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Australia - Norwest Productions, one of Australasia's largest sound rental companies, have recently added an additional 66 fP Series amplifiers to their already impressive inventory giving them well over 1million watts of Lab Gruppen power.

The main amplifier model in Norwest's inventory is the Lab.gruppen fP 6400, which delivers 2300W per channel into 4 ohms in a 2 rack space, 10 kg package. Norwest employ their Lab Gruppen amplifiers to power a variety of speaker systems as well as for a wide range of applications including corporate shows, tours, dance parties and large scale events. Some recent Norwest shows and events powered by Lab.gruppen include: Black Eyed Peas tour, REM tour, Michael Crawford, Tamworth Country Music Awards, Billy Connolly tour, Carols in the Domain, T

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UK - RF specialist Trantec is delighted to announce that it has further expanded its range of innovative wireless radio mic systems with the addition of its new 4-channel UHF S4.4 system, which offers a cost effective and flexible alternative for vocals, presentations, and musical instruments.

Designed to the highest specifications at Trantec's London based HQ, the S4.4 systems offer four license-free switchable UHF frequencies which can operate simultaneously.

By virtue of its advanced diversity receiver, it optimises interference-free reception in the most challenging application environments and features an adjustable squelch function to guard against interference. In addition its unique dynamics processor ensures a crystal clear and natural sound.

The Vocal system comprises a hand-held transmitter with a dynamic capsule and a diversity receiver. Delivering a punchy and a

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The Netherlands - Midas Consoles Holland is pleased to announce the sale of a Midas XL8 Live Performance System to rental company Hof Audio - Licht - Beeld, a long-established rental company whose top-end inventory includes several Midas analogue consoles.

"Since Midas announced it was to produce a digital console which would retain, and indeed improve upon, the sound characteristics of XL4, we had huge confidence in the new product," says company owner Bart Hof. "We also know that, this being Midas, we can be assured of excellent quality, service and support. There's a niche for XL8 in the Dutch market, and as we are an established and trusted company we are well placed to introduce it."

Both Hof and his chief engineer Auke Meijer are exited about the possibilities XL8 offers, both in technical and commercial terms. "Aside from the sound quality and r

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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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UK - XL Video supplied a 20 by 4.8 metre landscape curved SoftLED backdrop and Catalyst digital media server control system for Irish comedian Dara O'Briain's DVD shoot at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London for Open Mike Productions.

Series producer Alex Hardcastle specifically wanted a simple 'screen effect' with no text or recognizable images, just abstract effect and colours. He wanted about eight or 10 different colour states that could slowly morph throughout the show, matching his cues for the two acts and encore.

SoftLED was suggested as the ideal solution, and the deal was set up by XL's Al Green who says: "Open Mike specifically wanted controllable, changing colour states with different intensities across the screen, as opposed to solid colours."

XL achieved the basic brief that the audience should be concentrating on O'Briain's dialogue and banter, rat

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USA - Aviom, Inc., manufacturer of the Pro16 Monitor Mixing System, recently announced the appointment of two new international distributors in the Middle East and one in Sweden. The new agreements are expected to significantly expand distribution of Aviom's products to all market sectors including, but not limited to: live-sound reinforcement, houses of worship, clubs, conference centres, stadiums, schools, professional musicians, and broadcast and recording studios.

"We are very pleased to add these three distributors to our expanding worldwide team," says Joel Brazy, director of international sales. "International markets represent a huge growth opportunity for Aviom, and our strategy is to partner with leaders in their markets. These new distributors represent only high quality products and we expect them to help Aviom achieve rapid growth throughout each regi

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UK - Lighting designer Dave Bryant (DB) won a 2006 Lighting Design Award for his stunning site specific work, The Storr - Unfolding Landscape. The coveted Awards are sponsored by architectural publication Lighting magazine, and The Storr was the first winner of their new Entertainment category.

The project - for Scottish environmental arts organization nva Arts - involved the design of an eco-friendly lighting installation for eight weeks of live promenade performance highlighting the breathtaking darkness of The Storr Footpath on the beautiful Isle of Skye (link to full story on Avo website).

DB says: "I was surprised to be nominated let alone to win the Award! It's fantastic that such an unusual project should receive such an accolade."

The project led to Avolites developing a new rechargeable battery powered dimmer which then went into production a

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Germany - The National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra recently employed an Allen & Heath ML3000 live sound VCA console to manage live recording and broadcast during the Penderecki Festival, an annual three day event held this year in Germany, which honours the renowned Polish composer, Krzysztof Penderecki.

The Festival was held at three different locations - St. Dyonisius Church in Rheine, Il Bagno concert hall in Steinfurt, and Munster cathedral - comprising performances of many of Penderecki's works and a variety of classical masterpieces by The National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conducted by the man himself.

The grand finale of this year's festival was a performance of Penderecki's St Luke Passion, regarded as the composer's breakthrough to world renown. It was originally performed at the same location 40 years ago, and to mark the milestone, the anniversary per

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UK - They're the hottest band in the UK , with their debut album going triple platinum in a matter of weeks, and their nationwide tour selling out within minutes. Although an Alpha system saw them through most of the dates, the SSE Audio Group brought a GEO T rig out to London's Brixton Academy for the big finale of the Arctic Monkey's British tour.

SSE has supported the Arctic Monkeys since their early days, although, with the phenomenal speed of this band's success, that is not long ago. Barely three years after playing their first gigs, the Monkeys have a sell-out tour, a BRIT Award for Best New Act, and hold the UK music industry record for the fastest-selling debut album - ever. All this success has been built via the internet, where the band made their demos available for download, and in doing so, created a huge fanbase.

The tour has played 13 dates around the UK

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UK - Marquee Audio ensured that the only appearance this summer by The Cure - during the Sixth Teenage Cancer Trust week at the Royal Albert Hall - received full Digidesign Venue system support.

The company's digital specialist Andy Huffer supplied the two D-Show mixing consoles and the Pro Tools HD2 recording system was provided by Andy 'Baggy' Robinson. This allowed FOH sound engineer Marc Carolan to record 48 tracks for the show's three and a half hour duration flawlessly - as well as locally tracking six ambient mics for future 5.1 mixing of the show. In addition to the recording from the FOH desk, Keith Uddin, The Cure's studio engineer, took a firewire feed to the Pro Tools LE from the monitor desk of Matt West.

Carolan added that since The Cure had used Venues on their European festivals last summer it seemed logical to treat this as a one-off extension of that, as the

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USA - Worldwide-automated lighting manufacturer High End Systems Inc. is today releasing an Apple Mac version of software to operate the Content Management Application (CMA) for the DL2 Digital Lighting fixture. Until now, the CMA was only operable on a PC. The software allows lighting professionals to seamlessly manage the content and configuration of their DL2 fixtures not only from a PC running Windows, but now also a Mac.

The Mac CMA is designed for OS 10.4.6 or later and supports G4-, G5- and Intel-based Macs.

HES DL2 product manager Scott Blair says: "We recognized the large and loyal existing Catalyst user base - many of whom started with us on the Catalyst years ago. We wanted to show our support for them by offering this software to allow them to use their existing show content on DL2."

The free software is now available for download on High End Systems' D

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UK - Phil Hartnoll will always be known as one half of the ground-breaking anddance- music defining duo Orbital, who had world-wide success with their unique blend of electronic music from 1990 until 2004. Since the demise of Orbital, Hartnoll has been as busy as ever with DJ'ing and producing new music. His studio has stayed ahead of the game too, helped in no small way by his love for all things Novation.

Orbital were one of the most consistent and ground-breaking bands of the last 20 years. As half of that act, Phil Hartnoll always used the latest gear for the band's cutting-edge sound. Even after the group's demise he has remained true to that belief so, for his latest music project (Long Range, working with Nick Smith and Ben Burns), he has added the new ReMOTE SL to his list of Novation gear.

Hartnoll's relationship with Novation goes way back to his time in Orbital. &qu

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France - University of California Berkeley's Centre for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) is a hotbed of research into areas of music and sound technology as diverse as music languages and protocols, gestural controllers, and new methods of radiating and spatializing sound. Meyer Sound's long-time dedication to advanced research and the physical proximity of their facilities (Meyer Sound headquarters is barely two miles from CNMAT), made it entirely natural for an alliance to form between the two organizations. The relationship that developed has encompassed several projects over a number of years.

Currently, Meyer Sound is supporting a CNMAT effort to create a loudspeaker array capable of mimicking the kinds of radiation patterns exhibited by acoustical musical instruments. The most recent prototype array is a 10-inch-diameter icosahedron incorporating 120 1.25-inch driv

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France - As one of the very few loudspeaker system manufacturers, Alcons Audio will be present at the coming AES convention in Paris. On the show, Alcons will be exhibiting with a sample of each product category; the first product of the completely new 'S-series', the SR9.

The SR9 is an ultra-compact ribbon loudspeaker, specifically designed for applications where ultimate fidelity response needs to be projected with wide horizontal and precise vertical coverage, such as low-profile stage-lip/front-fill, upper-/under-balcony or stair risers or walls.

The rapidly acceptance-gaining Q-series will be on show, with a 2 metre stack of QR36 and a stand-mounted QR18 ribbon column array. "Ultimate controlled projection" are the key-words here, says the company.

The already famous flexibility of the LR14 ultra-compact ribbon line-array is shown with the unique BRK3LR14 brac

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UK - ETC is delighted to announce that it has won the order to supply Sensor+ dimmers with CEM+ processors plus Matrix Mk II SineWave dimmer racks for installation in the Royal Festival Hall, which is currently undergoing redevelopment. The dimmers will be installed by Northern Light during the refurbishment on the South Bank.

Mark White, regional manager for ETC UK and Ireland says: "I am very pleased to note that with the installation at the RFH, ETC equipment will be dimming and switching most of the theatre installations on the South Bank. Adding the existing installations - Unicorn Theatre, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Royal National Theatre - this new installation will bring our total number of Sensor dimming channels in central London to just over 16,000 and the total of Matrix SineWave channels to just under 2,000."

White added: "I'm pleased to say that we a

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UK - When production manager and lighting designer Steve Nolan was asked to provide both production and lighting services for the live touring show of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds he soon realized he had his work cut out. Wearing two hats on the same show meant he needed a flexible and reliable lighting supplier and a very capable associate LD and programmer. He ultimately found both in PRG Europe.

Nolan explains: "I wouldn't normally take both roles on the same show. However having become involved I realized that production designer Jonathan Park and composer Jeff Wayne had very strong ideas of how they wanted the show to look and I felt another creative could muddy the waters. Although I am first and foremost a lighting designer, due to the complexity of the staging and my responsibilities as production manager, I needed an associate LD/programmer who I could trust to t

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France - Barco are the official supplier of digital cinema projectors at 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Recognized as an industry leader in digital cinema, Barco will be the sole supplier of digital cinema projectors for all 2K digital screenings at this year's festival.

The Festival de Cannes continues its strong association with Barco in awarding the responsibility of supplying projectors for all the 2K digital screenings of the festival. Barco's 2K digital cinema projectors, based on Texas Instruments' DLP Cinema technology, equip the Lumière, Debussy, Bazin and Bunuel auditoriums during the Festival and are provided in partnership with XDC. In addition, Barco will also supply digital projectors to the Marché Du Film in the auditoriums of Bory, Palaris D, E and F.

Nico Vernieuwe, VP sales and marketing of Barco's media and entertainment division says: "We are delig

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UK - The UK's first on-line resource for the AV industry has officially gone live. Brainchild of industry veteran Antony Drew, the new website allows freelance members to record their specialities, daily or hourly rates and availability online. Business users can then subscribe to search for freelancers from the comprehensive members' database.

Freelancer profiles can be viewed by speciality, day rate, and ability while the site's up-to-date availability feature allows resources to be optimised, keeping the project management process flowing freely. The web and SMS text-based service allows businesses to issue a text alert when they require support to which interested freelancers can respond direct. In return, FreelanceColony members can also use the Internet Browser or SMS text to keep their personal calendar up to date.

As freelanceColony is accessible via any web browser, b

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UK - Audio-Technica Ltd. has announced that it has been appointed as UK distributor for the True Systems range of microphone preamps.

True Systems is a product line of US consulting, design and manufacturing company Sunrise Engineering and Design. The current product range comprises the P2 Analog 2-channel mic preamp, the Precision 8i, 8-channel preamp, and the single channel P-SOLO desktop preamp. Designed for studio, live and location-based recording, each of the True Systems units delivers hi-end sonic performance in a variety of situations.

Tim Spencer, president of True Systems says: "Audio-Technica has always been known for innovative technology, highest-quality products and serious customer focus. So, when the opportunity arose to work with Audio-Technica Ltd. for distribution of True Systems products in the UK and Germany, we were very excited - and honoured. Afte

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Iran - The 300-seat Talan Honar theatre is an antique building located in the heart of Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The theatre is mainly used for multipurpose applications, such as theatre, drama, live music and - being equipped with 5.1 Dolby equipment and a 35mm cinema projector - for screening movies.

The theatre is owned by the Municipality of Tehran and its refurbishment was recently completed by one of Iran's largest Iranian companies (Sazeman Farhangi Honary Shardari), which renovated the hall, changing the interior decoration, seats, screen, acoustic treatment and wall covering, as well as the sound reinforcement system and lighting fixtures.

The project manager in charge for the municipality was Masood Roostaei and the upgrade began in August 2005 and ended in February 2006. The sound equipment was provided by Italian manufacturer Outline, and

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UK - DPA Microphones has announced a major staff restructure following a year-on-year growth of 20% to May 2006. The move is designed to focus staff in areas where their skills and expertise will most benefit the company, placing DPA in the optimum position for continued rapid expansion.

René Morch, formerly with DK Technologies, has joined DPA as new development manager with a brief to oversee all technical projects, optimising the potential of the creative team behind the company's product development.

The other changes affect three of the company's co-owners. Ole Brosted Sorensen has become Director of Innovation, steering the company's technological developments into the future, while Jens-Jorn Stokholm - one of the developers of DPA's renowed miniature microphone - is Director of Development, ensuring that the company's direction is realised.

Meanwhile Morten Sto

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UK - Harvard Engineering is the world's first and only ballast manufacturer to gainENEC approval for HID ballasts. Over 20 different markets are covered by the European Norms Electrical Certification which has consolidated a variety of European standards within the one approvals system.

ENEC is considered by member countries as the valid approvals mark for their own national market. John McDonnell, managing director at Harvard says: "This is an extremely significant approval within the lighting industry. Our HID range is the first set of HID ballasts in the world to have gained ENEC approval.

"The approval confirms the ability of our in-house design team and our UK based production line to design and manufacture high quality and high performing products."

Harvard Engineering makes a wide range of electronic ballasts recognised as being at the cutting edge of t

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