Chirac Design Tours France With ChamSys

PARIS – Parodic metal band Ultra Vomit and EDM solo act Sebastian serve up two very different styles of music. But both share a penchant for pushing musical boundaries, and both are in the middle of popular fall club and festival tours throughout France. The two artists have something else in common too, each is supported by high-energy light and video shows created by Chirac Design and run with ChamSys consoles.

“We tend to have intense clients, and we strive to match their intensity with our shows,” said Chirac co-founder and Marilyn Manson LD Nico Riot. “I have been a ChamSys user for quite some time, because the simplicity of the console frees me up to do the things I envision.”

Riot’s enthusiasm for ChamSys is shared by his partner and Chirac co-founder Romain Dronne, who is using a ChamSys MagicQ MQ60 to run shows for Sebastian, and Gregory Dutein, who is powering Ultra Vomit shows with a MagicQ MQ80 plus an extra wing.

“Sebastian is an EDM light show, but without the cliché of it,” said Dronne. “Our show has to be tight on the rhythm, but with flood lights — and not an army of tight narrow beams. We are doing RGB fast color chasers. Ultra Vomit is more like a theatre comedy rock show that includes standup comedy and light, as well as sound effects, managed via ChamSys Magic HD.” 

Dronne is using the MQ60 for Sebastian because its compact size makes it easy to travel by plane and train on the tour. “This console can be transported as a carry-on luggage, but it gives me 12 universes without additional nodes. It has many of the same features as the MQ80, but in a smaller screen, with smaller fader knobs as well.”

For Ultra Vomit’s tour, the Chirac team began the design process on a ChamSys MagicQ MQ500, then once the show was programmed switched to a MQ80 plus an extra wing. 

“Each song Ultra Vomit does is a parody of a musical genre inside the metal sphere,” said Dutein. “We respect all the codes of every genre in term of lights and video contents. On black metal songs we use cold colors, strobes, smoke, and visual elements with black metal fonts. It’s more like a theatre rock show with a lot of jokes and interactions with the audience.” 

Given that Ultra Vomit’s show is very theatrical in nature, it is modified every week. Dutein uses his MQ80 to update his show throughout the tour. It’s power-to-size ratio allows him to make changes while riding on the tour bus. The ChamSys console’s Setlist Feature option makes it easy for him to add to the show mid-tour without cue list issues. 

“The ChamSys morphing option works great because it’s really fast,” said Dutein. “Also, the changing fixture palette option saves a lot of time. I love the cool and simple cue stack macros. It is very easy to change a page in a cue list, or activate a playback with only two characters.”

Each song in the Ultra Vomit show has its own animated backdrop. At the beginning of the tour video contents for the band was made from the visuals of their last album, “Panzer Surprise.” This design was inspired by The Looney Toons cartoon, and this forms the basis of the show’s visual content. 

As the show has progressed, Dronne and Dutein have created more content with different layers, resulting in in compelling interactive effects, such as a text synchronized with the singer to poke fun at various things. The Chirac team is using the Execute Button on their ChamSys consoles They’re also relying on the MagicHD for the content. “It’s really easy to program lights and videos together without losing time searching how to configure an external media server,” said Dronne.

Regardless of where Ultra Vomit or Sebastian stop on tour, the versatility of the ChamSys MQ60 and MQ80 is deeply appreciated. “Ultra Violet plays in a very wide variety of clubs and live music venues,” said Dronne. “Sebastian plays festivals. In both cases we never really know how big our show is going to be. This is why having a console with this combination of flexibility and power is so valuable.”