The inaugural RPMM Festival saw Francesca Lombardo deliver a fusion of live and pre-programmed music. Staged in the Portuguese city of Porto, the show’s live engineer, Mattia Sartori, captured her set on one of his two JoeCo BBR1B BlackBox multitrack recorders.
London-based Sartori regularly takes his BlackBox recorders out on the road, enjoying ‘a totally robust and reliable recording solution with no worries about software and compatibility issues’. He acquired his first BlackBox in 2016, and has since recorded a variety of artists, from classical singer Carly Paoli at London’s Cadogan Hall, to the percussion driven, electronic quartet Penya.
With performances that incorporate piano, vocals and DJ sets, Francesca Lombardo is among the most dynamic of all contemporary electronic artists. For her live set at the RRPM Festival, he had ‘every instrument stereo or mono, and several microphones coming into the recorder’ – a total of 18 channels into the BBR1B.
‘Once again, the BBR1B performed brilliantly,’ Sartori says, ‘and, in fact, the show reminded me that there is a real sweet-spot in the unit with regard to where it performs best in terms of sonics. In my opinion, that’s where it hits the red light – you have to go into the red every now and then. That’s where it can really come into its own, sound-wise.’
For Sartori, the 2018 live show period is now beginning to wind down, and he will spend more time over the coming months working on studio and tech-based projects, including the restoration of an EMI TG12345 solid-state console. But when his live recording work picks up he will reach once again for his trusted 24 channel BlackBox BBR1B recorders.
‘In all the time I have been using JoeCo I have only had to call on support once, and on that occasion it was both easy and responsive. I really have only positive things to say about my experience with JoeCo and the BlackBox Recorder,’ he concludes.
More: www.joeco.co.uk
