies and manage them myself.
SLU : Has any particular attention been paid to guaranteeing the integrity of digital signals?
Sébastien Roblin : We looked for the best way to feed the sources, which in this case come from a computer to the console without modification or alteration. It may sound trivial, but it’s quite complicated. The signals that come from the computer are in MADI, via the Ableton LIVE software and RME MADIface USB units. We’re at 96 kHz. They must feed the FoH console, the monitor desk and recording consoles, all simultaneously. We have developed a special technique that allows us to unify all the MADI streams.
We’ve created an ecosystem that operates at the same ‘0’ time, on the same clock, and which guarantees signal synchronisation down to the very last sample. There are two computers, A and B, which we can switch between at any time without any interruption or artefact on the signals being output. Switching to the backup is inaudible to the public. We use fibre here, because of the size of the room. But I prefer copper connections, which I think are generally more reliable in all types of conditions.
SLU : In this configuration it seems important to maintain communication with the artists, no?
Sébastien Roblin : It’s crucial.
Kaj Oppenheim : I manage all the talkback. I must be able to explain to them at any time what’s going on and what we’re going to do. It’s very, very important to help them as much as possible because they have a lot to handle on stage. Unlike a musician who is always in control of his instrument, when an artist must operate sequences on stage, it’s much more stressful, even if we’ve tried to plan everything.
SLU : Have the sources been processed for live use?
Sébastien Roblin : This is one of the key tasks of Intelligence Audio. Over the last ten years or so, we’ve created a centre for optimising audio material for live performance. We work with many artists from a wide range of musical styles. We’ve worked for Jain, NTM, PNL, Gesaffelstein, JehnnyBeth, Irène Dresel, PLK and many more.
We optimise the audio material from studio recordings so that it can be replayed through very powerful systems. The problem is that we don’t have the room to do this. So, we have developed our optimisation processes based on fifteen years’ experience of touring together with my associates, as well as on numerous psychoacoustic factors.
SLU : What does it involve?
Sébastien Roblin : We look for dynamics. Xavier and Gaspard from Justice are also sound engineers. They immediately understood this approach, which constitutes 80% of my pre-production work. I optimise, sort of like mastering, if necessary, in real time, to match the reaction of the audience in the venue and the performance on stage. This approach was inspired when I listened to Kraftwerk at a festival fifteen years ago. All day long on the main stage, the bands played one after the other with an average sound. In the evening, I heard the first notes of the Kraftwerk show from behind the sound system and I thought it was incredible.
I walked out into the middle of the audience and for 90 minutes it was a delight to my ears. When we play live, we get into a higher gear, so that the audience can feel more emotions. We also have audio effects linked to the visual effects. For this, my approach is very much in line with that of the lighting. It’s a major source of inspiration. If Lewis (Vincent Lérisson, LD), who has been working with Justice since the beginning, comes up with an effect or a light movement for part of a song, I’ll follow it with the audio.
Now it’s time to go backstage and take a closer look at the system employed by Romain Berguin and Nicolas Fradet from Playback Solutions to manage and control the sequences. It all fits into a magnificent workstation integrated into a mobile rack…
SLU : For this Justice concert, what were the specifications for the playback?
Nicolas Fradet : We had to develop a system that would allow the artists to command and control the sequences, virtual instruments and processing in real time.
SLU : Does all the audio in the show come from your workstation?
Nicolas Fradet : Yes, everything is coming out of Ableton Live running on two Mac Studio M2s. Each has an RME MADI/USB audio interface. We output 32 channels from each computer and send them via MADI to the front-of-house, monitor and recording consoles.
SLU : The artists on stage have synthesizers but also custom-made controllers, right?
Nicolas Fradet : There is no audio originating from the stage. The stage setup is just a remote control for the sequences. It’s the artists who trigger them for each track and manipulate them in real time, whenever and however they want. We’ve created all the controls that allow them to do what they like. The synth keyboards control virtual instruments played in real time in Ableton Live, while the controllers trigger sequences and control the effects applied to them.
All these control tools are networked via two switches, between the stage and our rack with redundant fibre links. For visual level monitoring, we simply send the audio output from our machines via a small rack on stage to feed the VU-meters on the artists’ “DJ mixers”.
SLU : Do you use the same system for festivals?
Nicolas Fradet : Yes, identical. It allows us to cover all the dates. As the stage is just a remote control, we can easily check all the audio backstage before the stage is set up.
At festivals, where set-up time is very short, this is particularly useful. We have a lot more peace of mind. Our setup doesn’t take up much space, we can be set up in 45 minutes, we work locally and, since all the audio is a MADI stream, if it works, we have all the channels.
SLU : But you need to be able to understand what the artists are doing…
Nicolas Fradet : We created a controller monitoring interface. This means I can always see what the artists are doing, which controllers they are using, which keyboards they are playing on, etc.
We’ve also developed another element that enables all the parameters needed to launch the track to be played and integrated it into their control system.
SLU : Can you tell us about these customised elements?
Nicolas Fradet : Over the course of our business, we have developed basic templates and setups that are always identical. We then customise them according to the needs of the artists. We create a lot of complex features and develop tailor-made scripts for everything that doesn’t exist. Nothing is impossible… When an artist tells us they’d like to do this, we do it. If the tool to do it doesn’t exist, we create it.
SLU : How did you go about creating the tracks?
Nicolas Fradet : The music is created by the artists, after which the stems are exported, considering the control requirements and limitations for Live. These stems are then integrated into the show’s Ableton session with all the control tools and virtual instruments for whatever they want to play.
SLU : And I suppose we have a lot of safeguards?
Nicolas Fradet : On a show like this, where all the music is played from computers, reliability is extremely important. We designed several levels of redundancy. Firstly, there’s the redundancy of computers, A and B. They switch automatically to the nearest sample as soon as a fault is detected in the MADI stream. (Editor’s note: Nicolas switches between the two machines at will during the soundcheck, but it’s practically imperceptible).
We have another level of backup to compensate for a fault in the monitor console. If it fails, the artists lose their in-ear monitors but receive monitoring in their wedges from the front-of-house console. And if the FoH console fails, a secondary mix is automatically switched in from another console for the PA.
SLU : Does a computer inevitably mean latency?
Nicolas Fradet : We always select computers in the most appropriate configuration for the project. Here, we’ve got the whole thing under control with a buffer size of 256 samples and a latency of 3.35 ms. It would be difficult to cut this down further because of the VST instruments. But thanks to the digital chain with the audio part, we manage to keep the overall latency low enough to make it as comfortable as possible for the artists on stage.
SLU : In practice, you don’t intervene during the show?
Nicolas Fradet : No, I don’t have to intervene. Our job is to plan for any scenarios beforehand and to develop the appropriate tools. Once the show has started, I simply monitor what’s happening on stage using the monitoring window we’ve created. I can see what the artists are doing in real time. So, if everything goes well, I don’t have to take control of the system. I’ll only intervene if there’s a problem.
SLU : So, there’s only one step from playback to monitor world… hello again Kaj!
Kaj Oppenheim : Yes indeed, I’m right next to Nicolas. I receive his sources via MADI. All the consoles have two MADI cards on each mix engine and we use the second one to provide an output. A master clock synchronises everyone’s clocks for perfect stability. Each engine receives a clock, as do the two MADIface USBs. As a direct out, I send the sources to the recording desk.
SLU : What kind of monitor mix is requested in this type of performance situation?
Kaj Oppenheim : It’s much more constant than the FoH mix. I work with one snapshot per tune. I feed the artists’ in-ear monitor feeds into the Wisycom radio systems, which are currently, in my opinion, the best solution for maximising audio quality. I also manage all the front-of-house and back-of-house communication networks. On stage, the artists each have a comms microphone which is automatically activated as soon as they get close to it (these are the only microphones on stage… but the audience can’t hear them). I also send the monitor mix to the wedges and subwoofer just behind them.
SLU : Is it strange to work on a concert without a microphone on stage?
Kaj Oppenheim : Yes, there aren’t any. Apart from the ambient microphones to add some of the room to the in-ear monitors: a pair of Schoeps and a pair of Sennheiser MKHs. I keep things as simple as possible so as not to disrupt the sound image in their monitors.
We’d tried more complex configurations, but we went back to basics. I don’t send them the room mics all the time, so as not to pollute them and let them concentrate on the control work they have to do.
When the sound check is finished and everything is set, the technical team invites me to leave the arena floor to meet up with the broadcast/recording team, who have been accommodated in a segregated dressing room to avoid any noise pollution. There, I find William Duvet and Johann Simon, who have improvised a mini studio.
SLU : So you are also using an S6L?
William Duvet : Yes, to remain in the same ecosystem. We also installed 14 Neumann digital microphones supplied by YASTA for the room ambience: some omnidirectionals, pairs of cardioids on each side of FoH, a cardioid on a boom at the stage front, hypercardioids on the sides to pick up detail from the audience in the bleachers. They are all connected to the DMI8 interface via AES42, which receives the audio signal and controls the gain/pads and filters available. We added two surround microphone sets behind the front of house, a DPA 5100 and a Schoeps DORTF. We also receive the 32 pairs of tracks in synchronised MADI.
SLU : You’re streaming a live show on Amazon tomorrow; will you be mixing it on the same console?
William Duvet : Yes, even though it’s not really a broadcast console – in terms of the channel solos, for example. But it’s consistent with the tour. We use Oxford dynamic EQs to manage annoying frequencies, with the added option of M/S. We also use the reverb.
SLU : But you do add some external processing, don’t you?
William Duvet : They’re there to process the master mix. I use the Neve Master Bus Processor so much that I can’t really live without it. Its proprietary Super SILK circuit allows, in its latest version, the creation of harmonic distortion independently at the top and bottom of the spectrum.
It’s colourful, it’s beautiful, it’s Neve. With filters that allow you to work on the mid/side, it can give a lot of atmospheres to the master. Then I use a real SSL compressor, which makes sense for this style of music and the result is once again obvious. I finish with a Rupert Neve analogue-to-digital converter used to deliver the 48 kHz signal for Amazon.
SLU : And for recording?
William Duvet : We record on two mirrored Pro Tools systems. Obviously with the S6L, this is practical. It has a dedicated port for this.
SLU : Does adjusting the ambient mic channels accurately reproduce the acoustics of the venue?
Johann Simon : It’s a question of balance and mixing. As soon as you add an ambient mic, it creates a room that resembles the arena. The idea is not to leave everything open all the time and to manage occasional room ambience. But as far as I’m concerned, the many delays in the ambient mics will disrupt the mix. Our ears are very sensitive to this and if a track isn’t perfectly aligned, it sounds really live but not very good. We prefer to adjust them.
SLU : How do you go about streaming to Amazon?
Johann Simon : The OB van sends us a time code and it shifts the video to match the audio, taking into account the numerous devices for transporting the signal: console, amps, PA, etc. We mix 4-handed. I’m used to broadcasting, so I manage the ambient sound and William the music.
SLU : And of course you record everything, don’t you?
Johann Simon : We record all the ambient sounds, of course. The two surround microphones and the suspended omni mics already provide a very nice body of sound that we can then balance with the closer-miked ambient channels. And since the PA system is rather well proportioned and very open, we have very dynamic, wide and precise ambient sound.
Tonight, there’ll be a good deal of SPL. As for me, if I mix above 87 dB for more than an hour, the next day I feel like I’ve got a sheet of paper over my ears.
Intelligence Audio and Playback Solutions are both aptly named. When “intelligence” and “solutions” come together to build a tailor-made audio system for artists, the result with Justice is a top-notch EDM show.
No, there were definitely no microphones, but there were tracks, designed to deliver a unique, lively and musical show, just like any musician does. The infra-bass could be terrifying, but there was still some left under the fader. The width was immense, making the Accor Arena seem even bigger. Combined with lighting that matched the inventiveness of the sound designers, this was a show that will be unforgettable for the audience.
