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USA - Elation Professional has launched a new control solution for LEDs and DMX systems used in permanent architectural and entertainment installations. Designed to mount unobtrusively on the wall, the trim, compact AR-32 Architectural DMX Recorder/Playback System can produce professional-quality light shows downloaded from any standard DMX 512 controller, says Elation.

Using the AR-32, operators can now run all of their DMX-compatible lights from one easy-to-operate unit. The system comes factory-programmed for LED fixtures operating in 3-channel or RGB mode, and it can also control automated moving lights and DMX-compatible dimmers and power packs.

Capable of recording and playback in real time, the AR-32 has the ability to record show fade and hold times directly from the DMX

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UK - A huge success story in Spain, street-wear retailer Desigual is now raising its ambitions to a more global level. And to entice shoppers in to sample its ranges of garments, Lighthouse 10mm LED screens are providing an eye-catching entrance in Desigual's most high profile stores, starting with the recently opened store in Las Ramblas in the very heart of Barcelona, Spain.

The company currently has 38 Spanish outlets, in locations from Barcelona to Zaragoza, while new outlets have recently opened in Italy and Singapore with one in London to follow in the spring.

The Desigual store in Las Ramblas, Barcelona is in a prime position, cutting through the heart of the city centre. Such is the popularity of the area and the amount of shopping on offer that something very special is required to make any new retail premises stand out from all the others. Desigual therefore chose tw

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UK - Allen & Heath has launched the XD-53 professional monitoring headphones, designed to complement the company's established brand of Xone DJ mixers.

The XD-53's incorporate a circumaural isolation design, providing high level isolation from ambient noise, which make them suitable for DJ's requiring immersive listening in loud environments, says the company.

Comprising 53mm diameter drivers - the largest drivers currently available - with high power neodymium magnet design, 1500 mW of power handling, and high SPL capacity, the XD-53 headphones deliver "excellent sound reproduction". They also have rotating earpieces for easy one-ear monitoring, a coiled cable with convenient one-side exit, and a folding design for compact portability.

"The Xone range of DJ mixers has a staunchly loyal following and many customers were asking if we could design headphones to

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 - Preceding all NASCAR race telecasts on ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN on ABC is an opportunity to see TV lighting history. ESPN's NASCAR Countdown studio show will originate from "the most technologically advanced travelling studio ever used in sports television". The mobile pit studio which will travel to 26 NASCAR tracks this season, has been entirely outfitted with state-of-the-art LED lighting. "ESPN and ESPN on ABC's coverage of the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series and NASCAR Busch Series will be the most technologically advanced programming in the history of televised motorsports," according to Jed Drake, senior vice president and executive producer for ESPN.

The studio marks a new direction in TV studio lighting as designed by lighting designer Bruce Ferri of New York City Lites. This was intentional according to Ferri, "We all know that we could have

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USA - Directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa opened in theatres last december and was released to DVD in March. This new Rocky movie features eight 8' X 33' Main Light Soft-LED dynamic drapes above the ring in the fight scenes. The draperies and content control system were supplied by Main Light and programmed by Giovanni S. Ciranni for the shoot, which was held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.

Production designer Franco-Giacomo Carbone said, "I would say that the Soft-LED visually brought the emblematic boxing ring and the Rocky series squarely into the 21st century."

(Jim Evans)

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China - Prolight + Sound Shanghai which takes place 17-20 October 2007, will double in size and scale to occupy two halls at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. Returning for it's fifth annual session, this specialist trade fair is growing alongside China's continuing investment in commercial and cultural infrastructure, say the organisers.

New sports facilities, clubs, hotels, airports, theme parks, broadcasting stations, and entertainment venues are springing up right across the country, creating strong demand for pro-sound, lighting and entertainment products. This is demonstrated by the fact that over 12,000 professional visitors - including retailers, dealers, distributors, technicians, engineering contractors and stage & lighting designers - attended the show in 2006.

China has allocated some US$17 billion in funds to build 42 new airports over the next five year

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UK - Harman Pro UK, British distributors for the Harman Group of Pro-audio manufacturing brands, has just released its updated 2007 UK price list.

At over 150 pages long, the full-colour list covers all the current products sold by Harman brands AKG, BSS Audio, Crown, dbx, JBL, Lexicon and Soundcraft, including the most recent releases announced at the Winter NAMM show. Each product is fully described, and prices are printed including and excluding VAT.

(Jim Evans)

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Germany - Uwe Seyfert is to join Stephan Behrens as sales director and shareholder at Innoton, the specialist pro audio distribution company established by Behrens earlier in the year. With the main office located in the south of Germany, Seyfertˆs location in the north gives Innoton comprehensive geographic coverage.

"Stephan and I have a shared philosophy on how specialist professional audio equipment and recording media should be distributed," comments Seyfert. "Together we can offer dealers and their customers the high levels of sales and technical service necessary to support specialist products such as those from HHB and Cedar."

HHB Managing Director Ian Jones comments, "This is great news for HHB and for audio professionals in Germany. I've known Uwe almost as long as Stephan, and I'm confident that existing users of HHBproducts and new custome

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USA - On the heels of record breaking 2006 financial results for Martin Professional A/S with regard to total revenue, year to year improvement in EBT and operating cash flow, Martin Professional Inc has announced an aggressive, customer-oriented sales approach for 2007 that includes holding a number of customer-centered events as well as participation in several industry exhibitions.

Gorm Teichert, Martin Professional's international marketing director, commented: "We have decided to broaden our communication and marketing scope in 2007 by setting focus on one-on-one customer contacts. In the future, Martin will be approaching customers more actively and promoting new products through greater use of workshops and seminars. There is a worldwide trend toward a more customer-centred approach where customer service and attention to specific customer needs has top priority. We

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UK - Le Maitre has announced the launch of the Aqua Visual FX. "We had a brilliant response last week at the RSVP exhibition, with many firm orders to hire this new and innovative equipment for launches, conferences, gala dinners and general events so we were extremely encouraged by the reaction to the one and only curtain of this type in the UK," says the company. "Due to the demand, we have already ordered another 6ft section in order to give us 12ft for any one event, which will be with us by mid-April and we will certainly purchase more as demand dictates."

With the ability to exhibit a visual graphic-rich story of designs, shapes, logos, text and the capability to display custom artwork from controlled water droplets, the Aqua Visual FX is billed as one of today's most innovative notice boards - 'a waterfall notice board'.

The system for showcasing fal

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The Netherlands - A design team led by the Dutch architects Mecanoo has won the international competition to design the National Kaohsiung Performing Arts Centre in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

A key team member of the design team, Louis Janssen, from Dutch theatre consulting office, theateradvies bv, was responsible for the design of the up-to-date theatre installations and logistics. The jury was particularly pleased with the interpretation of the programme and design of stage equipment.

The plans includes a concert hall with 2.300 seats, equipped with a flexible stage and all necessary hoisting facilities. A 2,000-seat opera house has a stage floor made up of five double deck elevators that can be moved from -11m to + 2.5m. The surface of these elevators, making up the stage floor, can be tilted and all are equipped with traps.

A 1,000-seat playhouse, a black- box theatre with 200

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Germany - d&b audiotechnik has launched the latest d&b ROPE C remote control software for PC platforms. "Connect them via the new d&b R60 USB to CAN interface to your d&b D12 and E-PACamplifiers and besides a mouthful of words and numbers you've got an expanded remote network," says the company.

The d&b R60 USB to CAN interface is the bespoke link for the d&b Remote network. Designed to elegantly connect d&b's amplifiers to a PC, it comes with drivers for Windows® operating systems. The ROPE C Version 2.0.8 can accommodate up to five R60 interfaces with a maximum of 503 amplifiers in 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.

"There is a strong feeling of Déjà Vu at ProLight+

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UK - Leeds-based sound hire company, Yorkshire Audio, has enjoyed long-standing success with the Martin Audio LE400 floor monitors they have been running biamped on the university circuit.

When company founder Bob Collinson saw the company's new LE1500's, which were introduced to the market late last year, he decided to upgrade. He contacted LMC Audio's Birmingham office and placed anorder for 12 of the compact wedges, stating confidently, "I didn't even need to try them."

With the festival season around the corner, Collinson says, "It was definitely time to buy. "I was offered part exchange on the old Martin Audio LE400 monitors - but they are still such a great box that I decided to keep them. Just about every spec that comes through has the LE series on the tour rider so it would have been silly to have got rid of them."

With the first batch alrea

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Germany - The new K8 digital audio distribution system from Klein + Hummel, is billed as "ideal for transporting professional quality audio across a facility". It can be used for simple point-to-point connections, or can form a distribution backbone for sending up to 16 audio channels to multiple remote locations.

The advantage of the K8 system, says the manufacturer, is that it carries 16 channels of uncompressed digital audio over a standard Cat 5 cable, at a rate of 48kHz, with a depth of 24 bits, and a total latency of less than 1 millisecond. The same cable also carries bi-directional data for remote monitoring and control of all devices connected within the K8 system over a single Ethernet port.

Cable lengths may be run up to a total of 200m through passively daisy-chained K8 devices. Actively refreshing the line with a K8 distribution amplifier allows "en

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USA - Community has announced the introduction of the WET Series II loudspeaker line. WET is an acronym standing for Weather Environmental Technology and it describes one of the main purposes of the product line - to defy the worst that Mother Nature can throw at it, year after year after year, says the manufacturer.

The original WET Series has been installed in many open-air areas in entertainment venues, sports facilities, cruise ships, water parks, ski resorts, skating rinks, and themed attractions such as Universal Studios' Jurassic Park.

WET Series II boasts a number of enhancements, including completely redesigned crossover networks for improved acoustic linearity, and restyled curvilinear 100% glass fibre composite enclosures that offer a more precise, tighter tolerance fit, and a stronger, more weatherproof exterior.

WET II models now utilise Community's Carbo

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USA - Held in the city's Reliant Stadium, the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (HLSR) three-week run features a world-class programme of rodeo competitions and nightly musical entertainment. An annual general attendance average of well over 1.1 million makes it one of the highest-attended indoor event series in the world.

Houston-based LD Systems designs and deploys sound reinforcement and lighting on a massive scale for the HLSR. This year, LD Systems' massive 108-speaker Electro-Voice X-Line rig was augmented by the new Midas XL8 digital live performance system.

The HLSR features 23 top tier acts over 20 days, running the genre gamut from George Strait to Beyonce to ZZ Top. Having had the opportunity to demo the XL8 during the day prior to soundcheck and showtime, well over half the performers' FOH engineers opted to use the XL8 for their evening mix - all became comf

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UK - Three acts have now been chosen to go through to the final of AKG's 2007 Unsigned Heroes competition, which is being held at Camden's Koko on 26 April. Against stiff competition, the winner for the Northern region was Liverpool's the Kashmirs, with their fast and furious Fall By The Way Side, while the Southern Region winner was Hitchin's Flamboyant Bella, with the piano-driven stomper Crazy Cool. Completing the trio are London's The Standards.

Amanda Chester, marketing manager for Harman Pro UK, comments, "We've been really knocked out by the response to this competition. It just goes to show how vibrant the UK's new music scene is,"

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Lighting designer Dave Davey, working with PRG Europe, lit The Galaxy British Book Awards, the publishing industry's equivalent of the BAFTAs or the Oscars. Calling itself "the glitziest event in the UK book trade industry's calendar", the awards ceremony celebrates the nation's favourite books, authors and publishers. The awards are nicknamed the Nibbies because of the fountain pen nib shaped award.

The ceremony and dinner, which was held at London's Grosvenor House Hotel on 28 March, presented a total of 12 awards, including a lifetime achievement award for John Grisham. The Nibbies are the only awards which take votes both from the public and the Academy of the British Book Industry, made up of publishers, booksellers, past winners and other industry representatives.

PRG Europe supplied some 40 Vari-Lite luminaires and 60 conventionals, including ETC S

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USA - Telecast Fiber Systems and Canon USA have announced a joint solution that allows broadcasters to overcome physical obstacles to the transmission of HD camera signals for production. The pairing of Telecast's SHED (SMPTE Hybrid Elimination Devices) and HDX with Canon's new Canobeam DT-150 Free-Space Optics (FSO) transmission system makes it easy for broadcasters to move HD and control signals from existing HD camera systems through a secure, high-speed, high-quality transmission, say the two companies.

"The Canobeam provides the same benefits offered by fibre, but without the physical restraints of cabling," said Gordon Tubbs, director of the Canon broadcast and communications division. "Like fibre, the system is protocol-independent and thus integrates easily with the Telecast SHED/HDX solution. Because it transmits uncompressed data, users can move media co

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Germany - Prism Sound launched a new audio interface unit for personal recording and sound production at ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt. The new product aims to bring the company's products to the wider community of musicians, songwriters, engineers and producers.

Orpheus, named after the Greek mythological musician whose songs were so beautiful that they could charm wild beasts, delivers the high-end audio quality for which Prism Sound is renowned in a dedicated and highly integrated FireWire interface at a price more accessible than its forebears, says the company.

The Orpheus unit draws on Prism Sound's converter and clock synchronisation expertise and technology developed over many years in products such as the AD-2 and DA-2 and the popular ADA-8 modular converter family, but with new capabilities and features designed to reflect the needs of musicians and producers working

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Finland - Over 450 Robe moving lights will be utilised in a spectacular lighting design for the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki which is being created by LD Mikki Kunttu.

This follows on from the successful 2005 ESC production in Kiev, which featured 350 Robe fixtures. Once again, the show's technical production manager is Ola Melzig, and the production company is Spectra from Sweden. Lighting equipment for the event, staged in Helsinki's 12,000 capacity Hartwall Areena is being supplied by locally based Eastway Oy, and the Robe units will be delivered directly to the show from the Czech Republic.

The ESC deal was cut with Robe's International sales manager Harry von den Stemmen, who comments, "This is take two for Robe at Eurovision, and it is really very exciting to be working with Ola and the Spectra team again. I caught a glimpse of Mikki's ideas for the show

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