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USA/Europe - Musician, Derek Brown recently tested out an Austrian Audio OC818 microphone, using it to capture his style of saxophone playing – dubbed ‘BEATBoX SAX’.
Previously the director of jazz studies at Abilene Christian University for six years, Brown received his BM in Music Performance (Classical and Jazz) from Hope College in 2006, and his MM in Jazz Studies at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music in 2008.
Crossing genres from jazz, to classical, to funk (and without using any looping or electronic effects), Brown’s unique playing style was born out of a love of blending musical genres.
“I grew up with a very normal way of playing the saxophone,” he said. “I studied classical music and I started liking jazz. I went to

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China - In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, PR Lighting this month reached out to its global customer base, with a letter of reassurance.
Joint senior sales managers, Lawrence Mao and Bruce Tian issued the following message:
“With the world currently living through the worst crisis of our generation, we at PR Lighting are striving to do everything we can to mitigate the severe impact on our industry and are here to help our customers and partners in every way possible.
“As you know, the Coronavirus has spread quickly, and after living with this for nearly two months we were able to return to work on 20 February after lockdown restrictions were lifted.
“We responded quickly to make up for lost time, and by the beginning of March everything was back to normal - production, R&D, sales and marketing. In fact we have been able to bring to fruition n

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Mexico - After 18 years of relentless touring, nine studio albums, and a fistful of awards, heavy metal icons WarCry remain as fiercely intense as ever. The band’s searing passion was as hot as a blast furnace when they appeared at Chihuahua’s Teatro de las Ciudad in September.
From the moment they burst on the stage performing Luz del norte and throughout their entire 21 song set, the band from the Asturian region of Spain swept fans up in their hard driving sound. Contributing to the experience was a frenetic lightshow created with 28 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by ProAudioSoluciones.
Tapped by the show’s producer, Direct Music Company, to provide the lighting rig, ProAudioSoluciones drew on its 20 years experience in the entertainment industry to select fixtures that could provide powerful, immersive looks, while still offering versatility
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It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

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USA - LiteGear and Blue Planet Lighting, have found creative ways to provide employment and support Behind the Scenes, which continues to provide grants to entertainment technology professionals who are seriously ill or injured and to develop the new Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Initiative.
LiteGear, a BTS Pledge-a-Product partner, has launched their Donate, Support and Save programme which includes donating N95 masks, reminding their customers that every purchase of a LiteMat Kit supports Behind the Scenes, and offering weekly specials on some of their most popular products. Considered an essential business in California because they service the media industry, LiteGear has been able to keep their staff employed and is working hard to continue their ongoing support for Behind the Scenes.
Blue Planet Lighting wanted to do something to help all the freela

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USA - Sensaphonics, specialist in personal monitoring and hearing wellness, is offering free email consultation with founder and president Dr. Michael Santucci for music industry professionals during the company’s COVID-19 lockdown.
Each day during April, Dr. Santucci will reply personally to hearing health questions from pro audio and music industry workers who are side-lined during the coronavirus pandemic. Questions can be submitted at: sensaphonicsaudiologist@gmail.com.
These will be private consultations, so questions and topics can be specific and personal. Emails will go directly to Dr. Santucci, who will reply directly and confidentially. No emails or responses will be published or made public.
Availability is on a first-come/first-served basis. Dr. Santucci has committed to spending multiple hours per day on this project, and will respond to as many

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South Africa - Blond Productions, based in Midrand, Johannesburg, a rental company specialising in the TV and film sector, like everyone, is grappling to survive under a national lockdown in which productions and businesses have shut down completely.
Blond’s owner and MD Christiaan Ballot has retained all his full-time staff and wants to look after everyone as best as possible, which is challenging given the scenario, involving some creative thinking to try and make “the best” out of a grave situation.
Something that immediately sprung to the minds of Ballot and Blond’s head of show lighting Ryan Lombard was to utilise the enforced ‘down’ time to engage the staff in various technical training.
“While we all wish this was over, it has presented the perfect opportunity to do all those things we never get time for around the office,” Ballot declared.

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USA - All Together Now, the online concert event helping the City of Los Angeles during the coronavirus pandemic, has been rescheduled for 25 April. The concert, organised by Rock Cellar Productions, in association with the Get Together Foundation is set to be a major and significant relief effort to help Angelenos cope with the severe restrictions imposed on everyone during this dangerous and uncertain time of the novel coronavirus crisis.
The show, previously planned for 18 April, will be broadcast through Alert the Globe (www.alerttheglobe.com) and available free to anyone who wants to see it.
The concert will feature an array of singers, songwriters, musicians, actors, authors, comedians, and celebrities of all sorts “coming together to perform and send positive messages out to the City of Los Angeles and the world”.
A growing list of prominent en

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Italy - Powersoft has committed to continue its online training drive with a pair of hour-long Deva webinars that will take place on Wednesday, 15 April at 14:00 (CEST) and 18:00 (CEST). The sessions will be led by Powersoft’s Deva unit sales manager, Cosimo Cecchi, and used to demonstrate all of the functionalities that make Deva “such a powerful safety device for modern towns, cities and companies”.
Cecchi will walk attendees through all of Deva’s features such as facial recognition, queue countering, and SOS and public warning messaging – all abilities that have proven the product to be eminently useful, particularly in recent weeks, as the multimedia device proved vitally important to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic in Italy.
Town and city councils such as Bergamo, Soresina in Lombardia (northern Italy), and Scandicci (Florence) originally installed

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Europe - The Ravenna Educational Webinar series launches next week and all interested parties are invited to attend.
The first session, hosted by Ravenna evangelist, Andreas Hildebrand of ALC NetworX, takes place on Tuesday 14 April at 15:00 CET. Entitled Ravenna and its relationship to AES67 and ST2110, it is scheduled to last around 50 minutes with time for questions and discussion afterwards. Registration is via the trade shows and events page on the Ravenna website.
Seats are limited to 100 per session and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.
This first session is deliberately designed to be fairly broad-spectrum, offering a brief history of audio networking in general, why Ravenna was developed in the first place and leading onto the more recent developments of AES67 and ST2110 and how they relate to Ravenna.
“For those of yo

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Europe - In response to’ unprecedented demand’, Nexo is making some of its most popular training and education programmes available online. Starting last week, Nexo’s Engineering Support team is using its popular Facebook channel to present e-learning sessions, part of Yamaha’s extensive Audioversity tuition resource.
Led by Nexo’s primary training instructor Nicolas Poitrenaud, the presenting team includes Nexo engineers from all over the world, who will work in four different languages (English, Spanish, French and German). All tutorials are free and open to any interested party: no special knowledge of Nexo equipment is required. “We’ve carefully considered these sessions so that they will also interest engineers and venue owners/operators who may not yet be familiar with NEXO systems,” explains Poitrenaud. “We are confident that these Facebook Live sess

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USA - Less than one month after announcing an effort to raise money to provide relief to eligible freelance professionals affected by the coronavirus pandemic due to event cancellations, the Roadie Rescue Campaign reports that the campaign has raised close to $70,000 in donations to date, both through direct contributions to the GoFundMe campaign started in its name and to a special Show Makers Symposium fund set up in the name of the Roadie Rescue Campaign.
The contribution milestone was achieved by major contributions from three donors. Kim and Tom Scholz, multi-instrumentalist founder of the American rock band, Boston, made a $50,000 campaign contribution to Roadie Rescue managed by Show Makers Symposium. Take1 Insurance made a $10,000 contribution directly to the GoFundMe campaign. The goal of the campaign is to raise $250,000 in donations to provide relief to eligible

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USA/Europe - James ‘Graham’ Thomas, founding partner of James Thomas Engineering, has died. The industry has been paying tribute to Graham who retired from the business in 2014 when JTE became part of Area Four Industries.
“All of us at JTE were saddened to hear that Graham ‘James’ Thomas, original founding partner of James Thomas Engineering passed away overnight,” says JTE’s website. “Graham and his partner, John Walters, started JTE in Worcestershire, England in 1977 and their designs became synonymous with the growth and look of rock ‘n’ roll productions throughout the 80s & 90s, in the U.K., in the United States and across the world.
“Graham Thomas and John Walters pioneered the Thomas Spun Aluminum PAR Can and Thomas Pre Rigged Truss, making both widely available for the entire industry globally. The name Thomas is synonymous with trussi

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USA - Prolyte Group has announced details of its future operation in North America.
Prolyte will now be part of the Area Four Industries Direct America offices in Knoxville and Thousand Oaks, allowing both inventory and offices to be closer to customers on both coasts. Area Four Industries Direct America East and West are now distribution outlets for Prolyte products in North America, and will be supporting existing Prolyte customers and distributors from those locations.
Prolyte’s management structure has also changed, with Prolyte’s former general sales manager Keith Bohn joining the Area Four Industries Direct America team to serve as business development director for the Prolyte brand. Bohn will be working closely with Area Four Industries America vice-president Adrian Forbes-Black, who will also handle sales of Prolyte products.
The Prolyte product range

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UK - Genelec has appointed Audiologic to handle distribution of the brand’s growing AV loudspeaker range throughout the UK.
Source Distribution will continue to distribute Genelec’s full range of studio products and systems.
Based in Harlow, Essex, Audiologic offers a range of services, including system design, site surveys, help with tenders and much more.
Audiologic MD, Andy Lewis, comments: “We see this as a unique opportunity for us. As a company, we feel that it’s very important to put the right products into the right place. In other words, quality first. Genelec’s philosophy perfectly matches our own in that regard - they are a high end, aspirational brand that we are very proud to represent in the UK.
“Genelec fits wonderfully into the work we are doing in the corporate world and we see many further opportunities in hospital

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India - Audac has announced a partnership with Sennheiser, as its exclusive distributor in the Indian market. Sennheiser will manage the sales, distribution and service of the complete Audac product line in India where they are headquartered in Gurugram, with branches in Mumbai and Bangalore.
The Sennheiser team in India provides a large range of audio equipment from multiple audio brands which now will be supported by the experience and products of Audac.
‘This is an exciting partnership for us and will further help us to strengthen our distribution network. At Sennheiser, we believe in providing the best offerings to all our customers. Collaborating with Audac provides us with the platform to share our passion for innovative audio solutions with like-minded companies,” says Vipin Pungalia, director- professional. “Sennheiser has one of the largest sal

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UK - Audio-visual and entertainment technology company Anna Valley is building a centre for audio excellence across the group by purchasing new audio equipment to supplement their existing stock, consolidating their inventory with that of their subsidiary, Matrix UK Solutions, and assembling a team of dedicated audio specialists.
The new stock purchased by Anna Valley complements both its existing d&b, Shure and Yamaha kit as well as the equipment recently moved from Matrix to the group’s head office in Feltham, to create a comprehensive hire stock of digital audio equipment. The company has expanded its range of d&b speakers by adding both Y-Series and E-series to their existing stock and have replaced their wireless microphone systems with digital options.
Anna Valley’s purchase of an additional 40 channels of Shure QLX-D with DPA microphones a

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UK - Stage Electrics has received an order for £209,000 from Vinci Construction for works to King’s School in Macclesfield.
The project started out as a design proposal and has developed over the last few months into a complete installation covering lighting, sound and projection.
The newly developed campus will include four large performance areas within the school, the Conference Room, Drama Studio, Junior Hall and Recital Room. Stage Electrics will be installing lighting, audio and video infrastructure to the four rooms.
Work began on the 30 March and is expected to be completed within 11 weeks. The site team are working during the Covid-19 crisis and are constantly risk-assessing the situation.
Stage Electrics has worked with Vinci Construction before on other projects including the Fairfield Halls project in Croydon. Chris Wells is headi

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USA - Last Saturday evening (4 April), Stage Right Lighting of Virginia Beach teamed up with Smartmouth Beer to broadcast The Relief Stream featuring local rock band Bennett Wales & the Relief. The benefit concert was streamed live from Stage Right Lighting's own studio, decked out using their extensive inventory of lighting gear.
The lighting setup included Elation Proteus Rayzor 760 LED moving heads and Seven Batten 72 linear LED lights, along with ZW37 II LED moving heads, a few of which had GoPro cameras mounted to their face for wide-angle video shots.
Revenue generated from the live stream went to support music and production crews of the Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads area. Experience or relive the show at https://stagerightlighting.com.

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Australia - D1 Studios in Marrickville, Sydney, is a busy facility that caters for photo and video shoots, commercials and promos. It’s owned and run by Harry Dakanalis.
Dakanalis has also been a stuntman and stunt coordinator for many years, cutting his teeth working on numerous feature films and commercials. When he’s not been jumping out of helicopters and spectacularly crashing cars, his other company D2 Motion has developed a highly accurate robotic motion-controlled camera system.
This can produce gravity-defying camera angles, aspects and footage for more standard studio stunt effects quickly and efficiently.
Harry has also recently invested in 64 Astera Titan Tube LED battens for the studio which are part of the specialist light box set up that D1 offers its clients.
The Titans, purchased through ULA Group, Astera’s Australian distri

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Thailand - To accentuate the ornate architecture of Bangkok’s IconSiam I buildings, With Light Company deployed an array of Martin by Harman lighting fixtures.
With more than 525,000sq.m of retail floor space encompassing the IconSiam and IconLuxe shopping malls, the IconSiam complex is one of the largest retail outlets in Asia. The $1.5bn project also includes two of the tallest buildings in Bangkok: the 70-floor Magnolias Waterfront Residences and the 52-story Mandarin Oriental Residences. The IconSiam building includes the 3,000-seat True Icon Hall auditorium, the Icon Cineconic cinema, and the IconSiam Heritage Museum.
The smaller ICS Building features additional shopping and restaurants, as well as the 244-room Hilton Garden Inn Bangkok ICS hotel and resort. To illuminate the buildings’ lavish designs, developers Siam Piwat, Magnolia Quality Develo

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Europe - DPA Microphones is providing a variety of creative online resources and virtual entertainment in the wake of the current Covid-19 situation. DPA is also supporting its customers and industry professionals by continuing to stock and service equipment.
“DPA is working diligently to maintain production and operations to ensure an uninterrupted supply of microphones; we remain committed to our employees, partners and customers around the world,” says Kalle Hvidt Nielsen, CEO, DPA Microphones.
“Additionally, in the past few weeks, we have been inspired by many creative ideas and initiatives that we have seen implemented - both within the DPA organisation and the industry at large. Through our digital programme, DPA will continue to educate and inspire our online community during these difficult times.”
As part of its efforts, DPA is hosting
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