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UK - Visitors to Baldwin Boxall's stand at either the 2009 ProLight&Sound (1-4 April, Frankfurt) or International Firex (11-14 May) will be well rewarded. The now infamous Plug & Socket has a new look this year. In addition, there will be two new products being showcased.

While supping on Harveys Real Ale, visitors to the Plug & Socket will be able to see a demonstration of the new BVRD2M4 mini router and the new BVRD voice alarm controller. Also on the stand will be the OmniCare emergency voice communication system.

The BVRD2M4 Mini four zone voice alarm router retains many of the features of the well established EVAS BVRD2M router. However, it is small enough to fit alongside a VIGIL2 amplifier and power supply in one 19 mainframe.

The unit's four electronically balanced inp

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USA - When more than a million people turned out on the Mall in Washington, D.C. to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama, it was perhaps less well known that 11 Zero 88 Fat Frogs were there too, controlling fixtures from Christie Lites, which, last November, supported Obama's victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park.

"We were very fortunate to have two career-milestone gigs," says Robert A. Roth, of Christie Lites, about the victory speech and Mall events. "They were very rewarding personally and professionally."

Once again Christie Lites teamed with event producer C3 Presents of Austin, Texas for the Mall lighting. "There was a series of tower positions along the Mall; some of the ones on the east end of the Capitol were set up in a reasonably symmetrical array," Roth recalls. "Initially, we were led to believe we could establish wired DMX

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Germany - At Frankfurt's ProLight + Sound this year, TTA's Stagetracker FX matrix will be shown with a fresh customised GUI. This provides user-friendly access to, and control of, the new Pan Between Points (PbP) operational mode which has further increased Stagetracker FX's versatility, widening its appeal to include venues and productions using line array speaker systems, says the company.

PbP is a dramatic development for the sector of actor tracking systems, reducing the degree of user input to a minimum. The new software brings a high degree of automation to the set-up process, which can now be completed quickly and without the skills of a trained technician. PbP is designed for use in situations where ultra-fast set-up is required, as with a touring production. PbP achieves true plug-and-play status.

"Stagetracker FX is bringing actor positioning to the masses,"

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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 - Orbital Sound is exhibiting its range of communication solutions at Broadcast Video Expo 2009 (17 -19 February, Earls Court 2, London). Orbital is demonstrating equipment from Zaxcom - including the TRX900 digital wireless microphone system - as well as products from Telex, RTS and HM Electronics.

As Zaxcom's exclusive UK dealer, Orbital Sound is giving centre stage to the diminutive Zaxcom TRX900, which is being headlined as the industry's first digital wireless microphone transceiver with built-in IFB facility. With applications in ENG, and in film and television production, it also offers a back-up recording capability, as Tim Sherratt, Technical Director at Orbital Sound, outlined:

"This apparently simple step of integrating an IFB receiver with the tiny transmitter has opened up some extremely useful and powerful possibilities. Audio output is linear and inheren

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USA - MA Lighting's grandMA full-size console is accompanying Metallica's 2008-2009 coffin-clad concerts. The show theme, echoing the coffin motif of the 25-year-career heavy metal wizards' latest release, Death Magnetic, boasts 82-ton lighting structures, courtesy of lighting designer John Broderick. Programmer Troy Eckerman reflects that on the current tour, everything is "zero time cue - fast and furious. It's all about horsepower and intensity, full-on and in-your-face."

With full-size tracking backup in line for every show, the original lighting design had entailed a hard-edge, all wash light array, to be controlled by grandMA. "We'd needed lots of power to make a big statement," says Eckerman. "And it takes lots of lights, almost all on all of the time." The lighting rig comprises 56 x Vari*Lite VL3500 washes as well as several Coemar a

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USA - Shure Incorporated answers its top five most frequently asked questions in the latest edition of ShureCast, the company's educational podcast series. The show is the 18th episode in the series, which provides useful information about audio technology for professionals and consumers.

"Our podcasts have been very well-received," said Mark Brunner, Shure's senior director of public and industry relations. "Several thousand people are downloading each new episode and their popularity has continued to grow."

Previous episodes include the history of the SM57 and SM58, Microphone Basics, Wireless Basics, Using Audio Effects, Sound Isolation vs. Noise Cancellation, and updates on the "White Spaces" and wireless spectrum availability.

"The wizards in our Applications Engineering group have been busy answering questions from customers fo

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Germany - Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Nexo will be showing an impressive and mature line-up of tangent-array sound reinforcement systems aimed at touring applications and the fixed installation sector at ProLight&Sound.

As well as the four tangent array propositions - Geo T, Geo D, Geo S12 and Geo S8 - Nexo will display its successful gradient CD, GEO and RAY SUB Series of subs. Premiered at last year's ProLight show, the RAY SUB technology allows the same cabinet to be configured for any polar pattern, omni-directional as a standard direct radiating subwoofer when speakers are facing the audience, or highly directional when a speaker cabinet is rotated sideways or upwards.

?Completing this line-up are Nexo's new NXAMPs, the powered TD Controllers generated by the collaboration with Yamaha. The integration of amplifier, available in two four-channel sizes, with

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UK - Allen & Heath has shipped the first batch of the new iLive-T digital mixing systems. Launched last month at NAMM 2009, the British manufacturer has been overwhelmed as distributors have placed orders months in advance to cope with demand.

"The response to iLive-T has been unprecedented and production is now flat out to fulfil orders," says managing director, Glenn Rogers. "In all my years in the pro audio industry I've rarely seen a reaction to a new product like this."

Manufacturing is scheduled to produce 50 systems in February with 100 per month thereafter. All systems are manufactured at Allen & Heath's factory in Penryn, Cornwall.

Evolved from the successful flagship iLive digital range, the iLive-T Series has all the performance and power of the original iLive in a lightweight, affordable package. The T Series comprises the fixed I/O iDR-32 and

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UK - For the seventh consecutive year, XL Video supplied screens, projection, an HD PPU and control for the 2009 Brit Awards which were presented by comedians Mathew Horne and James Corden, together with Kylie Minogue last night.

Staged at Earls Court, London, and broadcast live on ITV 1, the event was jointly project managed for XL by Chris Saunders and Paul Wood. Saunders co-ordinated the cameras and control, while Wood managed the screens and specials.

As Saunders clocked up his 15th Brits, sadly it was also his first not working with long standing production manager Mick Kluczynski, who died suddenly 10 days earlier. Saunders and Wood both worked closely with the MJK Productions' technical team, with lighting designer Al Gurdon and set designer Nicoline Refsing from Stufish, plus The Brits TV production.

"The Brits was a great tribute to Mick's amazing technical, pr

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USA - Las Vegas' Hope Baptist Church has moved its services to the gymnasium and other spaces of Silverado High School. This presents its own new challenges, most notably setup and teardown, which need to happen extremely quickly early Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. These problems were solved by the use of EAW's NTL720 Self-Powered Line Array Modules (16 in total), NTS22 Self-Powered Subwoofers (eight in total) and a UX8800 Digital Signal Processor .

Robert Sims of Las Vegas' Communication Electronic Systems put together the new gear package as well as the one serving Hope's prior facility. Additionally, Ryan Durham of Las Vegas-based Ford AV guided the church in their equipment and new gear package decisions, and was on hand to assist with the initial setup. Each array consists of seven modules per side, supported on a ground-based tower. An additional NTL720 module per

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USA - The Robert P. Knowles Centrer at the University of Wisconsin River Falls is a busy place, home to the University's indoor track and field, tennis and multiple intramural sporting teams, as well as a wide and growing range of community activities and events. The massive arena houses a 200m indoor running track, a rock climbing wall, basketball, tennis and volleyball courts, exercise centre and more. It's a versatile, cavernous and acoustically challenging venue.

"The announcements were pretty much unintelligible except right underneath the speakers," says Intermedia Systems Group's Doug Klein. "It was less than ideal to begin with, and as they've begun to diversify the use of the Centre, it got to a point where they really needed to address the audio situation." Intermedia consultant Joel Evermann specified a distributed system centred on eight Community

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UK - Pro Audio Stash UK has announced the release a brand new, high spec data cabinet and rack enclosure range, adding to the company's already extensive collection of 19" rack enclosures and accessories. The company says it aims to provide the customer with racking systems that will be functional to industry standard but will also create a professional look to businesses that are either expanding or upgrading their IT systems.

Pro Audio Stash UK is fast becoming a common name for manufacturing and supplying 19" racking to professional AV and IT markets, specialising in quality but affordable rack enclosures and accessories. As well as showing a growth in sales of 19" racking, the company is one of the main UK suppliers of Gator Cases, flightcase hardware and Neutrik connectors, boasting the largest range of specialist connectors in the UK. Pro Audio Stash has als

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Germany - Ahead of the Frankfurt show, Roland Systems Group (RSG) is previewing the RSS M-48 Live Personal Mixer and RSS S-4000D Splitter and Power Distributor, a monitoring solution for live performance and studio applications, and a logical progression for the current suite of RSS stage sound control and mixing products.

The M-48 offers control over 40 audio sources that can be easily managed in 16 assignable stereo groups. The playing experience is enhanced with level/pan/solo/3-band EQ on each group, built-in reverb for a more appealing sound, ambient mic for better communication with band members as well as physical inputs and outputs for multiple headphones, wedges and powered monitors, interfacing with iPods, metronomes and external recording devices.

Sound quality is ensured by use of Roland's Ethernet Audio Communication (REAC) Cat 5e protocol. Power is supplied via t

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Germany - Electro-Voice's The N8000-1500 is capable of processing over 1,500 MIPS: more than twice as many as the basic model. This not only makes the N8000-1500 the most powerful loudspeaker controller currently on the market, suggests the company, but also represents something of a quantum leap. As product manager Ethan Wetzell puts it, "With the N8000-1500, we have effectively skipped an entire generation of development."

The first deployments of the N8000-1500 in major productions - Jan Smit's concerts in Rotterdam's Ahoy and Sarah Brightman's US tour at the end of 2008 - proved convincing. The system permitted the sound crews in each case to run the entire rig - including delays - with EV Netmax and FIR-Drive (Finite Impulse Response Filters), while the devices were controlled via IRIS-Net.

Gert Wiersema, the system technician for the Jan Smit tour and a long-ti

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UK - Allen & Heath will be showing the new iLive-T Series compact digital mixing system for the first time in the UK at the Eventech Scotland event in Glasgow 25 - 26 February.

Evolved from the successful flagship iLive digital range, the iLive-T Series has all the performance and power of the original iLive in a new lightweight, affordable package.

Also on display will be the new Xone:22 2-channel analogue DJ mixer, offering quality audio and a professional feature set at an entry level price, and the ZED range of small-format mixers for live performance, recording, and production.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Paradigm AV chose the recent ISE exhibition in Amsterdam to unveil its rebranding, with the formation of several new divisions - Front & Rear Projection, Interactivity, Simulation & 3D and Special Engineering.

Explaining the move, founding director Greg Jeffreys said: "Our business is now over 20 years old and many of our clients have been with us over that duration. Our core strengths in creating projected images of premium quality - often in horrendous lighting condition - have pulled us into new areas of specialism and also into much larger projects."

When this trend became apparent five years ago, Paradigm hired Paul Wood from Cranfield University's MBA programme - initially as general manager, and later as managing director. Wood has since presided over two years of strong growth.

"During that time, the changing face of pro AV moved Paradigm into ne

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Finland - L-Acoustics' Finnish distributor, Starlike Oy, has installed a Kiva/Kilo system into the Vantaa Martinus concert hall, a 1,000-seat purpose built concert hall constructed in 1986.

The hall is home to the Vantaa Pops Orchestra, a 40-70 piece symphonic orchestra specialising in light entertainment rather than classical music, and including 'pop' elements such as guitar, keyboards and drums. According to sound designer Sepi Myllyrinne, responsible for the orchestra's sound, it was widely perceived that the existing system at Vantaa needed updating as audio quality is of paramount importance to the orchestra.

The system installed by Starlike consists of three clusters. The left and right comprise of six Kiva line source cabinets and two Kilo low frequency extensions, with a centre cluster of seven Kivas. The operating range is extended down to 32Hz via two SB118 subs. Th

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Spain - A Bosch Digital Conferencing Network (DCN) system was recently installed at El Palacio del Congreso de los Diputados (The Palace of the Congress of Deputies) in Madrid, a 159-year-old facility, which is used by the Congress of Deputies, one of two houses in the Spanish legislature.

The Bosch DCN Next Generation network units were chosen by the Spanish government to optimise parliamentary procedure and create an efficient work environment for all members of parliament, who use the new units for voting, discussions, presentations, and a variety of other functions. The installation at the 350-seat chamber combines modern technology and traditional architecture, with each Bosch DCN console blending in with the hall's neoclassical style.

The DCN Next Generation system contains one Central Control Unit (CCU) with PC control connection operating on the Spanish Windows XP Pro

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UK - The Bedford Corn Exchange complex has upgraded its sound reinforcement with systems based around the RCF TT+ range installed by JAP Sound.

"The initial inquiry came in nearly two years ago, Marcello Quartarone said that they wanted a line array system in the main hall. So we started looking around to see what was available on the market. We demonstrated a couple of very good systems but still didn't quite get the one he needed. At this time RCF's Greg Oliver introduced us the new TT+ range," says JAP Sound's Jason Price.

They decided to demonstrate the new subs and top boxes to get a feel for the voicing and general overall sound of the system. Quartarone decided on a pair of subs and top boxes to use as a portable system. The result was, that liking the voicing of the TT+ boxes and knowing that the line array was voiced the same way, he made the decision to inv

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UK - The specialist procurement and installation skills of Lighting Technology Projects (LTP) were utilised to specify, prepare and rig 48 custom designed and manufactured trusses that facilitate the 'house' lighting in The Atrium at Westfield London, the UK's new £1.7 billion shopping destination in W12.

Westfield London, currently the largest urban shopping destination in Europe, features a spectacular central Atrium space the size of a football pitch. Designed by Westfield's in-house architects, its undulating glass roof comprises thousands of glass panels, suspended by tree-like support structures.

LTP was referred by architectural/entertainment lighting specialists Architainment to T Clarke, electrical contractors to Westfield. They needed LTP's experience of integrating theatrical and architectural lighting methodology to provide design support for the trusses incl

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South Africa - Pro audio company Prosound has supplied DPA microphones for two major new Disney stage musicals: High School Musical and Beauty and the Beast, co-produced for the theatre by local impresarios Hazel Feldman and Pieter Toerien.

The stage production of Disney's High School Musical kicked off at Cape Town's ArtsCape theatre in December 2008, and transfers to Johannesburg in 2009. Meanwhile Beauty and the Beast, which opened at Johannesburg's Teatro Theatre in October 2008, will transfer to the ArtsCape in 2009, swapping over with High School Musical. To facilitate an easy move, the system designs for the two shows have been made relatively similar, so that only show specific hardware will need to travel between the venues.

Prior to the stage show of High School Musical, broadcaster M-Net hosted a new reality TV show, High

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