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UK - Entertainment lighting supplier White Light was asked by set and lighting designer David Amos to work with him on the lighting for this year's showcase concert at Hurtwood House, one of the top higher education schools for the performing arts in the country.

Amos has been designing shows for Hurtwood House for several years, working with resident director Miles Russell and guest West End choreographers to create. This year, the designer decided to try a different approach to the show. "I persuaded Miles that rather than using the theatre in its standard end-on format, we should do the show side-on, using the full width of the theatre," he explains.

"This presented the production with many challenges in terms of audience seating, which had to be built from scr

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UK - For the fifth consecutive year, Fleetwood Mobiles was commissioned to provide the audio from the NME Awards, which took place at London's Hammersmith Palais and was broadcast live on E4. Fleetwood director Tim Summerhayes, assisted by Ollie Nesham and Matt Wood, recorded and mixed the audio on-board the Fleetwood Two mobile.

"We had a day to rehearse, then it was all hands to the pump to make sure everything went smoothly on the night," Summerhayes says. "It was a great show with plenty of full-on rock bands, which is what we enjoy. The only tricky part of the evening was recording Jarvis Cocker and The Gossip singer Beth Ditto's electric acoustic set, which involved a few more mics and inputs than we had expected, but it all went well and the broadcast audio was delivered to E4 via CTV, which was handling the pictures."

Rock group Muse took the award

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Germany - The well-known loudspeaker manufacturer is offering something a little different at ProLight&Sound this year, according to its pre-show publicity: "Scientists have always theorised that beyond the black emptiness of Dark Matter lay the keys to the universe," they say . . . "One such key resides inside d&b audiotechnik's enigmatic black box at ProLight&Sound, but you'll have to step inside to find it. Suspend your disbelief, prepare for projection and place product to one side while you contemplate the truth of audio in a multimedia world, touch it, see it, feel it and be enlightened."

(Jim Evans)

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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Italy - Following weeks of intensive testing and evaluation at Prase Engineering's facilities in Noventa di Piave, Ennio and Alberto Prase met with Audica's sales director, Derek West, at ISE Amsterdam to shake hands on their agreement to distribute Audica Professional in Italy.

Commenting on the decision to add Audica to its portfolio, Ennio Prase says, "With every conceivable type of loudspeaker available in the market, it was difficult to imagine that anything new could be radically different - but Audica is just that. With MICROseries, Audica has designed a system with such style and innovation that it is a real advance, and that is a great compliment to their design capability.

Audica Professional's Derek West adds: "I have always regarded Prase Engineering as a reference distributor, for their integrity, ability and technical standards. With such an appreciatio

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USA - New Covenant Ministries in Lithona, Georgia, has a new sound system designed by Ronnie Stanford of dB Audio and Video. For years, New Covenant suffered through a sound system that provided terrible coverage to much of the main room. "Between the mix position and the first row," recalled Stanford, "there was a 25dB drop! If you got thingssounding right at the mix position, you blew the front row away. Altogether,it was a poor design filled with poor speakers.

"But New Covenant had a very sharp tech team," Stanford continued. "They knew exactly what they wanted in the way of fidelity. Pastor Billy Johnson is an amazing musician with an extraordinary voice. When we brought our first demo over, he asked us to turn it off so that he could play keyboard through the system. That was the real test."

The challenge for Stanford was to deliver 105

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UK - LD Neil Trenell specified an Avolites Diamond 4 to control lighting and a Hippotizer digital media server for Lily Allen's recent UK theatre tour which featured her largest production to date.

The D4 Elite was controlling 32 of the new Robe Series 700 ColorSpot and Color Wash fixtures, 16 i-Pix Satellites used for toning the front and rear trusses, five 4-cell blinders on the front truss, 14 strings of festoons, several hundred feet of rope light, five sets of Christmas tree lights draped over the backline, four mirror balls and two compressed air confetti cannons. All lighting and FX equipment was supplied by HSL.

The D4 was also triggering Trenell's own Hippotizer digital media server, loaded up with content driving a 10x10m Soft-LED backdrop. Trenell's lightshow for Allen has a bouncy, up-tempo carnival feel to it - in keeping with her renowned spirited and lively perf

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UK - The Soundcraft Vi Series of digital live sound consoles has been extended with the new Soundcraft Vi4 model, offering "all the functionality and facilities of the Soundcraft Vi6, but in a smaller, more compact footprint more suited for space-conscious applications such as Theatres, Houses of Worship and venues or clubs with space-limited mix positions".

In just under 1.5m, the Soundcraft Vi4 offers access to 48 inputs on 24 faders, with a total of 27 output busses available for use as masters, groups, auxes or matrices. All other features of the Soundcraft Vi6, such as the Vistonics touch-screen user interface, and FaderGlow fader function display are inherited by the Soundcraft Vi4.

Also available on the Soundcraft Vi4 is the new Processing Card option, which adds eight powerful assignable Lexicon Effects sections, together with 30-band BSS Audio graphic equali

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Sweden / Germany - Wireless Solution Sweden will be displaying the new W-DMX Generation 3 product range at ProLight&Sound, in addition to the new W-DIM Standard, the latest OEM partner product from RC4 Wireless of Toronto.

Generation 3 includes new and improved features such as easy overview of signal strength and battery power, plus full implementation of DMX over Ethernet. W-DMX has the full support of RDM, is CE and ETSI certified in Europe and Asia, FCC certified in the Americas (awaiting UL), and is certified in Japan with ARIB STD-T66 radio standards.

The R-512 Pro Receiver and T-1 Transceiver will be shown as well, featuring a 'one button technology' toggle, allowing the unit to easily switch from receiver to transmitter. A complete new and updated outdoor range is also available.

PCBs are built into the new RC4 4-channel W-DIM series of wireless dimmers, delivering 1

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UK - Barco UK managing director Jonathan Cooper has committed to an exciting Trek to Peru in May this year in support of Vision and the Unicorn Children's Theatre. This charity raises funds to help support the audio described facility for children who have great difficulty in seeing what is happening on the stage.

"If you are able to support the trek it would be wonderful, full details can be found on the website www.unicorntheatre.com," says Cooper. "A group of around 15 of us will be trekking up to 10 hours a day for five days - reaching a height of 4,600m - and camping overnight along the way."

Donations can be made via www.justgiving.com/jonathancoopertrek.

"Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It i

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UK - XL Video UK is supplying 270 panels of its new stock of Barco MiTRIX screen to Nelly Furtado's UK and European tour. This was specified by lighting and set designer Bradley Wagg, who has been working with the Canadian-Portuguese songstress Furtado since last summer.

XL's account handler Des Fallon comments: "This is a great example of video elements being brought into the show as 'digital lighting'. It's good to be working with them - Nelly Furtado is an exciting and hugely talented artist and there is a real buzz about her, the show and its presentation."

Toronto-based Wagg has used video in clubs and on corporate events before, but this is the first time he has fully integrated the medium into a live show like this one. It is also his first European tour and the first time he has worked with XL Video, who came onboard through Bob Ward's new company, Safe as Mi

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Sweden / UK - Lab.gruppen has signed an exclusive UK distribution agreement with newly formed Cambridge-based Audioforce. The new company is headed up by industry veteran Guy Lewis, most recently sales and marketing director at XTA, and backed by the commercial resources of PAXT, a long-standing audio export specialist captained by managing director Tim Pollard. Audioforce will operate from the PAXT headquarters in Cambridge and will benefit from the company's well-established commercial infrastructure and support capability.

"We are delighted to have Audioforce on board in the UK. We have evolved a very close rapport with Guy Lewis and Tim Pollard in the past few weeks and it is clear to us that Audioforce will come as close as possible to having a factory-direct operation, such is the symbiosis between ourselves and Audioforce," says Lab.gruppen's European sales mana

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Germany - SPL will be showing several new products at ProLight&Sound, headed by the SPL RackPack modular system that allows for free configuration of an analogue rack fully loaded with SPL kit.

From June 2007, the first available modules will be the two new preamps. The Preference Mic-Pre is a straightforward, transformerless IC preamp, while the Premium Mic-Pre offers a triple stage solid state design with a Lundahl input transformer and discrete transistor circuitry. Further modules will follow later in the year; tube modules are scheduled for 2008.

SPL's new Atmos Controller system is a complete surround miking system including the ASM5 microphone based upon VM1 capsules from Brauner. The Controller's concept now focuses on basic mic'ing features and can be complemented with further modules to meet individual demands, such as a remote control to adjust the ASM5 pattern char

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USA - Biamp reports that all of its products are fully compliant with the China RoHS directive. As of 1 March, 2007, all of Biamp's products are shipping with marking and manual verbiage that comply with all of China's new RoHS laws. Biamp customers will notice all packaging includes the mandatory EPUP logo. This ensures that product will not release any defined hazardous substances, including lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, or brominated fire retardants, says the company.

"We are very proud to announce that we are fully compliant with the new China RoHS directive, ahead of the deadline," said Chuck Gollnick, lead engineer at Biamp. "Our products have not contained many of these harmful substances for a number of years now. With a concentrated effort, we have taken the extra steps needed to ensure all of our products are fully compliant without interr

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USA - New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music has installed a new 32-axis power flying system from Stage Technologies, making its backstage equipment "as current, sophisticated and impressive as any major new build".

During a dormant period of nearly two decades the building greatly deteriorated and suffered extensive water damage. A major restoration project in the 1980s worked to retain and dramatically enhance the building's historic appearance. Without detracting from the prime aesthetics of the building, a new power flying system has been installed to automate the theatre's existing scenery bars, enabling a much quicker turnaround for performances.

The venue is now equipped with 32 BigTow winches and controlled from an Acrobat control console. The power flying system eliminates the use of counterweight cradles, improving the theatre's health & safety backstage. Sta

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USA - At the USITT exhibition in Phoenix, d&b featured the newly expanded d&b Remote network. Comprising the new R60 USB to CAN interface, the recently released ROPE C Version 2.0.7 remote software for PC platforms and the d&b D12 and E-PAC amplifiers.

The R60 USB to CAN interface is the latest addition to the d&b Remote network. It is designed to connect d&b's amplifiers to a PC and comes with drivers for WindowsR operating systems. The ROPE C Version 2.0.7 permits the use of up to five R60 interfaces with one computer enabling a maximum of 500 and three amplifiers into one system design.

This latest software version of ROPE C also offers the ability to control and monitor d&b loudspeaker systems in much greater detail at the amplifier level, via its graphical drag and drop interface.

Colin Beveridge who heads up d&b's US office commented, "We see ever more complex sys

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USA - Biamp has announced the hiring of four new engineers. Larry Copley, Jeff Jones, Dominic Perez and Angela Van Osdol have joined the Biamp Systems team under the direction of Matt Czyzewski, VP technical operations, Biamp Systems.

Regarding the announcement, Czyzewski stated: "Larry, Jeff, Dominic and Angela each bring knowledge and experience that we feel will greatly benefit our manufacturing and production processes. We are very fortunate to add these new members who have a proven record for innovative thinking and efficiency and we look forward to the great results we know these engineers can enable Biamp to provide."

Larry Copley's career includes having worked as a compliance engineer with RadiSys Corporation, and a number of different positions with Underwriters Laboratories. Test Engineer Jeff Jones most recently worked as a senior systems electrical vali

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UK - ChamSys Ltd has announced that Lighting Partners has become an agent for sales of ChamSys Magic consoles and MagicQ wings for the UK. ChamSys reports heavy growth over the past few months, and believes that with the increased demand for its products, the affiliation with Lighting Partners will be a great success.

Lighting Partners has achieved success with its two website-based businesses, usedlighting.co.uk, which concentrates on the re-sale of used and ex-hire equipment and stagelighting.co.uk which sells new products.

ChamSys says that the MagicQ can be used for live events, theatre, TV, touring, architectural and installation applications and offers full-speed playback, even with all channels patched; the ability to customise and configure settings and layout; a reliable Linux operating system, with in-built UPS, industrial processor and show archiver; virtually unlim

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USA - Christian rock group Jars of Clay added High End Systems' DL.2s to their North American tour. "Every city we have gone to we get the 'wow' factor of what the DL2 can do. There are so many ways to use the fixture," says tour LD Kevin Maas of lighting contractor The Opera Shop in Denver. "I have used it to do something as simple as a stage wash for some extra color, as well as to project aerials into the crowd and on a cyc. The band has been really pleased with the fixture. Every day we try to do something new and creative. There are so many stock images and video that can be used. Using DL2 is a great part of creating the mode for each song."

Lighting contractor is The Opera Shop of Denver. TLS of Huntsville, Alabama, provided the two DL.2s on the tour, which runs until 15 April. Production manager is Mark DuFrene of Austin, Texas.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - As the largest co-educational boarding school in the UK, Millfield School in Somerset recently commissioned a fully-featured concert hall, the focal point of a newly-developed £12 million music block. The public school brought in Arup Acoustics, who became responsible for sound containment and acoustic optimisation, while Stirling Trading were awarded the contract to specify and fit out the auditorium and provide other music facilities.

Andrew Stirling managed the project personally, specifying a Nexo PS15 system to meet the diverse programme requirements, ranging from orchestral recitals to rock concerts. "The brief for the concert hall was to provide a good quality utility sound reinforcement system that would principally fulfil the vocal requirement," said Stirling. "It needed to be sufficiently powerful without being overly-intrusive, and so we opte

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UK / Germany - With worldwide sales of live sound products doubling over the last two years, Logic System's presence at ProLight&Sound will "unashamedly be all about its Ethos range of products that targets this market", the company says.

This attention will centre on the Ethos CA system, which was previewed at PLASA '06 and is now in full production. CA is an ultra-compact fixed angle array box, which comes with a complementary bass cabinet, the Ethos B300. The system can be flown, ground-stacked or even pole-mounted. The standard enclosure offers coverage of 90° x 20° and Frankfurt will see the release of an additional version the Ethos CA10 with optional 90° x 10° directivity.

The stand will also feature the Ethos VA array system, LM series stage monitors and the ML range of multifunction cabinets.

Logic adds that ProLight&Sound will also see the

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