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Picture Canning Company, the London-based supplier of broadcast production shooting crews and facilities, has installed an Amek BB100 audio mixer into its all-new Outside Broadcast vehicle.

This is the third OB vehicle for picture canning; Unit Three is a 7.5m Mercedes Vario LWB offering 36sq.m of space for two VT engineers and a dedicated audio bay. The truck is heavily featured for video, with 10 Sony DNW90WSP/DVW790WSP cameras, complete with ‘iso in camera’ capability. As usual, audio facilities have been squeezed into a tight space, says sound engineer Ian Coles.

"With such a big range of video equipment, I was left with very little room for the audio environment. I needed a small footprint mixer with big desk facilities, and, after much research and comparison, we

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Newly-launched lighting sales company Robe UK has expanded its sales team with the appointment of Andy Holland as business development manager. Holland’s interest in lighting was first sparked at the age of 14 - initially an enthusiastic hobby that led to a part-time job, and then regular semi-professional freelance work. A qualified rigger - Holland attended a BTEC rigging course at Total Fabrication in conjunction with the PSA - and is currently studying for his City & Guilds 23/60 electrician’s certificate. He also runs his own lighting company, The Mobile Lighting Company, providing lighting and sound services to the entertainment industry.

His role for Robe UK is to further develop the theatre, arts and performance markets for Robe Show Lighting’s product range. Holland has been working hands-on with Robe products for some time, owning, installing and dry hiring

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Switchcraft has recently extended its range of right-angled cord connectors by adding heavy-duty 3.5mm stereo jack plugs to complement its popular 90° cord XLRs and phono connectors. The new range is available with nickel or black handles and nickel or gold-plated plug fingers. Ideal for applications where space is limited, the all-metal construction allows use in demanding environments where durability and/or shielding are important requirements.

(Lee Baldock)

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Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

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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Proel Sound Reinforcement, a division of Proel SpA, has made live tests of its new Edge Array System during a live presentation held in Italy by a major Italian dealer and rental company supplier. The Edge Array System is the first result of the joint collaboration announcedst year between Proel S.p.A. and LiSA Laboratories.

Pictured here is the Edge 212P - a two-way, horn-loaded, full-range system engineered for live concerts and fixed installations. The Edge 212P includes two parallel 16Ohm 12" woofers (with 3" voice coil) and one 2" compression driver (with 4" voice coil). The woofers feature the ISV (Interleaved Sandwich Voice Coil) system and a double-ventilated die-cast aluminium basket designed for improved heat dissipation and to reduce the power compression level. DDR (Double Demodulating Rings) provide improved control of the excursion and a reduction in d

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UK - The Gateway School is now recruiting students for a new BA (Hons) degree course in Audio Technology and Music Business studies. The degree complements the pioneering Higher Education Diploma course that Gateway has been running for several years. Past and present students will now able to take a third year to complete the Honours Degree.

The course has been structured with advice and guidance from industry professionals to ensure it relevance to today’s music industry. The Honours Degree is academically validated by Kingston University and is accredited by the Association of Professional Recording Services (APRS) and the Music Producer’s Guild (MPG).

Gateway pioneered the teaching of recording and music technology in the UK and have maintained their policy of teaching in small groups. This enables them to give students individual attention and guidance. The S

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Singapore - Singapore Exhibition Services (SES), organizer of BroadcastAsia and CommunicAsia, has decided to cancel both 2003 events, which were scheduled to take place from June 17-20 at Suntec Singapore and Singapore Expo respectively.

Commenting on the decision, Stephen Tan, chief executive of SES commented: "Together with our exhibitors and stakeholders, we have decided not to go ahead with the shows. This is a very difficult decision borne out of necessity due to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak and the lack of options for a suitable time frame in which to re-schedule the events. It is also our utmost priority to safeguard the well being of our exhibitors and visitors who have shown us unwavering support all these years."

As the SARS outbreak in Asia has not stabilized, exhibitors and visitors alike had expressed concerns about their safety

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UK - The MIA (Music Industries Association) has just started polling votes for its coveted annual music instrument awards. This year will be the biggest poll ever undertaken, with the MIA looking for votes from all of the 1000+ shops in the UK.

There are 27 categories of instrument, each with the option to nominate best-seller, best value for money and most innovative product. The awards also feature categories for printed music, publications and software products. The short-listed nominations will be on display at the British Music Fair on 6 and 7 July at Birmingham N.I.A. and the winners will be celebrated at the MIA Annual Conference in London on 23 October. Full details of the Awards can be found on the MIA website.

(Ruth Rossington)

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UK - Console manufacturer Solid State Logic has appointed RODE Microphones as its new distributor in the key territories of Australia and New Zealand. The appointment, which comes into effect immediately, will see RODE Microphones handing sales and providing after sales support for Solid State Logic’s entire range of recording and broadcast consoles.

RODE Microphones’ is the leading brand of Freedman Electronics, which was established in 1967 by British-born audio engineer Henry Freedman and his wife, Astrid. The company has long been a pioneer in the Australian and New Zealand audio industry and is currently headed by Peter Freedman. The company has a wholesale division covering Australia and New Zealand and it is through this division that RODE distributes its microphones, as well as Event Studio Monitors from the US - and now Solid State Logic.

At its base in Rh

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Germany -Two grandMA consoles are to provide lighting control for the Latin American band Maná when it stops off in Germany as part of a two-year world tour.

When the group, pioneers of Latin pop rock and recipients of a number of Grammys, play the four German concerts in June, two grandMA lighting consoles will control the largely Vari-Lite-dominated rig. We have already renamed them ‘grandMANÁ’, said Sandro Pujia, lighting designer for the tour. In 1998 Carlos Santana asked Maná to play three songs for his comeback album ‘Supernatural’ - and in September 2003 they will embark on a joint tour.

(Ruth Rossington)

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UK - E//T//C UK is supplying a Pani 2k Tungsten Halogen projector with AMD-32 slide changer for David Mamet’s classic 1974 comedy Sexual Perversity In Chicago, which has opened at the Comedy Theatre in London’s West End to rave reviews. The large format projection specialists were approached by the show’s production manager John Dalston and set and costume designer Jeremy Herbert, both seeking a rapid method of scene-changing to recreate the work’s hectic, cinematic narrative style.

With 32 different scenes in the high-action, 88-minute, one-act performance, some lasting no more than 10 seconds, and all leaping between disparate locations like bars, libraries, bedrooms and the streets of Chicago, conventional scenery changes were out of the question! Instead, they thought laterally and turned to projection to create the location and ambience for ea

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UK - With an increasing number of installers and designers employing Mission’s discreet flat-panel FS2-PRO speaker in a wide range of installations, ranging from churches and corporate AV to shops, bars and restaurants, Mission is now offering the speaker and its matching FS-4P Bass Unit in a choice of colours. Initially only available in silver at the time of their launch last year, versions in black and white have now been added to the low impedance and 100 volt line versions of both products.

The FS2-PRO, which employs NXT’s Surface-Sound technology, provides installers and designers with a stylish and discreet solution for reverberant installations where very wide dispersion, reduced SPL drop-off with distance and good intelligibility are the main criteria. Now, with the added choice of colours, the FS2-PRO can be specified and used in most design critical projec

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UK - Westlife’s Unbreakable: Greatest Hits Tour is even more adventurous than their 2002 World of Our Own tour, which featured automated effects including the band flying out over the audience in globes weighing nearly a quarter of a ton and then descending onto the stage to perform. For the latest tour, however, the boys fly right above the heads of the audience on a moving platform.

Gavin Weatherall, managing director and founder of the Rigging Partnership - the company responsible for turning initial artistic concepts into a workable production reality explains a bit about the initial brief for Westlife: "Having worked on the band’s World of Our Own tour, I fully expected them to want to include some rather challenging effects. They knew that they wanted to perform on a stage that could enable them to fly over the length and breadth of the venue above their f

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UK - A full lighting rig, motion control system, sound control, monitor system and stage set was supplied to Blur by Middlesex-based Entec Sound & Light, for five incendiary performances at the Astoria in Charing Cross Road, London.

Blur marked their return by showcasing work from their new album ‘Think Tank’. The Astoria dates were essentially a one-off event, but lead singer Damon Albarn wanted a distinct visual feel for the show. His brief to LD Dave Byars was to come up with the essence of Morocco and Devon - warm, inviting, peaceful, positive. From this starting point, Byars designed both lighting and video (the latter supplied by XL Video) and decided to take an ambitiously large rig into the Astoria to realize his ideas - an imaginative gamble that certainly paid off.

The first part of the show saw a false ceiling formed by a drape lacerated by a series of

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Australia - Australian lighting equipment manufacturer LSC Lighting Systems announced the shipment of their 1000th maXim lighting control desk. The lucky recipient was ADB S.A., LSC’s distributor for France. Alan Graham, LSC’s marketing director commented: "The success of the maXim has been beyond our expectations and can be directly contributed to the design team at LSC and our committed distributors worldwide. We feel the maXim is now the market leader in the low to mid range of our market and the recent release of the Effects Engine and Fan Generator software has culminated in an extremely powerful desk for its price. The fact that ADB has taken delivery of the 1000th maXim produced is rather appropriate, as they have now purchased over 20% of all maXims shipped - a tremendous effort in itself!"

(Lee Baldock)

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Italy - Italian speaker manufacturer Outline has introduced Clarity 11, a high directivity speaker column, designed and built for accurate speech reproduction in environments with high reverberation levels, or where acoustics are critical for speech intelligibility.

In terms of construction, Clarity 11, is characterized by the fact that the loudspeakers are fitted in a special ‘box’ which, as well as using suitable absorption material, also gives the loudspeaker system installed a determinate acoustic resistance, which makes it ideal to deal with the frequency range of speech. This design, for which a patent has been applied for, offers the advantage of giving a continuous gradual attenuation to the system’s frequency response.

Clarity 11 also offers the possibility of adjusting the Q factor in an original, simple and economic manner, by fitting or removing (

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UK - George Gilbert, one of the UK's leading video projection experts, has died at the age of 79. In a career that spanned more than four decades, George was a leading expert in light valve video projectors and responsible for training many of the current generation of projection specialists. The industry continued to benefit from his expertise well past retirement age and up until his death, he was still on the payroll, although part-time, as an engineer for equipment rental firm Blitz.

Following electronics training in the army, George first began TV work at Cambridge-based Pye Television. In the 1950s and 60s he was one of just a handful of projection specialists in the UK with the skills to set up and operate the Eidophor and GE Talaria projectors. Video projection technology in this period was cutting-edge but, at the same time, temperamental. The light valve at the heart o

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USA - Three leading electronic systems industry trade associations have announced the upcoming launch of shows in Europe and Asia intended to address the needs of their combined constituencies in those regions.

The Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA), the International Communications Industries Association (ICIA/InfoComm) and the National Systems Contractors Association (NSCA) have formed a partnership to develop and produce joint trade exhibitions in Europe and Asia for the benefit of their respective members and industries. The three have a combined membership of over 5,000 companies and individuals that are located in over 60 countries.

The first European show will be held at the Geneva PALEXPO (a brand new exhibition facility) in Switzerland on February 3-5, 2004. A new name and brand for the show is under development, but it will have the advan

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UK - A unique interactive and atmospheric audio-visual cricket experience has been designed for the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to promote a new 20-overs cricket format being launched this Summer.

This brand new experience, which is housed in three identical 7m trailers, will play a key role in introducing the ‘Twenty20’ concept to target audiences. Working with the event management team from Watermark, Steljes Hire, a leading supplier of AV systems, have provided state-of-the-art NEC multi-media digital projectors to bring the concept to life. Initially, the road show will visit a mixture of sports and outdoor events, beach fronts, shopping centres and commercial hubs in The North, South, East and Mid-West of the country. Thereafter, it will support domestic, Test and One Day International matches.

The experience itself plays on the extremes of emotion i

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UK - In response to the changing expectations of audiences, producers and directors, the importance of technology in contemporary theatre continues to grow at a rapid rate. Since the mid 1970s, the Association of British Theatre Technicians has supported and helped spearhead technical innovation in theatre through its annual showcase, the ABTT show, which this year runs on the 18 and 19 June in London.

Over the years the success of ABTT can be attributed as much to British engineering and ingenuity, as it can to a passion for the theatre. Many UK-based companies have exhibited at ABTT since its inception, including CCT Lighting, Lee Filters, Rosco and White Light - all have pioneered technology in theatre and augmented the potential of productions across the international stage.

Growing from a small niche event at The Donmar Warehouse, the ABTT Show now fills London’s R

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Russia - The Cinema Art Hall, located in the Siberian city of Norilsk, is the latest example of the international spread of D.A Audio products. Bossman - the D.A.S. Audio distributor for Russia - was responsible for the project, installing D.A.S. products in this large, multi-purpose venue.

The 700-seat theatre is considered as the main auditorium of this modern facility, which hosts mainly theatrical events and movie screenings. Bossman opted to install two different systems to work independently, depending on the type of function. When used for conferences, theatre or concerts, the equipment used consists of self-powered Compact Systems built into the building structure. The main front-of-house system is comprised of eight Compact 2 Systems (Compact 2 plus Compact 18 Sub) placed four per side. The powered systems simplified the installation needing only signal and AC-power. On

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The Netherlands - The latest technical innovation from Prolyte Products, ProTrac is designed as an upgraded fly-bar system for the theatre or related fields, with several extra options. Developments in theatre branch have led to new demands on the existing fly-bar systems: a combination of higher loading requirements, due to a growth in the size of productions, and the introduction of the mechanical operated fly-bar systems, have made the existing fly-bar system, in many cases, not suitable for the job. ProTrac has been developed to fill this gap, say Prolyte.

If the uniformly distributed load needs to be upgraded from 300 to 500kg and the point load from 40 to 150/200kg, a normal fly-bar will not have the required strength, and the single round tube is often replaced with ladder beams, usually made from steel. ProTrac offers an alternative to the steel ladder beams, specially d

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