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Eric Ferron - Karisma Audio, Post, Video & Film
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If you’re a regular vistor of the Soundscape user forum, you already know Eric Ferron. Eric is always around and ready to offer friendly advice or answer a technical query. But what you may not have realized – yet – is that Eric is also part of one of the most successful audio companies in Canada: Karisma Audio, Post, Video & Film, based in Montréal, Québec. The best description of Karisma is to say that they cover every aspect of audio work: music production, TV sound, post production, mobile recording or mastering, and more... Karisma has also entered a business partnership with Sydec Audio Engineering, the team that originally designed the Soundscape range of products, now part of the Solid State Logic group. We asked Eric to tell us about Karisma’s studios, equipement and activities.
How big is the Karisma team and could you please describe the company for our readers?
 Karisma is actually many different things. One side is our “exterior” services which rely on 3 mobile trailers: the biggest is able to handle over 120 inputs being recorded to 80 tracks while in surround configuration. We also do TV sound in studios for weekly dramas and sitcoms.
The second part consists of 4 studios involved in all fields including music production,audio post-production, film dubbing, mastering, mixing, and surround mix.
Finally, there’s the audio professional boutique with sales, rental and consultation services which caters primarily to the recording and broadcast markets, but also to some live applications like theatre and electro-acoustic music.
To run this, there’s six permanent staff taking care of everyday business and a bunch of recording engineers and assistants for all the different jobs.
You offer an exceptionally comprehensive range of services, how did Karisma get to that point, did you start with a small studio and build up to your current situation, or was it a massive investment from the start?
Well, Karisma has been in business officially since the Mid-80s. At the time, the two owners, Stéphane Morency and Marcel Gouin, were running parallel businesses in the recording business. Stéphane, a musician himself, was catering to musicians in our current studio “A” location, while Marcel was doing live recordings and was mainly set-up at “Le Spectrum”, a major live venue in Montreal. They decided to join forces and create a synergy between the live energy of remote recording and the detailed approach of music production.
From there it grew steadily as everything was consolidated in our current location. First came the big 40’ trailer capable of recording 48 tracks and the upgrade to Studio A which both received Mitsubishi Westar consoles.
While we were already doing post-production in Studio A, we built a specifically designed post-production suite based around the then state-of-the-art SSL Screensound editing platform and Yamaha DMC1000 digital console. And so was born Studio B: Benoit Gauvin’s lair for the next 10 years. Benoit, who started as Stéphane’s assistant, now does both sound mixing and TV sound recording.
With this much work and more live broadcast, a second truck equipped with an Amek console came into operation soon afterwards. At this point, we were buying equipment 2-3 pieces at the time to fit into each “room/mobile”: Lexicon 480L, Neve Prism, TC Electronic M5000, SSL compressors,…
This was in the early 90s, and the trend of “at-home” recording had begun. Since this kind of gear had never been available before, Karisma started renting the gear to musicians and studios: 2” 24 tracks Dolby SR multitrack, preamps and a lot of processing opened a new stage in music recording. That’s when I first came in contact with Karisma as I was taking care of another company’s rental department and we used to get equipment from them.
This was also the birth of the MDM machines which Karisma embraced. First ADATs and then DA88 would be used mostly instead of 2” tapes because of the economics. At one point there would be over 25 units of one or the other system available.
Next step was the boutique which complemented the fledging rental business … It really came from a conjuncture of events; with the closing of the major recording store in town which I had joined two years prior, the need for a professional store had emerged. This is when I came in and took the reins of the boutique in 1996.
In the last eight years, 2 studios and another mobile were added and most of the rest was updated. Now, this would be what we could call “the Soundscape period”…
Are there other companies in Québec that offer the same range of services and what is your position?
There isn’t a single company in Canada with the range we offer, there are some multi-disciplinary organization out there but none with that entire range. The integration of live recording and post-production provides a one-stop solution for TV production, the store/rental and studios help clients through an entire project where they can buy some equipment, rent some other stuff for tracking, come into the studio to record some basic tracks and later come back for mixing and/or mastering their project. We can take a project from anywhere in the chain and bring it all the way to conclusion or even beyond (especially with the store).
The studio and store combination is a very interesting one, where the store equipment is being used daily by our staff in a real-world studio environment. This benefits store clients with an inherent knowledge of real-life problems. We can also book studio time for clients to play around with the gear before deciding if it’s worth taking home.
Who are your clients in the different segments: music, post production and mobile recording?
There is a lot of TV related material coming through our doors, either with our presence on TV soundstages for recording, or through “specials” in the form of Just for Laughs galas, Music gigs for TV specials or DVD releases. Just last year, we recorded events at the International Jazz fest which ended up in DVDs and TV specials for Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, the Neville Brothers and
Jesse Cook. Some of these also went by the studios for either mixing or mastering. Last may, we covered Celine Dion’s latest album release in French for Quebec and France. The studios also recorded some tracks for the album.
One live recording we’re pretty proud of is the “Cirque du Soleil” Jazz event in 2004 celebrating the 20 years of Cirque du soleil and the 25th anniversary of the Montréal International Jazz Festival with a 2 mobile, 180 inputs and 80 tracks surround capture and later mix for TV and DVD release. We also recorded and mixed the Paul Anka’s 2005 DVD: “Rock Swings: Live at the Montreal Jazz festival”
Ohhh, and I know it sounds like a name drop, but I can’t go over Peter Gabriel’s 2003 Growing Up Encore series show in Montreal which we recorded… They had decided to record every show of that concert series to be released as a pre-ordered “bootleg” limited release recording sold on the web, but this was to our knowledge the only show not recorded straight from the P.A. board. There were many other nice shows recorded, but with the Gabriel-SSL-Soundscape relation… well!
In the studios, it’s mostly local acts that are recorded or mixed. One of the last project which was recorded and mixed with Soundscape is a local folk singer named Mathieu Mathieu.
 How did you discover Soundscape and when did you become involved in its promotion in Canada?
In 1997, the 8 track SSL Screensound was beginning to show its limitations and more was needed. Pro Tools was the obvious option but there were some major problems with it regarding syncing, upgrading fees and all. And then we were presented with Soundscape we really didn’t know much about. I had heard about it because a client of mine had an SSHDR1 system and liked it a lot.
The specifics were interesting, but when we tried it out we just knew it was right. Editing was the first thing which struck us, lightning fast, precise, it just made sense. We first bought an SSHDR1 unit to replace the SSL, and moved the Screensound to a new studio for schedule overload and compatibility. But this thing was so fast in the hands of Benoit, we reduced the time needed for a show and so the total cost per show. This brought an influx of work, first thing we knew there was a second SSHDR1 unit being installed…
That’s when I got my first run in at it. Back then, I had time for little projects here and there and I needed to work on drum parts which were pretty bad. I thought I was getting in a big job, but I was surprised to get through so rapidly. Transferred the tracks back to DA88 and saved the project…
Then the R.Ed32 came along and it changed everything again. Both SSHDR1s were upgraded through Soundscape’s very generous program, and soon new machines were added. First thing we knew, we now had 4 studios equipped with Soundscape; then studios with multiple Soundscape setups… Before that, all music projects were mixed from the DA88 tapes…
The high point was the Surround mixing session for Cirque du Soleil: “Soleil de Minuit” which needed 3 Soundscape 32s and 2 Mixpanders.
I see that you use Soundscape in the mobile studios as well as in the music studio. Did Soundscape’s versatility play a big part in your system choice?
Frankly, the original reason was for compatibility. Before that, we were mostly using Tascam DA88s to record to, and give to clients. Since a lot of work went from mobile to studio, and transferring audio to Soundscape was time-consuming. it just made sense to record to it in the first place. So we started bringing a Soundscape to gigs. From there it wasn’t long we knew we needed a permanent setup in each truck.
Even if we knew how solid the system was, we still kept recording to parallel DA88 but that proved necessary only once due to a bad hard disk in the last two years out there… Soundscape has been rock-solid and clients are very happy with the recorded audio quality. Plus transferring audio to Pro Tools sessions for those clients who need it has been very easy and fast since Native mode came along…
Your mobile systems include “double” Soundscape setups. Is this because you use one system as a backup for the other, or is it just to have more tracks?
Double setups are a matter of track counts. With all inputs available, one double Soundscape rack gives us 56 tracks. Last year Paul Simon’s tribute show used a double rack plus a single kit for about 72 tracks. I’d really like to put 2 double racks together to record a 112 track show, but it hasn’t been requested yet!
How many music studios or post-production rooms do you have in the main building and how is it all working out?
 Most rooms are multifunctional to some extent, but basically we have 1 Music studio with a big room and booth (“A”), then a post-production room(“B”), a mastering suite (“D”) and the surround mixing studio (“C”). Both studios B and C have little booths. The mobile can also be used for mixing when the need arises, though with 4 studios it’s less frequent than it used to be.
You have a rather impressive range of hardware preamps and processors, please tell us about some of your favourites.
All engineers have pieces they especially like, but the following do get used a lot. First is the Focusrite ISA110 which is such a nice and sweet preamp/EQ. The Millennia HV3B is a mainstay for a lot of standard mic’ing, and for vocal, both the Requisite Audio PAL and D.W. Fearn VT1 are late favourites.
For Surround, the System 6000 is more than a favourite, it’s a necessity; just like the Weiss DS1, the SPL PQ Equalizer and the Requisite L2M compressor are for mastering…
We’re holding on to our Spendor speakers. They stopped making them several years ago and we’re still trying to find a “replacement”. These sound just right, but we’ve turned to Tannoy Ellipse and Ellipse IDP for Studios B & C. The Ellipse IDP feature the TC system found in the Dynaudio “AIR” series.
Microphone wise, there are a lot of things available, and it’s a matter of picking the right tool for the job, just like the stereo set of DPA 4028 in our piano…
With all this external hardware and with the mixing consoles that you have, do you ever mix “in the box”? And if so, what plug-ins do you use?
Surround mixing is mostly done “in the box”, using external gear like the M6000 for surround compression and reverb, and some other job specific gear like a de-esser. TV work is all done internally with Soundscape plug-ins. Album mixing depends on the job, we check and see which sounds better, but ultimately the console plays a big part; partly because it’s easier when there is a lot of external gear, but also because there is still a little something more in the sound. The “Mathieu Mathieu” album I mentioned earlier used both techniques combined. Dominic Despins, who mixed it (and does most music and surround mixes) is a very meticulous engineer and tries a lot of different approaches before settling on the right one.
The Mitsubishi Westar is a very interesting mixing console, but alas not very well known. It’s a warm and punchy sound with a nice little air in the top. Automation on the other end is limited. The layout is quick and it’s a modular component design where EQs and preamps can be taken out individually or re-routed in the path. Maybe this flexibility is why we fell in love with Soundscape all these years ago…
As far as plug-ins are concerned, it really depends on the job… We’ll start with the Soundscape plug-ins, if we can’t get what we need, then we’ll try the UAD cards which are installed in all studios, in some case we’ll end up with some external gear which we’ll often re-record because it’s simpler to automate and recall…
In terms of music recording, do you use MIDI a lot, what sequencers do you presently use and is it easy to sync the MIDI to the Soundscape audio tracks?
Nah, not much MIDI. We’re not really equipped for MIDI work and leave that to pre-production. In any case, I think it makes more sense for a musician to fiddle on this at home. Our interest lies mostly in the recording part. There is one exception, musicians come in with their MIDI file to record our Yamaha Diskclavier. In most cases they’ll need to play around with pedal work and sustains once they actually hear the piano react. Most people will just come in with a laptop and leave with audio files.
What is your involvement with the marketing of Soundscape in Canada? And what is your approach to sales and customer care?
When we started using Soundscape, we thought this product was so good we also became dealers. Having more Soundscape studios could only help with name recognition and presence and it could very well be implemented in a home studio. A lot of work had been done previously by the distributor and CBC had invested in several tens of units.
In the uncertainty after Mackie’s dismissal and the direct sale approach by Sydec, the Canadian distributor couldn’t continue on and recommended us to Erik Wijnen. Once the contact was made it just clicked. I have only good things to say about Mr. Wijnen and the Sydec team; a dedicated and available partner with an open-mindness in how business should be conducted. That was in 2003 and we’ve been working closely with Sydec since then on sales, service and some development and solutions. This is one of our better relationship with a manufacturer…, similar to the ones we had with Tascam (DA88) and Yamaha (DMC1000).
What is the future for Karisma, can you become even more successful in Montréal and Québec, are you planning to open more studios in Canada? Or to expand in your current location?
There’s a new studio in the works, mainly a post-production suite, and still some upgrades. We’ll also need to boost our surround equipment in more studios and retrofit one of the mobiles for it.
Mastering is also booming. Right now we’re concentrating on the local market, but there is more international stuff coming in…
As for the store, we have more products coming in that are in the testing phase and we’ll be looking to extend our representation nationally starting with Soundscape.
Useful links:
Mathieu Mathieu
Rock Swings
Jesse Cook
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