Details
UK / Germany - The Music Group - owner of the Behringer brand as well as a number of other associated companies - has signed a deal to acquire the Midas and Klark Teknik brands from Bosch Communications Systems. The Music Group is managed by Uli Behringer and Michael Deeb.

The sale of Midas and Klark Teknik is part of an asset deal that was signed yesterday, on 8 December 2009, and is subject to regulatory approval. The terms have not been disclosed.

The Music Group plans to retain all 106 employees currently working at Midas and Klark Teknik. These brands will continue to operate independently with the added resources of the Music Group.

Following the announcement, Midas and Klark Teknik have stressed that their current worldwide distribution arrangements will remain in place

Details
UK - Following the recent launch of its new dBDI-2 dual active direct injection (DI) box, Apex reports strong sales activity within the live, broadcast, recording and A/V markets. The dBDI-2 is also proving popular with many of the world's leading rental companies including EML and Korea Seoul Sound.

Belgium-based EML is the main supplier for the current Simple Minds Graffiti Soul tour, with EML's sound designer and FOH engineer, Patrick DemOustier, using the dBDI-2 on Eddie Duffy's bass rig. He commented: "I'm using the unit for two separate bass channels. It sounds really good and compares very well against the other DIs I use, as well as being a clever box. Apex has taken the basic DI and added some interesting versatility to it. A good example of this involves the RCA inputs; these are a clever and simple addition in a world where iPods and laptops are used for i

Details
The Netherlands - It was today announced by liquidator Marcel Willems that Rent-All BV is to take over all the assets of Focus Show Equipment BV, which was declared bankrupt on 17 November.

Rent-All is a versatile rental company headquartered in Bemmel, The Netherlands, with a second branch in Bottrop, Germany. Rent-All offers a wide range of lighting, sound, rigging and video equipment, and the purchase of the assets of Focus Show Equipment contributes to the further development of its rental range.

Focus Advanced Event Technology will continue their activities, with a slightly smaller staff, the company reports.

Focus Show Equipment provides technical and logistics services for numerous events including large theatre productions, conferences, fairs, product launches and corporate events. Focus will now be partnering Rent-All, and will be better able to meet the needs of it

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

Details
USA - In June 1981, the parishioners of Saint Brendon Church dedicated their brand new sanctuary in Youngstown, Ohio. The building's ornate architecture, meticulously planned colour schemes and soaring ceilings have brought joy and pride to the congregation.

While the room's four second reverb time made for a majestic choir and organ sound, the drums and guitars of the church's contemporary services were a challenge to tame. And for sermons and spoken word presentations, the intelligibility factor was more than a little problematic. The church needed a solution that would provide high intelligibility without impacting the room's aesthetics, and found it in Community Entasys loudspeakers.

"They had tried a number of other systems over the years, but it usually involved conventional speaker cabinets flown too high to achieve any directionality," says Jay Dunkle of Radi

Details
USA - Any venue that calls itself Voyeur is obviously catering to those who wish to see and be seen. The so-named new electronic music nightspot in San Diego's Gaslamp District offers ample opportunities for devilish voyeurism everywhere you turn. Lipstick cameras strategically placed throughout the club, capture and project live feeds of patrons onto nearly two dozen plasma TVs.

The renovation of the former Ole Madrid was inspired by a Radiohead concert. The band's Thom Yorke "had all these lipstick cameras around him, and we're aiming for the same effect," club co-owner Johnny Shockey said recently. "It's kind of like spying - incorporating the whole voyeur concept."

There are a total of 22 plasmas in the club, with screens as large as 50". Seven of these TVs are positioned inside Voyeur's definitive feature - an LED wall, located behind the DJ Perfo

Details
UK - Metropolis Studios in London is running monthly showcases of creative talent with acoustic live performances from the industry's most promising up-and-coming artists. Organisers of the Power Down sessions have chosen Roland and RSS to partner them with digital control equipment and instruments for the live events.

Staged in the bar area of the Metropolis Power House, the showcases offer performers the chance to use one of Roland's new V-Pianos, the and the new Roland TD-20KX V-Drums kit.

Front-of-house sound for the showcases themselves is controlled by a 48-channel digital audio RSS M-400 V-Mixer, together with two S-1608 configurable digital snakes transmitting over Cat 5 cable using REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication).

"The idea was conceived at Metropolis's 20th anniversary party," says RSS sales & marketing manager Martin Thomas. "Our f

Details
USA - LED Source, working closely with project manager Derek Warner of Funa International, equipped Royal Caribbean Cruise Line's Oasis of the Seas with the latest in LED lighting technology. The ship left on its maiden voyage on Saturday 5 December from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

LED Lighting has been incorporated into the seven themed "neighbourhoods" on this ship, the largest cruise ship to date. Most visible of these areas is the stunning oceanfront Aqua Theatre, where LED Source supplied 40 Color Reach Powercore fixtures to light the area that holds centre-stage on this vast ship.

Color Graze Powercores were used to line the Solarium, located in the Vitality at Sea Spa and Fitness zone. In the Outdoor Teen area, located in the Youth Zone, Color Blast Powercores wash the area in vibrant colour. The Graze Night Club incorporates iColor Cov

Details
UK - Electro-Voice loudspeakers, amplifiers and microphones can be found throughout the new Gurdwara Sahib, (House of the Guru), the multi-million pound Sikh temple which has just opened its doors in Leamington Spa.

The temple, its £11 milllion cost entirely funded by the local Sikh community, has been designed to look similar to the traditional Gurdwaras found in Punjab, India. Serving as a house of worship and a community centre, the temple will also host open days, tours, and school visits to teach people about the Sikh religion.

Audio Installation Services (AIS) from Bedford are becoming known as the go-to guys for AV installations in houses of worship. Having completed notable projects for other Sikh and Hindu temples as well as a sizeable mosque in Bedford, Luke Magliaro at AIS is a regular user of Electro-Voice in worship environments.

"In congregational ch

Details
UK - Martin Professional has announced details of the restructure of its presence in the UK, and says it is approaching 2010 as "a streamlined yet effective and highly efficient organisation".

However, as a consequence of the new structure, Martin UK managing director Tony Browne, who has overseen Martin's UK subsidiary since 2007, will leave the company at the end of the year.

"The Martin UK team is extremely strong and I doubt there is a more experienced or dedicated group in the industry," Browne stated.

"As markets change adjustments become necessary and I have no doubt this new structure will provide even greater efficiencies, allowing the company to serve customers more effectively. I am confident Martin UK's high level of performance will continue and will constitute a good base for future growth.

"With the new structure in place this w

Details
UK - Following the announcement that the Music Group has acquired the Midas and Klark Teknik brands, Midas & Klark Teknik stress that their distribution companies worldwide will remain in place, and that the brands will not be available through any other channels.

"Over the last five years we have secured the industry's leading professional audio distribution channels to ensure that Midas and Klark Teknik customers in each territory get the same standard of support that our award-winning team provides in the UK, says David Cooper, sales and marketing director for Midas.

"It's a great time to be a Midas customer. This deal ensures that our long term distribution partnerships will get stronger and the investment of Midas' customers is not only protected but enhanced."

(Jim Evans)

Details
Europe - Promoting Foot Of The Mountain - their first album in four years - Norwegian pop superstars A-Ha have spent the autumn touring venues throughout Europe and Japan with a DiGiCo SD7 at Front of House and an SD8 on monitors.

Manning the SD7 was FOH engineer Sherif El Barbari, reacquainting himself with the console he first used 18 months ago when manning the faders for South African singer Howard Carpendale.

"For me, using either a DiGiCo D5 or SD7 feels like meeting up with an old friend," says El Barbari. "Given the flexibility and the sonic quality of both consoles, it is a 'comfort factor' that definitely makes life much easier.

"I specified the SD7 for this tour because of that and for the complete confidence it instils that I can deliver a great show time after time."

As well as the three members of the band itself, A-Ha was tour

Details
Italy - The latest Italian TV-based youth singing contest , Music Gate, is taking the country by storm, complete with Robe's new Robin 300E Spot moving light fixtures which were spec'd onto the show by lighting designer Giulio Palaferri.

Music Gate is staged weekly at the Antoniano Theatre in Bologna, and broadcast in the prime time Saturday night slot of 6pm on RAI Gulp, a popular digital channel for young people.

Giulio Palaferri and the show's lighting operator Fabio Persia have not used Robe products before, but chose them for the show after a demonstration at the Rome warehouse of N.I.T. Service, the rental company who is supplying the fixtures for the show.

The stage has an L-shaped open plan appearance with the 20 Robin 300E spots rigged on trusses at the back of the two sides of the L.

Each show sees two contestants challenging each other to produce t

Details
Hong Kong - After five successful years in Taiwan, the singing extravaganza Asian Million Star premiered in Hong Kong with help from the versatile, frequency-agile AKG DMS 700 wireless microphone system. The popular television show, which started months before the on-air premier with 5,000 aspiring singers, featured 25 contestants competing over the course of 13 episodes, with a panel of judges selecting the best vocal performers to move on to the finale.

Judges for the show included an array of respected audio and musical professionals ranging from creative composers to studio producers. With some of the most finely tuned ears in the business deciding the fate of each performer, the AKG DMS 700 system matched musical talent with sonic integrity.

"The AKG DMS 700 was specifically engineered for applications like Asian Million Star", said Thomas Stubics,

Details
USA - Philips Electronics reports that the 2009-2010 holiday season marks the company's 10th anniversary as the official lighting partner to the Times Square Ball. This year, for the first time, Philips has converted the companion Times Square Ball Numerals (2-0-1-0) to all LED technology.

Philips led the historic conversion of the Ball's light source from incandescent and halogen bulbs to its Luxeon LED technology in 2007-2008 as well as its subsequent upgrade to even more energy-efficient Luxeon LEDs in 2008-2009. Now, in 2009-2010, Philips will complete the final step in its conversion of the entire Times Square Ball application to a powerful and highly sustainable LED platform.

The 545 custom-designed Philips scalloped LED flood bulbs lighting the numerals use just nine watts each, compared to the 40 watts consumed by the incandescent and halogen bulbs previo

Details
Bolivia - In Bolivia, where music is part of daily life, technology is changing the way people listen. Smaller shows can be just as technologically advanced as the big ones.

Cochabamba is located in central Bolivia, in a valley bearing the same name within the Andes Mountains. It is the third largest city in Bolivia with a metropolitan population of more than 1m people and is often referred to as the "City of Eternal Spring" due to its spring-like temperatures all year round.

In Cochabamba, the Cespedes Brothers Wilson and Ygort, established Studio Mediterraneo 19 years ago. A young lawyer Rolando Caseres, joined the brothers a few years later, filling the shoes of shop manager and corporate client liaison. Today G.M. Wilson is also the head of the audio department and Ygort is the chief audio engineer and they boast nine full-time employees. Studio Mediterraneo work

Details
The Netherlands - Tannoy will again be out in force at the Integrated Systems Europe show in Amsterdam, between in February 2010. The Scottish based company will be exhibiting an extensive range of its loudspeaker solutions ranging from cutting-edge digitally steerable arrays through to high end home cinema audio systems.

At the forefront of Tannoy's recent innovations is the QFlex range of self-powered digital beam-steering array loudspeakers specifically designed to overcome intelligibility problems associated with highly reverberant surroundings. QFlex will satisfy a host of audio installation requirements such as airports and other transportation hubs, shopping malls, conference facilities, museums, houses of worship and many other locations with problematic acoustics, says the company.

After just over a year on the market, QFlex has already proven its worth across the wo

Details
UK - White Light has had a double involvement with the launch of the new UK Centre for Carnival Arts in Luton by supplying the venue with its new lighting installation and helping to mark its official opening in spectacular style.

Created by the Luton Carnival Arts Development Trust, the Centre is intended to "become an expression of the living, breathing and evolving spirit of carnival arts", providing a 250 seat performance space as well as teaching and workshop spaces and a knowledgeable, experienced support staff.

Inside the venue, White Light has supplied a rig based around fixtures from Selecon, ETC and Thomas, including Acclaim Fresnels and Profile Spots, Source Four Parnels, and Thomas Par Cans. Control is from a new ETC Congo Jr console supplied with a custom flightcase, controlling ETC SmartModule and Zero88 Betapack 3 dimmers; distribution from dimmers to

Details
Italy - Besio Sound Co has chosen Proel Sound Systems for the Italian theatre tour of Michelina, a musical play by Edoardo Erba, which has made its debut at the Franco Parenti Theatre in Milan.

Set in the 1940s in the rice paddy fields of Lomellina, northern Italy, this comedy tells the story of Michelina, a rice-weeder played by actress Maria Amelia Monti, who likes to perform on the stage and falls in love with a cardinal, thus provoking angry reactions from the clergy.

"Even in theatres with a particular acoustic response, such as the Franco Parenti Theatre, they perform as exceptionally as ever - I refer to the Edge speakers, of course," commented Giorgio Albani from Besio Sound Co, in charge of the technical staging of the play produced by the Teatro Stabile of Florence.

Satisfaction was also expressed by Lorenzo Alberti, the sound engineer from Soundar

Details
Germany - The four star Maritim Hotel Kaiserhof Heringsdorf on the Baltic island of Usedom in northern Germany is one of the leading hotels in the 'Three Imperial Spas' and was recently extended by a large 300m2 transparent glass building called the Forum. The expansion is used for a variety of events like exhibitions, presentations, concerts and receptions, as well as an impressive welcoming entrance to the Kaiserbaedersaal, an historic 450m2 theatre hall with 100m2 stage.

With direct access to the beach promenade and view of the Baltic Sea, the modern architecture of the new Forum and café roof garden creates a special ambience. Twelve decorative columns and a scaffold of glass form a transparent and aesthetically distinctive front.

In order to meet the needs of a wider range of events, a creative Martin visual solution was proposed to architect Gerd Seele by planning

Details
UK - Soundcraft Studer's production strategy - to converge both brands production in the Potters Bar UK facility - passed a significant milestone this week. With UK production now in full swing, the first Studer Vista large-format consoles were completed and went through test procedures "with flying colours".

Formerly Vista, OnAir 3000 and Router production was done in the Studer Regensdorf facility near Zurich in Switzerland. Speaking from the Potters Bar production floor, Soundcraft Studer president Andy Trott reflected, "Over the past few months our staff here and in Switzerland have worked incredibly hard to transfer the knowledge, logistics and skills to the UK team, and so to see our flagship product come through its rigorous tests so smoothly today is a great testament to the quality of our people on both sites. From planning and procurement, to PCBA, build

Details
USA - Puerto Rican stars Wisin y Yandel wanted their La Revolución tour to have a "big look" when they hit the road in the US to promote the album of the same name.

In keeping with the tour's name, the La Revolución set was designed around a war-like theme. "The idea behind the theme was that this was a revolution in music," said lighting/scenic/video designer Todd Roberts of Visions Lighting, who worked with Wisin y Yandel's personal lighting designer/programmer David Ayala, video director Alfredo Cifredo and production manager Eggie Allende to design and create the set. "They wanted the look of the stage to be real industrial. We used a lot of large oversized chain, and a lot of metals." As far as the lighting went, "they wanted it to look as big as possible," said Roberts, "with a small budget."

To meet the c

Page 2424 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .