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USA - Las Vegas-based Transamerica Audio Group has announced the addition of Todd Peterson to the new position of marketing manager, and completed a move to new, expanded headquarters. Both moves are designed to solidify the Transamerica's position as a leading supplier of high-end pro audio equipment for recording and live applications.

Peterson has 10 years' experience in purchasing, sales management, marketing and operations for Leo's Pro Audio, a large California-based pro audio retailer. He began his career more than 13 years ago at Guitar Center in Berkley, California. In his new role, he will work to enhance Group's overall sales and marketing efforts by facilitating the flow of product and added value information between manufacturers and dealers, managing the company's na

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Sweden / UK - OpTex has been appointed UK Agent for Marenius Audio Products from Sweden. The first product to be launched is a portable stereo mixer suitable for professional consumer and broadcast cameras. The MM-4210 is a true professional stereo mixer for portable use. Loaded with features, these mixers will satisfy professional news crew, sportscasters and all other audio and video sound specialists, offering broadcast quality mixing without distortion and with wide frequency response. Housed in a rugged aluminum case with heavy-duty Neutrik connectors and precision controls, it represents a fabulous value for a heavy-duty field mixer. Features include four mic/line input channels, up to 74dB gain, input-to-output, 48v phantom power switchable for each mic input, additional stereo line return input, built-in M-S stereo matrix for headphone monitoring, PPM metering with 2 x 9 L

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Italy - Proel has introduced its new SMARTPlus range, which follows in the footsteps of the original Proel Smart speakers. The SMARTPlus models offer value for money for both touring artists and installers, say Proel - featuring high quality componentry and build, including genuine compression drivers instead of the Piezo tweeters commonly used in this price level.

Featuring trapezoidal designs for easy grouping, the SMARTPlus range also benefits from heavy-duty carpet covering, comes with kick-proof steel grilles, a built-in crossover at 12 dB/octave, a brand new 900 H x 600 V constant coverage elliptical horn, newly designed woofers, PTC electronic protection of HF components and plenty more features usually associated with more expensive products.

Available in passive configurations, most of which have MOSFET-powered alternative versions, the new SMARTPlus range offers user

featured content

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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USA - The latest generation of Audio Toolbox from Terra Sonde in the US - the Audio Toolbox Plus - provides a comprehensive set of test and analysis functions. Aimed primarily at the installation designer and contractor, the Toolbox would not go amiss in the road box of any touring systems technician, or indeed the briefcase of an environmental health officer (though arguably a sledge hammer to crack a nut - it is nonetheless a dependable and easy-to-use piece of equipment).

Main features include a sophisticated sound level meter with LEQ mode and Noise Dosimeter. The Real Time Analyser and FFT Analyser produce graphic displays with variable frequency modes, filters, and averaging times among their many on-board options.

Other analysis tools include Energy Time graphs, Reverb Decay time (RT60) and sound study graphs. Signal generator, level/frequency meter, signal/noise rati

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Canada - Following the very successful preview of their new Vista Lighting console at PLASA, Jands Pty Ltd has announced the appointment of AC Lighting (Canada) Ltd as exclusive North American distributor for the complete range of Jands lighting products.

Speaking about the change of distribution for USA and Canada Paul Mulholland, CEO of Jands, said: "Our products were previously distributed in the USA, by ACT Lighting of Agoura Hills, California. However, recently both ACT and Jands have moved in different directions and we mutually agreed to end our association."

Mulholland went on to say: "Jands has had a long standing relationship with AC Lighting in the UK and Europe and we look forward to being a part of their plans for expansion into Canada and the USA."

Jands will be showing an updated version of the Vista lighting console on the AC Lighting boot

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UK - Matrix Audio Developments Ltd has gone into voluntary liquidation. The company was founded by Matrix designer/brand owner Andrew Hunt and Clive Kinton to distribute Matrix amplifiers in the UK; Kinton left the company last month, following Hunt's decision to bring the sales and marketing of the Matrix brand under the control of the manufacturing company, A.S. Laser, in Cwmbran, South Wales.

Adrian Merrett of A.S. Laser told L&SI: "The move will streamline our service and address the production issues we have had in the past, ensuring next-day delivery for our customers."

The company's 07000 contact number remains the same.

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A few interesting microphones turned up. Audio-Technica's ES991, ES993 and ES995 mics joined the Engineered Sound range, a dual-element cardioid condenser gooseneck and two dual-element cardioid condenser rigid-pipe models respectively, aimed at boardrooms, schools, courtrooms, council chambers and places of worship. AKG's TriPower Series makes models D 3700M, D 3800M and C 5900M available either wired or wireless in the same package. Also, finally, it will be interesting to see how many people take up Blue Microphones' 'The Ball' for stage use. It's billed as the first phantom-powered dynamic mic, and uses an active balancing circuit in the output stage to maintain 50 ohms resistance across the full frequency spectrum - while retaining a dynamic's SPL handling. Elvis would probably have liked it.

On the amp front, Crest extended its Pro 200 range with the P

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Lebanon - The first Zouk International Festival at the Zouk Amphitheatre in Lebanon included two shows produced by EC1 International - the world premiere of OperaBabes - Beyond Imagination and a new production of Evita.

EC1 brought in Ben M Rogers to look after the scenic and lighting design for both productions. The OperaBabes show was designed as a fusion of classical styles with rock and pop technologies, mixing album tracks with incidental music and dance to create a narrative thread to the show. Rogers' lighting rig, supplied by Lumen Art, included eight Martin Pro MAC 600s and 16 Clay Paky Stage Zoom 1200s, along with 60 Par cans and an Airstar Lumex 2000 4kW balloon, which made an impressive entrance rising up behind the stage during Act 2 and remaining at a height of 10m over the stage. Rogers programmed on a Wholehog II from Stage Electrics, using his WYSIWYG Perform

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UK - Eight years after the idea was first proposed, a consortium comprising Wrexham County Borough, Wrexham Arts Association and Yale College of Wrexham is about to give Wrexham a new theatre. The momentum for the new theatre facility came from Yale College wanting to extend its successful National Diploma in Technical Theatre. It therefore donated the land for the build, and will pay the salaries of the technical staff and offer financial and management services, in return for the use of the theatre.

Yale will also employ the technical director and chief technician, and crew the theatre with students undertaking a Foundation Degree, giving them a thorough grounding in lighting, sound and general crewing, while a partnership is also being sought with a large-scale producing house to accept second year students on six-week placements. The essence of the Wrexham Project is to deli

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Italy - Teatro La Fenice ('the Phoenix'), Venice's celebrated opera house which was almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1996, is now set to re-open. The 1996 fire was a devastating blow, coming just days before its scheduled reopening after a much-needed major refurbishment, and echoing a previous fire which destroyed the theatre in 1836. The newly restored theatre is now scheduled to open in December 2003.

While the style of the venue is identical to its predecessor, its lighting and sound systems are being brought right up to date with a lighting and control system from ETC Teatro, including an ETC Emphasis control system, an Express console, Sensor dimming, a Unison architectural lighting control system and an extensive Ethernet and DMX installation.

Believed to be the first Italian opera house to install a sound reinforcement system, La Fenice has opted for a d&b audiote

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UK - The PAI Group has recently installed a MegaMedia Wall at Virgin's flagship Oxford Street Megastore, to a design brief from Keane Design's Concept Designer, Tim Merrifield. The brief called for a cost-effective, but innovative audio-visual vehicle for presenting dynamic promotional material to customers entering the store.

PAI manufactured and installed a bespoke 5500mm x 5000mm steel frame onto which nine screens, comprising 42" plasma and 30" high definition LCD units, were incorporated. The whole assembly is designed to automatically rotate towards to the store interior during daylight hours, to avoid light intrusion, and then traverse back to face Oxford Street in the evening to broadcast promotional material to the public outside of normal opening hours.

Divided into four video zones, the nine screens broadcast the same material, but have been designed to op

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UK - Birmingham-based SSE Hire Ltd has ordered five InnovaSON Sy80 digital live consoles to supplement its extensive digital console inventory. SSE has been using InnovaSON Sensory series consoles for over two years for prestigious clients such as David Gray, UB40, BBC Top of the Pops, Stereophonics, Massive Attack, Faithless, Sting and many more.

SSE technical director Chris Beale says: "InnovaSON's digital consoles have always combined excellent audio performance with the most straightforward user interface. Many engineers who initially passed the consoles by because of their cosmetic simplicity have been very surprised at the quality of the result and we often find that engineers who try the Sensory consoles under some duress simply get hooked once they start to use them. The new Sy80, which has evolved from the earlier models and now has a very rich feature set, compete

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UK - It's just over two years since Stage Electrics moved to its new HQ in Bristol. Since then, the business has grown, becoming more streamlined and diverse, the latest addition being a rehearsal space inside one of its warehouses, initially developed for Belinda King Productions to rehearse three shows for the Royal Court Theatre on board the new cruise liner, The Queen Mary 2.

The facility has enabled Belinda King Productions to rehearse the shows working with all the relevant scenery from the start, a crucial part of the process considering most of the show's scene changes are either automated or executed by the performers themselves. With limited rehearsal time once on board, it seemed logical to get the productions as close to the finished article as possible prior to embarkation. The rehearsal space at Stage Electrics has given both companies an opportunity to iron out t

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Apart from the D5T, arguably the other big technology announcement was Digigram's bi-directional EtherSound, although EtherSound itself has been around for 18 months or so. Going in both directions means that a network based on EtherSound is a 64-channel virtual buss, carrying 24-bit, 48kHz audio in every channel.

"Audio can be inserted in the down-stream," explained Digigram's Frank Siedel, "and the last device in the network sends every channel inserted back to the Primary Master device - the first in the network. From this up-stream, audio can be extracted from the network. Previously, we used the whole bandwidth of a 100Mb Ethernet to go one way. However, it's a full duplex network and we've now exploited this."

Only for those who don't need the 'star' configuration of a network, that is: bi-directional EtherSound only works in a daisy-chain. Naturally, star c

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UK - Lighting for the current TV series of Pop Idol features 30 James Thomas Pixelline battens, supplied to the show by lighting contractors VLPS and specified by lighting designer/director Al Gurdon. The 'final 12 stages of the popular series are being recorded at Fountain Television Studios in Wembley, London, following the early rounds that were shot at Teddington Studios.

Lighting is programmed and operated by Mike Owen using a Virtuoso VX console. The rig features over 100 Vari*Lite automated luminaires, assorted PARs and conventionals as well as the 30 Pixelline units, which are being run in their fully expanded DMX mode. The Pixellines are used upstage in a broken up matrix-style - 15-wide and 2-high - to illuminate the back wall of the set, a large translucent metallic structure.

Pixelline is proving to be an in-demand rental item, VLPS now has over 78 battens i

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UK - The centre for Performance in Aberystwyth in Wales is organizing a Symposium on the stage and lighting designers Edward Gordon Craig and Adolphe Appia entitled Sculptors of the Modern Stage - light / shadow / architecture. The symposium will include talks, workshops, films and presentations at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth from 5-7 December 2003. The event is produced in association with the Scenography department at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

Edward Gordon Craig was a theatre designer, actor, visionary and the first British theatre artist to write a book of theatre theory. Rejected by the British theatre establishment he was embraced by the French and the Russians, most notably Stanislavski. Adolphe Appia was a Swiss designer and philosopher of theatre, and the first to write about theatre as a visual art form. In his collaboration with the Swiss c

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UK - Allen & Heath has launched the latest version of the Windows-based iDR Software Manager that configures the company's iDR hardware components into an integrated audio distribution system. Version 3.3 has been developed to support the new iDR-4 signal processor and PL-9 'hub' unit (launched at PLASA) and to reflect the familiar Windows style applications and navigation, including copy, paste and save functions between presets and DSP devices.

Version 3.3 provides the facility for custom Sys-Net and MIDI strings to be programmed into patch settings, triggering the operation of Sys-Net or MIDI compatible equipment such as a CD player, lighting or effects unit, when a patch is recalled. Similarly, soft LEDs and logic outputs can now be controlled by level sensing within a channel.

The software also enables functions such as inter iDR paging and patch recall to be controlled

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In among the equipment debuts were one or two significant corporate manoeuvres. In the making of Digico's D5T, an offshoot of the D5 Live designed for theatrical production and launched on the first day, Autograph Sound Recording figurehead Andrew Bruce both contributed ideas and formed a US-based company to participate in the sales and distribution of the console. The company is called Autograph A2D, and Bruce was there for the launch. "As soon as I saw the D5 Live, I knew that it was the right vehicle for us to develop something digital for theatre use," he said after the presentation. "So we've given the operator 16 master faders in a row, slightly wider spaced than the eight-plus-eight on the D5 Live, and we've given the desk an off-line editor for the type of cue-lists we use in theatre. Live sound cue-lists are quite short: ours are typically 100-150 cues long. Arran

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Denmark - The new low profile SP12 stage monitor from Mach boasts high SPL and power handling and provides high gain-before-feedback with minimum EQ requirements, according to the manufacturer. Features include a narrow dispersion patent that provides ideal vocal performance and a specially designed enclosure which produces a powerful, clean bass performance.

The SP12 is equipped with dual 12" woofers with a 2" throat compression driver and has an output of no less than 138dB. The symmetrical cabinet is highly durable and is coated with Mach SafeCoat - a strong, scratch-resistant, UV stable and weatherproof polyurethane surface. With a slim and smart design, the SP 12 is aimed equally at television and theatre environments. A rugged flightcase for two units is available.

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - Gaylord Entertainment and JBL Professional have confirmed the sale and installation of a new JBL Vertec system for the legendary Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. The venerable country music venue is currently used for a broad variety of performance and presentation events. The 4,400-seat auditorium now features a sound system consisting of JBL Professional and Crown Audio products.

The new system was used for the 37th Annual CMA (Country Music Association) awards, which aired live on 5 November. The show featured Sheryl Crow, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Travis Tritt and Hank Williams Jr in a special tribute to Johnny Cash.

Installed during a week in September without interrupting the Opry's busy schedule, the project involved coordination among many players. Noted engineer George Massenburg was engaged by the Opry as audio quality consult

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Yamaha premiered two new input cards for the PM1D, each of which uses the head amp circuitry of the new analogue flagship, the PM5000. This heralded a "warmer, punchier and more open sound" admitted Yamaha's publicity, while also being smaller. In the original system, the AI8 input frame could only hold 16 A/B units. With a 4-channel card, each AI8 can now hold 32 inputs - resulting in a 96-input system of only three frames, rather than six. The LMY2-MLAB is a 2-channel mic/line with A/B input card and 28-bit A/D conversion. The 4-channel LMY4-MLF is a mic/line input card with 24-bit conversion.

It was also revealed that Yamaha has succeeded in supplying a PM5000 to Carnegie Hall, the very place where the PM1D was fanfared four years ago; and that a DM1000, together with no fewer than three DM2000s, have joined the largest fixed installation of V-Dosc in the US at The Aladdin

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