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Slovakia - With three stages featuring Electro-Voice pro audio equipment, the new Slovakian National Theatre in Bratislava meets the highest international standards. EV's Slovakian partner, SBL Acoustics, undertook the audio installation - including 200 EV speakers - with support from local installation specialists Proeling.

"One of the principal stipulations for the sound systems was the provision of even coverage throughout each auditorium," says Stanislav Lehen, manager, SBL Acoustics. "This standard request proved trickier than expected. The architecture of the rooms posed a number of problems. They were all very wide and open. To arrive at a homogeneous sound image, therefore, we had to come up with something exceptional."

The theatre's technical special

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UK - Projected Image Digital (PID), and architectural lighting design practice Indigo, have designed specified and installed a spectacular Element Labs VersaPixel ceiling effect for the house gymnasium of a leading investment bank in London's Canary Wharf.

PID supplied 1500 25mm square VersaPixels, a VersaDRIVE C1 driver and a, Pharos LPC1 architectural lighting controller for the project, which was co-ordinated for them by Sam Douglas.

PID also designed and manufactured custom steel mounting brackets for the VersaPixels which are installed in the room's ceiling panels, and created 17 special clips of digital content, working to a brief from Indigo's Paul Nulty and gym staff.

The content includes athletic-themed figures running, skipping and rowing, a heart trace graphic equalizer effect etc., plus a selection of more ambient, 'mood' style clips like clouds and flocks of fly

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USA - Distributor TMB has announced that Hippotizer V3 training will be available at LDI, hosted by the LDI Institute, offering an opportunity to get intensive hands-on training on the Hippotizer V3 Media Server from Green Hippo. The Workshop is scheduled for Tuesday, 13 November, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in room 104B.

On hand will be James Heron and Nigel Sadler from Green Hippo of the UK, along with technical specialists from TMB, Hippotizer distributor in the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia.

Hippotizer V3 was launched in July and is already in wide use by many of the world's top production designers and visual creators. The new V3 has already been featured in top productions of all kinds, including NBC TV's Dancing With The Stars and The Today Show; Deuce; Little Mermaid and Young Frankenstein on Broadway; London's Theatre de Complicit&

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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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USA - Martin Professional has named Michael Nevitt's as product manager (US). Formerly Martin US's marketing manager, Nevittwill now take responsibility of all facets of product management including promotion, R&D communications with the company's headquarters in Denmark, pipeline information flow, product life span monitoring and field testing of new products. As a support to sales, Michael will assist with demonstrations and will consult on projects as needed.

"By improving the launch process as well as the product training and educational aspects, we will strengthen our position in the marketplace," said Brian Friborg, president at Martin US. "With so many new products on the horizon, we have a definite need to introduce them properly and educate not only our staff, but our customers. I have full confidence that Michael, with his strong product knowledge and te

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UK - Rental and production company, Chameleon pro audio and lighting has recently augmented its hire stock with a rack of four Crest Pro200 Series amplifiers. Designed with touring sound professionals in mind, Crest Pro200 Series amplifiers offer increased power, lower weight and a smaller enclosure than competing amplifiers from other brands, in an extremely economical package. Chameleon opted for a rack comprising one Pro5200, two Pro8200s and one Pro9200, the high power 'Big Brother' of the range.

"We have a great number of amplifiers in stock from a wide variety of well known manufacturers," noted Chameleon MD Stewart Duckworth. "However, in order to meet increasing demand for powerful, lightweight racks at a reasonable price point, we needed to increase our hire stock, so I started to have a serious look around at what was available."

After several dem

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Germany - One of Germany's most impressive new sports and leisure parks can be found in the automotive capital of Stuttgart. Here, the mighty Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadium in NeckarPark, home to VfB Stuttgart FC, has been joined recently by the 15,500-capacity Hans-Martin-Schleyer concert hall, and the Porsche and Carl Benz Arenas - all linked by a giant concourse, with common parking facilities.

Soundweb London DSP devices from BSS Audio play a significant role in the signal distribution across this complex.

Much of the NeckarPark development, including the Carl Benz Center (which houses the Arena), has been financed by one of the most important private investors in Stuttgart, Rudi Häussler of the Häussler Group. In addition to the Arena, the Carl Benz complex contains the four-star Hilton Garden Inn Hotel, a supporters' shop, fitness centre and restaurant as well as being the b

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USA - Eclipse Marketing has announced its sponsorship of D-Tools' 5th annual Design Awards with an electronic newsletter marketing campaign that is personalised for the winner. This exclusive award will be given to a residential dealer who submitted an exceptional project that was created with D-Tools System Integrator 5 software.

Dealers submitted entries to D-Tools' development team and Certified Partners who then reviewed the projects and selected winners. The entries will be judged on a number of criteria, including originality, most thorough use of D-Tools' software functionality, overall visual quality of designs, plans, and schematics. Judges will also look at which projects best communicate the system designer's vision.

Says Leslie Stevens, president of Eclipse Marketing: "It's an honour to sponsor D-Tools' 2007 Design Awards. We know that D-Tools wants to provide

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World - When the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was kitting out its latest world tour, lighting director Al Crawford chose the multi award-winning Eos to replace the company's Obsession II, also from ETC.

Says Crawford: "I am aware that we have one of the first Eos consoles available. The product team are really excited about the development of the desk and listen carefully to their end users. For example, there was one time when we had an issue with the software - not a fault, but we needed it to operate differently. We contacted ETC and received a software update within 24 hours. We felt they completely supported during the Eos's tour around the world. That is unprecedented in my book - they truly stepped up to the plate."

Alvin Ailey was among the first to use an Eos lighting control desk from ETC, which recently won a PLASA Award for Innovation, completing a

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UK - With Line Arrays now a common tool amongst most touring rental companies, a further investment usually has to be in infrastructure for the system in the form of cabling, and more often than not a ground support system.

Litestructures approached speaker manufacturers directly about their various systems available. The result is that Litestructures has re-invented Its LiteMast with their ProBase system which works in place of the standard fixed angled corner joint. The ProBase incorporates universal mountings for chain hoists allowing one person to locate and fix the hoist in position rather than two which most other systems require. Another key point to the ProBase is the all round hinged corners, these allow the unit to be folded down for shipping with out the need to fully disassemble the mast, aiding load in and load out time.

RCF's Greg Oliver who assisted the Litestru

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UK - Earlier this week, two pallets of Kramer Electronics equipment were stolen from the back of a lorry in Hemel Hempstead, UK.

Amongst the long list of items stolen were the first VS-42HDMI 4x2 HDMI matrix switchers to be brought into the UK, and the first FC-31 UXGA-DVI converter. Products suitable for broadcast, professional AV and custom install were stolen.

If anybody has any suspicions about Kramer goods being offered to them, they can contact PC 2129 Fontenelle from Hertfordshire Constabulary, on 01442 271017, quoting crime ref DI/07/8568.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Metallica's recent European tour has justifiably been trumpeted by Midas as the acid test for its new XL8 digital live mixing system. But it was also a perfect demonstration of the quality and reliability of the components the design team specified. A case in point is the link between the console and the stage, one of the areas singled out by Metallica's engineer, Big Mick Hughes, as making a real difference. As he noted, with short leads from mics to stage box and a digital signal thereafter there was no discernible loss in frequency response - "an intelligibility and clarity that I've never really heard before", as he put it.

The link from the stage box is fibre optic to ensure that integrity of signal is matched by high-speed, zero-latency data transfer. The only question mark at design stage was over the flimsy plastic 'LC' connectors routinely supplied with f

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USA - The production team of Walmartopia chose the new Light Palette VL console for the off Broadway production in New York. Programmer Jon Dunkle said: "This console offers everything I have been looking for in a theatre desk. It offers the ease, speed, and familiarity of command-line data entry and the convenience of touch screen selections. The powerful fixture library and abstract control model allowed me to adjust all parameters of intelligent devices as easily as bringing up a dimmer. All possible attribute selections were conveniently displayed in an understandable vocabulary - I never had to think about a numeric DMX value when manipulating a fixture. Also worth mentioning is the easy to use effects engine. Intuitive and useful effects are built in, and are easy to access, apply, and manipulate for any given fixture or parameter."

Bobby Harrell, lighting contro

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UK - The first of three Hawthorn @ Home events were held a Hawthorn's Leicestershire base last Friday. The event focusing on Moving Lights was a great success with both visitors and exhibitors expressing their delight at the event.

Companies taking part were Robe Show Lighting, Martin Professional, ETC and Clay Paky. Clay Paky's area manager, Emilio Cornelli commented: "This is a great opportunity for us to get our products in front of the users themselves and Hawthorns are always great hosts."

The next Hawthorn@ Home will be held on Friday 26 October. 'Pyro and Effects' is an opportunity to see a pyrotechnic demonstration by Le Maitre, as well as lighting effects from other companies such as Rosco/DHA and Martin Professional.

(Jim Evans)

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Canada - The Warped Tour is an ultra-hip vehicle for bringing punk, ska and hardcore metal tempered with a dose of extreme sports to the masses. Now in its (lucky) thirteenth year and sponsored, as ever, by Vans, the über-cool skate, surf and BMX shoe and garment manufacturers, Warped 2007 covered the length and breadth of the United States and Canada, bringing up to one hundred bands per show to legions of adoring fans.

The Canadian dates saw Warped 2007 partner with Union Label Group, a Montreal-based punk record label, who sponsored their own Union Label stage in order to showcase Canadian punk and ska bands. Union Label turned to Sennheiser Canada, long-time distributors of InnovaSON consoles in Canada, for technical support and advice in setting up the stage. Sennheiser Canada's Vaino Gennaro, after discussions with well-known Montreal sound engineer Kevin Holland and repr

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Austria - Visual Productions has confirmed the appointment of Vienna based company Klangfarbe Sound & Light as a new dealer for its lighting control software products.

Founded in the 1980s to supply musicians with the newest gear combined with a high level of service and support, Klangfarbe today consists of four divisions - E-Guitars, Acoustics, Studio & Keyboards and Sound & Light.

The Sound & Light division focuses on pro-audio and light solutions for installation into, amongst other venues, museums, shops and bars. With the addition of VisualDMX lighting control software to their product range, says Andreas Prochaska, light sales director, the "seamless integration of a touchscreen and the visualisation tool Visual3D, usually only found in much more expensive gear" gives great opportunities for smart, affordable lighting control.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Swansea rock band The Storys recently completed their support role on Elton John's tour of the UK and Europe with a Soundcraft Vi6 digital live mixing console.

The tour played notable arenas and sports grounds up and down the UK and out as far as Malmo in Sweden to crowds of up to 30,000. "The Vi6 performed perfectly", said Dale Hanson, The Storys' FOH engineer. "No matter what conditions we performed in, including at the Sor Arena in Norway where all the crews were experiencing problems with the continuous rain, the Vi6 never hesitated and gave us a perfect show every time. The first time I got my hands on a Vi6 was at the O2 Arena's club - Indigo2, that immediately made my mind up - we had to use one on tour."

On the road for six weeks, the band played 10 venues. Hanson adds: "Being the support band, we often have to wait our place in the queue

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USA - Philips Solid-State Lighting Solutions, the new entity formed by Philips' acquisition of Color Kinetics, marks the nation's 16th annual Energy Awareness Month with continuing support for programmes that increase awareness and use of energy-efficient LED lighting. Among these programmes, the company will support the 2007 Solar Decathlon - an international competition sponsored by the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Philips Solid-State Lighting Solutions will provide a total of $19,500 in LED lighting equipment to the teams representing the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland, who will compete to design, build and operate the most livable, energy-efficient, completely solar-powered house. The 2007 Solar Decathlon takes place 12-20 at the National Mall in Washi

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USA - Houses of worship often represent a challenge for sound system designers. With a wide range of services and other events to be accommodated during a typical week, flexibility represents a key parameter. And increasingly larger contemporary choirs with on-stage musicians can present a challenge to trained audio engineers, let alone volunteer staff.

When Faith Chapel Foursquare Church of Billings, MT, went shopping for a console for its 1,100-seat sanctuary, the list of requirements was long and complex. "We ultimately chose a Soundcraft Vi digital console," explains chief audio technician Kelly Olp. "It's an unbelievable sounding board with a great variety of routing options, onboard effects processing, and equalization. We couldn't be happier with the purchase of this outstanding console."

The church also needed to make sure that its new console would

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UK - When Robert McWhir, the director for I Love You Because, wanted to put on this new musical premiere at the Landor Theatre, he was aware that it would be challenging to find the right combination of lighting fixtures and control system that would allow moving lights, LED fixtures, conventionals and video to be seamlessly integrated. Part of the challenge was the need for a single control system which would minimise the budget on rental and operator costs. The solution was to use grandMA.

With the assistance of Entec Sound and Light, a package was put together that included a grandMA full-size for programming, a grandMA light for playback, an MA NSP to distribute the DMX and act in conjunction with an in-house PC as backup system, and finally a second PC as media server running grandMA video.

In line with the method favoured by theatrical productions today, the rehea

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USA - Having been used to great effect earlier this year on the National Football League's (NFL) Superbowl trophy, Lighthouse Technologies' ultra fine resolution R4 4mm LED screen is being used for broadcasting Sunday Night Football on NBC at 8pm every Sunday this fall.

Hosted by Al Michaels giving play-by-play commentary and John Madden as the colour announcer, the show broadcasts Sunday night's primetime games.

New York-based full service production company AG Light and Sound is responsible for the installation and operation of the screen, which is positioned at the rear of the onsite broadcast booth. An XClyps video playback system from Chyron supplies the video feed from NBC's mobile production studio. The system is composed of an HD background loop with a live feed of scores and HD-SDI input. This data is then fed through a Lighthouse LIP-KX Interface Processor to the scr

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Australia - L-Acoustics reports that the Perth-based company AAA Production Services has purchased the first L-Acoustics ultra-compact KIVA Line Source Array (WST) speaker system in Australia.

Sourced from L-Acoustics distributor in Australia, Random Audio in Sydney, the KIVA speaker system is suitable for both fixed installation and rental applications.

AAA Production Services will utilise their new system for the first time at the 2007 Red Bull Air Race to be held in November on the Swan River in Perth.

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