The 15th season of “The Voice – La plus belle voix,” broadcast by French commercial network TF1, deployed four Solid State Logic Live L550 Plus mixing consoles. Algam Enterprise supplied the consoles, and the broadcast was supported by S Group, a touring events and integration specialist based in Alès, France. At Studio du Lendit in Paris, the production assigned each console a defined role rather than consolidating the workload onto fewer surfaces.
The four L550 Plus consoles were divided between two broadcast positions, one FOH position and one monitor position, all linked through SSL’s Blacklight II MADI system. The monitor console sent sources, mainly the orchestra and music material, and set gains for the rest of the chain. In the broadcast control room, one console primarily handled the music mix, while the second built the final mix by adding vocals, backing vocals, extra instruments and other television elements to the stereo output from the music console. FOH retained preamp control for vocals, supporting fast level reactions for broadcast loudness requirements.
Two redundant fibre links over Blacklight II MADI allowed the four consoles to share sources and processing. The broadcast position could pull the orchestra mix and open microphones directly from the core if needed, with a reverb kept ready for use. Internal Effects Rack processing handled orchestra dynamics and effects such as reverb, gates and delays, while broadcast stems were further processed before the master. With settings for each song stored as snapshot scenes and as many as 130 rehearsed songs, the team used the console’s Query function to check signal flow and levels before selecting the next scene.