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UK - PMC, the UK manufacturer of professional monitor and audiophile speaker systems, has appointed Ian Downs to the newly-created position of UK sales manager in its Professional Division. The creation of the new post is a response to the continuing expansion of PMC's sales base and the introduction of innovative new products - including the Flying Mole Corporation's digital Bi-Phase Fusion amplification range and the PMC DB1-A and TB2-A active monitors - both launched at the Berlin AES Convention.

Downs comes with over 20 years of experience in professional audio, including, most recently, more than 14 years with Denon's professional audio and broadcast products. Welcoming him to the team, PMC head of sales, Miles Roberts, commented: "We were on the look-out for someone who

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Hungary - Martin Audio has announced a further Line Array purchase in Eastern Europe. Last month a new system helped the Slovak Republic celebrate its membership to the EU and now a W8LC/W8C combination has been ordered by Hungarian rental company, RMS.

Tibor Kiss's company has added 12 x W8LC Compact Line Array enclosures, along with eight conventional Wavefront 8 Compact (W8C), a pair of WSX subs and two DX1 system controllers to its rental inventory.

RMS specialize in providing sound reinforcement for rock and pop concerts, and count heavy metal icons such as Slayer, Manowar and Anthrax among their accounts, as well as Clawfinger, TNT, EDDA and events like the Sommer Rock Festival.

"The reason we chose the Martin line array was because of its amazing price/performance ratio," said Tibor. "We auditioned a lot of different line array systems - and always foun

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USA - The fifth annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which crammed sold-out crowds of over 50,000 onto Indio, California's Empire Polo Field for two days in early May, overwhelmed concertgoers this year with five stages boasting more than 80 bands, including Radiohead, The Cure, Kraftwerk, Beck, Flaming Lips, and the recently reunited Pixies. To handle sound reinforcement for the festival, event promoter Goldenvoice once again turned to Rat Sound Systems of Oxnard and U.S. Audio and Lighting of North Hollywood, both of whom brought out sizeable quantities of V-Dosc and dV-Dosc loudspeakers.

In particular, Rat Sound provided the system for Coachella's Main Stage, making this the third year in a row that the company's L-Acoustics rig has been flown at the giant outdoor venue. The main PA system featured left and right line arrays each comprised of 15 V-Dosc cabinets wi

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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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Australia - ARX Systems, the Australian pro audio manufacturer, has announced therelease of its new AudioBox range of precision tools, designed to perform essential professional audio functions in an ultra compact, flexible package. The first two products in the series released are the ISO Later and the ISO Splitter.

ISO Later is a transformer isolated de-coupler, for preventing and removing ground loops and for use in applications where complete galvanic isolation is required, e.g. installations, broadcast feeds, remote recording, etc.

The ISO Splitter is a transformer isolated 1 input to 2 outputs splitter, for splitting one mic or line level input two ways in applications where complete galvanic isolation is required. Both units feature heavy-duty all-steel chassis, fibreglass PCBs and ultra-low noise audio transformers, and are available in single-channel or double-header

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UK - Star Events Group supplied Homelands' organizers with an Orbit structure that was used as the 'Hydration Station' for the festival. Star Orbit erected a 12m, two-bay structure at the centre of the event site. With Orbit-style structures usually used for performance stages at Homelands, this year the 'Hydration Station' was created using a Star Orbit stage and became a central sales outlet for refreshments. The stage stood out from other structures with its distinctive dome shaped roof and contained a dance floor with a lighting rig and screen, together with a kiosk selling water and energy products.

The 17-hour event took place at Matterley Bowl in Hampshire, and brought together live bands and DJs for thousands of visitors. Faithless and the Scissor Sisters topped the live act bill, with the likes of Erik Morillo, Paul Van Dyk and Judge Jules taking to the decks. Star Orb

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USA - A new insight into the trends in buying and specifying habits of a broad cross-section in the entertainment industries will be revealed with the publication of a significant new study entitled How Customers Specify and Buy Expendables, Equipment and Systems in The Entertainment Industries. The study is sponsored by ESTA, North America's Entertainment Services and Technology Association, and is believed to be the first study of its type ever conducted by a non-partisan, non-profit sponsor in the entertainment industries.

The study was managed by an ESTA committee of industry volunteers supplemented by the technical skills and guidance of a well known market research firm, Stiernberg Consulting. The database of customers and specifiers prepared for this study is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging ever used: utilizing its member resources, ESTA assembled the data

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USA - After playing to an estimated 35 million people over 10 years, the popular free outdoor sea battle at Las Vegas' Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, the Battle of Buccaneer Bay, was retired to make way for an updated, sexier show - The Sirens of Treasure Island.

The show was given a fresh new storyline and set to music, resulting in a musical-meets-action spectacular that features an exhilarating clash between a group of beautiful, tempting sirens and a band of renegade pirates. The buildings of the seaside village are bathed in a cool moonlit wash, while a ghostly bleached ship with tattered sails sits nearby. Lighting the tropical city façade is a new Martin colour-changing system of Exterior 600, Exterior 600 Compact and Atomic strobe fixtures supplied by Fourth Phase.

Lighting design for the new show is by Roy Bennet with programming and assistant lighting design

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- Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline, Scotland, has recently purchased a pair of Meyer UPJ-1P powered compact VariO loudspeakers from Scotland's Meyer dealer, Apex Acoustics. Adding to the venue's existing installed sound system, the size and weight, power and versatility enables the use of their UPJ's for FOH or as foldback monitors. Carnegie Hall's Barry Young explains: "I still can't believe the clarity of the UPJ's. It's just a great speaker."

Carnegie Hall is a beautiful 1930s theatre based in the heart of Dunfermline in central Scotland. One of four Fife Council theatres, Carnegie Hall offers a popular and diverse programme of music, drama, dance, film, comedy, children's entertainment and pantomime.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Chain hoists are normally selected by a number of criteria - the weight they can lift, speed of travel, height of lift and so on. They are rarely, however, chosen for their aesthetic qualities. That is, until Andi Watson, lighting designer for Dido's current North American and European tour, became involved. Fundamental to the show's lighting design were clean lines and minimal intrusion by the hardware involved in moving the lighting and video panels around.

The chain hoist of choice was the CM Prostar, but a problem still existed in how to achieve repeatable and reliable positioning. The solution was the Prostar Elevation, a product that Kinesys believes is the only variable-speed Prostar solution in the world. Kinesys was able to combine their Elevation 1+ control units with a conversion to the Prostar chain hoist to allow precise positioning and a full range of speeds t

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Germany / Bahrain - CT Screenco maintained its long association on the F1 Grand Prix circuit this month, providing screens for the inaugural event in Bahrain, before launching their newly-commissioned mobile displays, with rotating masts, at the Nurburgring for the European Grand Prix. At the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, they supplied two 50sq.m 25mm screens. One was positioned at the exit to the pit lane (facing the grandstand) and the other out on the track.

But it was the race in Germany on May 30 that marked the debut of the two new identical 44sq.m, 15mm LED mobile displays - one owned by Creative Technology in the UK and the other by sister company JVR, warehoused in Holland. Avesco business development director, Dave Crump, comments: "These are identical 13m trailers, the only difference being that one is left-handed and the other right-handed. If you put

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USA - Apple stores all over the world are lighting up in blue, pink, green, gold and silver for the launch of the new iPod mini. Apple has installed a system of five custom-sized Versa Tubes, from Element Labs, to create a colourful, eye-catching window display. There is one tube for each color iPod mini and they run a custom sequence designed by Apple.

"Apple came to us in December because they wanted to do something unique and eye-catching to announce the arrival of the iPod mini in February," said Jeremy Hochman, vice-president of marketing at Element Labs. "So we visited their headquarters and then designed a store fixture around the Versa Tube."

"Because of the amazing colour range of the Versa Tubes, we were able to closely match the colors of the iPods themselves," Hochman continues. "We have a high level of colour control with our sp

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USA - Fox's smash hit American Idol has once again weeded through a pack of young pop star hopefuls to zero in on the big finale of its third season. As to be expected of a show with live performance at its heart, the studio's sound system was top-notch, right down to the 40-channel Soundcraft MH4 console used to mix monitors and house sound.

For the second consecutive year, Andrew 'Fletch' Fletcher was in charge of the live mix at CBS Television City in Hollywood where the event was filmed. He notes that he hand-picked the desk from the inventory of ATK AudioTek, the show's live sound equipment provider, primarily for its comprehensive routing and control capabilities.

"The MH4's matrix and VCAs were very big parts of my decision to use the console," says Fletch. "I had actually mixed the previous season on a pair of digital mixers with no VCAs or matrix

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UK - Coemar UK has announced its appointment as exclusive distributors of Geni Lighting moving mirror scanners, gobo projectors and controllers to the professional and DJ markets. Coemar UK managing director, Ian Kirby, confirmed that the Taiwan-manufactured range fills a gap in their intelligent light portfolio for moving mirror effects, not covered by the Coemar range (for which they are also sole distributors).

While Geni scanners were this month specified by The Music Company for installation in the new Bakersfield Leisure venue, Mood in Liverpool, the company's new controller, dubbed 'PC Brain' is running the James Thomas PixelPar 87 LED lanterns in the Hard Rock's newly-piloted bar concept in Bristol. Kirby was particularly attracted to the Geni scanner family, comprising the Stratus 5X, The Shiva, The MZ-12 and the Mojo Scan, he said: "There is still a huge market fo

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USA - At the DanceStar USA Awards post-show party in one of Miami's top club, the Mynt Lounge. Lord Touissant, president of the Florida-based sound company Infinity Audio, which was charged with responsibility for sound at the event, said: "With the Cobra, I feel that Dynacord has come to market with a mobile system solution that makes me a hero. Not only does the Cobra sound great - I mean really great - it's easy to set-up and virtually idiot proof. There's really no way to set the system up wrong, and given the stresses in this type of environment, that's something I've come to count on. It's a great club system, inside or out, and it saves a lot of time and money in set-up - it's really that fast."

The COBRA has become a real hit these days in Florida. Touissant estimates that in the course of the Winter Music Conference (6 - 10 March, 2004) something like ten syst

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UK - Harman Pro UK, a subsidiary of Harman International Industries, will exhibit at ABTT for the first time, reflecting the growing importance of the theatre market for Harman brands.

Harman Pro UK is the UK and Ireland's exclusive distributor for JBL, AKG and dbx products, and offer full technical and service support along with acoustic design assistance to its approved dealer and installer network.

The following JBL products will be shown: JBL VerTec Line Array speakers, JBL Control Contractor Speaker and from AKG the WMS4000 wireless microphones, the installed discreet microphones and the Performance microphones.

From dbx the Zone Pro 640 and the Dbx 260 DriveRack speaker management solutions. Harman Pro UK staff will be on hand to assist with all visitors enquiries on stand 26 in the Lindley Hall.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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Italy - A location sound recordist with a passionate, audiophile approach to his craft, Maurizio Argentieri, found the audio interface of his dreams two years ago when he read about Metric Halo's Mobile I/O 2882+DSP on the Internet. An audio engineer in the Italian film industry for over 15 years, the Rome native's recent English language work can be heard in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ as well as Mike Barker's upcoming A Good Woman and Michael Apted's much anticipated HBO series, Rome.

Argentieri uses Metric Halo's MIO 2882+DSP and SpectraFoo metering software with MOTU's Digital Performer as the host application on his Powerbook G4. He commented: "I chose the Metric Halo interface because it was the only one to use Firewire bus power. In my application this is a very important characteristic, because we do not always have electrical power.

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UK - Many of this summer's largest outdoor music events the UK has to offer, including Glastonbury, V and Reading will feature a rack of Focusrite outboard on the mix tower of the main stages. Numerous Platinum Compounders will be used for compression and gating whilst Focusrite's latest offering, the ISA 430 MKII Producer Pack is primed for each and every lead vocal.

Currently, F.O.H. engineers for a variety of acts, such as Moby, Pink, Jools Holland and Pavarotti, all insist on Focusrite channel strips for signal processing throughout their live work. A fine example is Tori Amos, who is permanently accompanied by a full rack of Red Range processors at every concert. However, such an immense rack of Red Range processors is rarely an option for the average live engineer, with many having to settle for onboard processing alone. Focusrite will be loaning sixteen Compounders (1U du

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Denmark - The Martin Professional head office in Denmark has announced a new member of the area sales management team, Peter Dahlin. Dahlin's main responsibility as area sales manager will be sales support for Martin's Spanish and Portuguese speaking markets. Besides facilitating business in Spain, Portugal, and South and Central America, Dahlin will support a number of Eastern European countries as well.

Dahlin comes to Martin with a background in international sales including 18 years serving southern European and South American markets. He has extensive sales experience including a seven-year stint at LEGO in their Educational Division selling technology and robotics projects to schools and universities in Latin America. Dahlin masters seven languages including Spanish and Portuguese. He assumed his new position at Martin on 1 June.

With Dahlin's hiring area sales manager H

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China - Being the first, independent school specializing in sports to be built under the auspices of the Ministry of Community Development and Sports, the Singapore Sports School aims to cater to student athletes who want to excel both in sports and studies. The seven-hectare school is a co-educational and residential boarding school that offers top-class facilities, training and full sports science support.

AUP Consultants were appointed to design the new sound reinforcement needed for the 700-seater indoor auditorium and Electronics & Engineering Pte Ltd (E&E Pte Ltd) was awarded the tender to install the system based on a design-build specification. Aside from the general use of the facility for indoor games such as basketball and badminton, the hall is also used for musical performance as it features a large theatrical stage with proscenium, curtains and lighting. A grandsta

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USA - Though as with all of these awards ceremonies, the voting is supposed to be completely impartial and independent from category to category, there is a sense that the technical Tony Awards, presented on 6 June at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, went to some productions that had perhaps done less well than expected in the show awards.

In particular, the spectacular musical Wicked, an alternative take on The Wizard of Oz story, was generally considered the favourite in the Best Musical category. Instead that award, and also the awards for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score, went to Avenue Q, the hilarious show perhaps best described as Friends meets Sesame Street, complete with human and puppet stars. Only the humans were nominated in the performance categories, though there they were beaten by Idina Menzel from Wicked<

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USA - Roadcases, the company established to chronicle the history of road exploits through the eyes of backstage touring personnel, has joined with TV documentary experts, Incue Productions. Incue is a Los Angeles-based production company specializing in HBO First Looks, behind the scene making of specials, and was created by brothers Scott and Dave McVeigh.

Recent credits include the 25th Anniversary Special Edition of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Pumping Iron, American Pie Revealed and a behind the scenes look into NYPD Blue, where Scott and Dave were granted phenomenal access to the show's set and actors.

Incue had already been looking to develop their own concept about life on the road until they heard about Roadcases from their other brother Greg McVeigh, VP of operations at Meyer Sound. "Greg was instrumental with the introduction of Roadcase

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